The Best (and Worst) of the West! Reviews and Observations on B-Westerns by Boyd Magers Review Archives

Search/Find: If you wish to find a particular review of a film title or movies by a cowboy hero, simply use your web browser's built-in FIND function and that will allow you to search down this page for your keywords.  In the upper left of your screen, you should see the word 'EDIT' on both Netscape and Internet Explorer.  Click on that, and in the drop down menu, click on 'FIND' to do your search.  In Netscape or Internet Explorer, you can also hit the Ctrl-F key combination to open the FIND box (hold down the Ctrl Key in the lower left of your keyboard, and press the key for the letter F).  In the 'Find What' box, type in a word or short phrase like buck jones, or sunset carson, or republic, or monogram.  When done typing, begin the search by clicking on the 'Find Next' button which will take you to the first occurrence of that word or phrase (or to the end of this page, if no match is found).  Keep clicking on the 'Find Next' button to continue down to all the matches.

Printing this webpage: I would suggest you do NOT attempt to print this.  When last I checked, this would require a bunch of pages to print.  Plus the reviews are not in any particular order, so it would be difficult to wade through all those pages looking for a film title, western hero, etc.  If you wish to have this information locally on your PC, I would recommend you click on "File" and then do a "save as" in Internet Explorer or Netscape. And save this page on your hard drive (as an .htm or .html file type).  If you also want Boyd's picture, the red stars and garbage can, put your mouse pointer on each image, click with your right mouse button, and do a "save image or picture as" to the same area on your hard drive where the main page will be saved.  The Search/Find function noted above will work on webpages saved to your hard disk.

Individual film reviews - as well as the complete The Best (and Worst) of the West! film review collection - is copyright ©2000-2009 by Boyd Magers. All rights reserved.

The Ratings

Superior

Good

OK

Poor

A real dud !

 TOMAHAWK TRAIL (1957 Bel Air/United Artists)
A grueling overland trek-and-talk Cavalry vs. Apaches western with Chuck (RIFLEMAN) Connors as the veteran Indian fighting sergeant who has to wrest command of a patrol from a complete jerk West Point Lieutenant, George Neise. Also with John (LARAMIE) Smith and Susan Cummings who looks terrific in those tight Cavalry pants. Too much pontificating over hate, war and killing.

 BLACK MARKET RUSTLERS (1943 Monogram)
The Range Busters (Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, Dennis Moore, Max Terhune) are sagebrush commandos treating black marketeers rough and mean in an obvious outing by Monogram to back the War effort. The film opens with a foreword urging Americans not to buy black market beef from 5th columnists. At one point, Abili tosses a gun in a barrel labeled "Blast a Jap with Scrap" and Crash talks directly to the audience about buying from legitimate dealers and not from black marketeers. Supposedly solid-citizen saloon owner Glenn Strange is the brains behind the truck rustlers ring (George Chesebro, Frank Ellis, John Merton, Hal Price) broken up by the Range Busters acting ads investigators for the cattlemen's Association aided by rancher Steve Clark and his daughter, expert horsewoman Evelyn Finley, and Sheriff Carl Sepulveda (in perhaps his biggest role). There's a specialty number by Art Fowler and Little Jean Austin, while Hank Worden performs an amusing little dance to a zesty version of "Wait For the Wagons" that will have you smiling.

 RELENTLESS (1948 Columbia)
Vastly overlooked pursuit story that is absolutely among my ten favorite westerns. Very Hitchcockian in the way an average man (Robert Young) becomes so innocently involved in a murder he had nothing to do with. There's also plenty of warmth and heart in both the love of a man for his horse and the more traditional boy-girl attraction. When Young's prize mare, his only possession of value, who has just foaled, is stolen and ridden to death by killer Frank Fenton, Young kills him in self defense but is blamed for not only Fenton's murder but the murders the night before of two old prospectors (Hank Patterson and Paul Burns) who have just struck it rich. Actually, Fenton and his cohort, Barton MacLane, committed the murders and stole the prospectors' map. With Fenton dead, MacLane lays the blame for all three crimes on Young and strikes off to locate the prospectors' mine. Young and his colt are befriended by traveling wagon peddler Marguerite Chapman as Young learns grim sheriff Willard Parker is searching for him. Realizing MacLane must be the guilty party, Young leaves the colt with Chapman and sets off on his long, relentless search. Throughout his unyielding quest he continually is reunited with Chapman and the ever growing colt --- as well as crossing paths with gold seeking outlaws Akim Tamiroff and Mike Mazurki who have seen the reward posted for Young and assume he knows the location of the map. The dry, scorching finale in the Arizona desert is expertly done by director George Sherman with all the Sedona locales dazzlingly photographed in Technicolor by Eugene B. Rodney. Not to be missed.

 TERROR TRAIL (1946 Columbia)
Fast paced, non-stop, gun blazing thriller as the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) puts an end to a threatened range war in Wyoming between cattlemen (Zon Murray) and sheepmen (Robert Barron). Naturally, it's all a rustling plot instigated by saloon owner Lane Chandler and his gun-rannies Ted Mapes and George Chesebro. At the same time, chubby Easterner Barbara Pepper and her obnoxious, insolent pup of a brother (Elvin Eric Field) get mixed up with Chandler's gang. Smiley Burnette's traveling trading post features the music of deep voiced Ozie Waters and his Colorado Rangers ("Trail That Has No End", "Louisville Lady"). Smiley's not as involved in the plot machinations for this entry. He's only there to break up the excitement with his goofy songs.

 HILLS OF UTAH (1951 Columbia)
After his father is shot and killed by someone unknown, Gene Autry leaves Coffin Gap only to return years later as a doctor, landing smack in the middle of a bitter feud between Copper miners (Onslow Stevens and daughter Elaine Riley) and the big cattle outfits (rancher Denver Pyle and fiancée Donna Martell with hired gunmen Harry Lauter, Sandy Sanders, Kenne Duncan). Presently, Gene's lawman instincts lead him to why cattle are dying from mining waste water. Two well known child stars, Tommy Ivo and Teddy Infuhr, have small unbilled roles. Gene sings his Easter hit, "Peter Cottontail". Certainly one of Autry's better and more memorable Columbia outings.

 SUSANNA PASS (1949 Republic)
What evil men will do for $2 million. Robert Emmett Keane is an untrustworthy newspaperman in Susanna Pass who craves the lake which is a fish hatchery owned by his brother, Lucien Littlefield. Keane, with escaped convict Douglas Fowley, murders his brother to gain the rich oil deposits underneath the lake. Here's another of Roy Rogers' environmentalist westerns with Roy, Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage as game wardens bent on fish conservation. Dale Evans, returning to Roy's films after their marriage, is every bit a modern day woman as a Ph.D. in marine biology as well as a veteran of the Women's Marine Corps. "Doc" Dale ends up inheriting the hatchery when Littlefield is killed --- much to the dismay of Keane, spoiling his plan to take over. But rest assured, he and Fowley's evil deeds aren't over yet. With no recognized sidekick, Martin Garralaga is a Mexican deputy to the sheriff with a fiery daughter, Estelita Rodriguez. Although action ace Bill Witney directed, SUSANNA PASS is not quite in the same category of Roy's best in later years --- SPRINGTIME IN THE SIERRAS, EYES OF TEXAS, GOLDEN STALLION, TRIGGER JR. --- but there is an exciting chase and showdown in the fish hatchery.

 WEST OF CARSON CITY (1940 Universal)
Gold is discovered near the ghost town of Ridgeville! That's when the lawless element run by Harry Woods and his gun-rannies (Frank Mitchell, Roy Barcroft, Charlie King, Jack Roper) take over. When even Judge Robert Homans and his daughter Peggy Moran are threatened, in steps Circle X ranch owner Johnny Mack Brown and his hands (Bob Baker, Fuzzy Knight, even Ted Wells in a small role) to strike back at the badmen. Baker, in a very secondary role, sings two songs, both of which, "On the Trail of Tomorrow" and "Let's Go", were reused a year later in ARIZONA CYCLONE by the Notables, who sing here with Baker. Thankfully, Fuzzy does not sing in this one! This is one of the few B-westerns that can claim all three top screen badmen --- Woods, Barcroft and King.

 DEATH VALLEY GUNFIGHTER (1949 Republic)
Underhanded milquetoast banker Harry Harvey ("Oh, dear!") is in league with a band of gunmen (Jim Nolan, Lane Bradford, Mauritz Hugo) masterminding a plot to take over the Lucky Brothers Mine, owned by Eddy Waller and his brother Forrest Taylor. Waller's niece, Gail Davis, is in love with Sheriff Bill Henry, in whom Waller has little confidence until he sends for lawman Allan 'Rocky' Lane. Plotwise, as good as others in the series (written as often they are by Bob Williams) but lacking some of the usual tough as nails 'Rocky' Lane action. Interesting sidelight, Waller plays "The William Tell Overture" on his French horn. This was made the same year that classical piece became the theme music for THE LONE RANGER TV series ... of course it had already been established on radio.

 BRANDED (1931 Columbia)
"I crave excitement" says Wallace MacDonald at one point and you get plenty of it when Buck Jones and his pal John Oscar (as Swede Ole) are branded stagecoach bandits. Escaping, Buck heads for a ranch he's inherited from his uncle but runs afoul of neighboring ranch lady Ethel Kenyon. Worse yet, he's framed for rustling by Kenyon's foreman Al Smith and his henchman Bob Kortman. Much is made of Buck's name in this one --- Cuthbert Chauncey Dale --- while he treats pal Ole like a second class citizen, even calling him square head. Granted, John Oscar plays the role in stereotypical El Brendel fashion, but me thinks stalwart hero Buck was a bit hard on his pard.

 TEXAS TERROR (1934 Lone Star)
Slower and tamer than many of John Wayne's Lone Star epics. Sheriff John Wayne, pursuing bandits, believes he's accidentally killed his old friend, John Ince, whose daughter, Lucile Browne, is arriving from the East. In reality, outlaw LeRoy Mason is the real killer, but Wayne, torn with anguish and believing the worst, turns in his badge to new Sheriff George Hayes and retreats to the life of an unkempt desert recluse. When Lucile arrives, she's led to believe Wayne is guilty of killing her Dad. Hayes convinces Wayne he can make up for the past by becoming Lucile's foreman so the ranch will flourish. So he does, but through the conniving Mason, Lucile is convinced Wayne killed her father. Buffalo Bill Jr. (Jay Wilsey) has a role as Mason's henchman. Producer Paul Malvern had Joseph West (aka George WaGGoner) appropriate Robert N. Bradbury's script for Bob Baker's GUILTY TRAIL ('38) which Malvern also produced.

 CANYON RAIDERS (1951 Monogram)
Whip Wilson, while visiting his old pal, rancher Jim Bannon, runs across horse rustlers I. Stanford Jolley, Marshall Reed and Riley Hill. Phyllis Coates is mighty feisty as a buckskin Sheriff. With this film, Whip's original sidekick, Andy Clyde, was gone after 11 films, replaced by former Universal regular Fuzzy Knight and second lead Jim Bannon. This trio lasted for six Wilson entries, then even Bannon was let go in a further economy move. In this one, Knight is not a true 'sidekick', he's a homesteader married to Barbara Woodell. Pretty tame Wilson. Whip use --- once.

 NORTHWEST RANGERS (1942 MGM)
Two orphaned boys are raised in the northwest by Mountie Jack Holt. One (William Lundigan) grows up to be a Mountie, the other (James Craig) grows up to be a gambler with the inevitable results. Both vie for the affections of Patricia Dane. Basically, a northwest remake of MANHATTAN MELODRAMA ('34), but enjoyable. Carefree, nonchalant Craig is especially fun to watch opposing staid gambler John Carradine and the mundane Lundigan. Craig as a boy is played by Darryl Hickman. For the most part, prestigious MGM never saw fit to indulge in B-westerns. As close as they came is this minor entry along with OMAHA TRAIL, APACHE TRAIL and APACHE WAR SMOKE.

 RIDERS OF THE RANGE (1950 RKO)
Delightful opening with Richard 'Chito' Martin casually riding along, with his out of work again pal Tim Holt, cheerfully singing his own version of "The Girl I Left Behind Me". From there it segues into one of he best barroom brawls of the Holt series and a comedy of errors plot over $3,000 that nearly rivals WINCHESTER 73 in following the money trail. Ranch owner Jacqueline White is superb as the tomboy ranch owner protecting her kid brother, Robert Clarke, who is into gambler Reed Hadley for three large in gambling debts. Hadley forces Clarke to rustle his own cattle to pay off. Tom Tyler is calm, cool and collected as Hadley's rustler henchie. One of his best roles. In his book on Tim Holt, author David Rothel notes Tim uses a bosal (a halter-like bridle that doesn't utilize a bit in the horse's mouth) on his horse Lightning in this film --- and only this film. David can't recall ever seeing any other movie cowboy use a bosal in a film --- nor can I. Everyone is at the top of their game under director Lesley Selander for RIDERS OF THE RANGE, one of the most enjoyable of the series.

 DOOMED CARAVAN (1941 Paramount)
Routine Hopalong Cassidy as Hoppy (William Boyd), California (Andy Clyde) and Lucky (Russell Hayden) help lady freight line owner Minna Gombell get her bullion through despite the plots and raids of marauders (Morris Ankrum, Trevor Bardette, Pat J. O'Brien, Ray Bennett) who want to establish a freighting monopoly for themselves. Neat wrap-up scene has Hoppy letting boss-lady Gombell get in the final punch on low-down Ankrum. Written by J. Benton Cheney and directed by Les Selander. Filming was suspended midway for four months to allow time for William Boyd to heal from a leg injury.

 PHANTOM THUNDERBOLT (1933 World Wide)
A western perfectly suited to Ken Maynard's blend of light comedic and high action bravura talents as wildman Ken, the Thunderbolt Kid, consents to rid Coyote Gulch of William Gould's bandits in exchange for three kisses from pretty restaurant owner Frances Lee. Ken's pal is Frank Rice who worked so well in the '30s with both Ken and Buck Jones. Alan James directs with a tongue in cheek approach written by Betty Burbridge and Forrest Sheldon. Excellent photography by Jackson Rose --- especially evident in Ken's fight with Bob Kortman. It's also fun to watch Nelson McDowell do his standard undertaker act that he'd honed to a T.

 BIG BOY RIDES AGAIN (1935 Beacon)
A title misnomer to be sure, as Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams is never addressed by anything other than Tom. The title is simply intended by producers to let the juvenile audience plainly know that one of their favorite stars, hopefully, is back in another western. It's also worthy of noting, Big Boy wasn't relying on these Beacon B-westerns for his sole income. Also in 1935 he played two highly praised dramatic roles at Paramount as a sadistic thug in THE GLASS KEY and a dangerous madman in PRIVATE WORLDS. In William Nolte's story, infirm, grouchy old man Charles French is murdered one dark and rainy night. In a note, French, who is Big Boy's Dad, leaves $50,000 in cash hidden in the house "if you will follow ..." and he is murdered by a masked intruder before he can complete the sentence. Big and his pal, Bud Osborne (in his only sidekick role?), have several suspects to contend with: lawyer William Gould, foreman Victor Potel, Chinese cook Louis Vin Cenet and neighboring rancher Lafe McKee who has quarreled with French over Big's affection for his daughter Connie Bergen. The answer is pretty obvious to loyal B-western watchers, and besides, several of the suspects are eliminated way too prematurely to give the story much suspense or surprise. A trail of crudely scratched X's all over the house eventually leads to a hidden trap door and a tunnel underneath the house. The ambiguous ending leaves unanswered why the Chinese cook poisoned the poor little dog and what he was looking for --- even at the end? Cowboy Cancer Alert: Big smokes a pipe in one scene then later states, "I'd give anything for a cigarette!" William Nolte let Earl Snell and John Vlahos take credit for his story on SADDLE MOUNTAIN ROUNDUP ('41) with the Range Busters. Nolte was production manager on that series. The remake did a better job of keeping the cloaked killer's identity secret a bit longer.

 ROCK RIVER RENEGADES (1942 Monogram)
Plenty of action when the Range Busters (Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, John 'Dusty' King, Max 'Alibi' Terhune) roundup phantom bandits (Weldon Heyburn and his gun-rannies Frank Ellis, Carl Mathews, Tex Palmer) and plenty of fun as they play cupid to old friend and federal marshal Kermit Maynard who is in love with newspaper editor John Elliott's headstrong daughter Christine McIntyre. The phantom riders story falls down, however, with the implausible explanation of reversed horseshoes apparently leading to (but in reality) from a line shack. Richard Cramer essays another one of his grouchy bartender roles that he did so well. You'd never meet this guy at CHEERS! Even old time producer/director Denver Dixon (Victor Adamson) shows up as one of the heavies.

 WILDCAT SAUNDERS (1935 Atlantic)
Operating in the last half of the '30s, Atlantic Pictures Corp. was primarily a re-releasing outfit for bigger films made earlier in the '30s such as FRONT PAGE, SCARFACE etc. They also distributed four slightly different William Berke produced Jack Perrin westerns, all of which, while still done on the cheap, nonetheless looked and played better than much of the other independent westerns being released at that time. This was the first of the four and overall, these were the best sound westerns Perrin (1896-1967), who had been a pretty fair name in silents, made. Perrin, already 40, looks younger, and does a good job as the slightly out of shape prizefighter who comes to the wide open spaces with his manager (William Gould-in a surprisingly offbeat comedic role for the usual heavy) and assistant, Fred 'Snowflake' Toones, to get back in shape. Arriving at Ed Cassidy's ranch to train, they're immediately embroiled in a $100,000 Wells Fargo robbery and a case of who's got the jewels. Naturally, Perrin falls for cute Blanche Mehaffey (who never looked better) while he rounds up thieves Tom London, Roger Williams and Earl Dwire. Snowflake always played a stereotyped (for the times) black man --- but it seems even more pronounced here, especially with the hateful way Tom London calls him "black boy", "Rastus" and "Crow's meat". Even Snowflake demeans himself saying he's named that "'Cause I'm so lily white!" That's the main reason you'll never see this western on TV ever again! After this quartet of Berke-Perrin 'Blue Ribbon' westerns, Perrin drifted into character roles on through the '60s. Berke (1903-1958) was a writer and cameraman before entering production. He later produced at Republic, then directed at Columbia and continued to work at several major studios until the time of his death.

 ARIZONA TERRORS (1942 Republic)
In this remake of the 3 Mesquiteers NIGHT RIDERS ('39), Don 'Red' Barry and his pal Al 'Fuzzy' St. John expose a phony Spanish land grant swindle perpetrated by gambler Reed Hadley and John Maxwell (aided by their gunmen --- John Merton, Rex Lease, Bud Osborne, Chuck Morrison) thereby saving the ranches of leading lady Lynn Merrick, Tom London and others. The assassination attempt on President McKinley (played well by Del Anderson) in 1901 is neatly woven into the storyline. NIGHT RIDERS was scripted by Betty Burbridge and Stanley Roberts with ARIZONA TERRORS being strictly a rewrite job by Doris Schroeder and Taylor Craven. Whitney Stanton and Bennett Cohen over at RKO must have seen one or the other as they incorporated much of the storyline into Tim Holt's RED RIVER ROBIN HOOD in 1943.

 MICHIGAN KID (1947 Universal)
This lighthearted, fun loving western based on a Rex Beach story proves Jon Hall should have been cast in more of this type fare. He looks good and the film is well mounted by director Ray Taylor who, unfortunately, this same year found himself out at Universal, as many others did when the studio reorganized to become Universal-International and dropped all their B-pictures. MICHIGAN KID is neither B nor A, just a solid little western --- of which we'd no doubt have seen Hall in more had not the transition at Universal come about at this time. As it is, this one and VIGILANTES RETURN, both in Cinecolor, were all we got. In this one, Hall runs afoul of Victor McLaglen's outlaw gang and is himself blamed for a bank robbery by bank teller Byron Foulger who is in league with McLaglen. But someone else, a solid-citizen, is the real brains behind the evil doings. Is it banker Charles Trowbridge, stage driver Andy Devine or Sheriff Stanley Andrews? To help clear himself and eastern girl-come-west Rita Johnson, Hall sends for his old Civil War buddies --- Milburn Stone, William Brooks (later William Ching) and Leonard East.

 MAN OF CONQUEST (1939 Republic)
For Republic's biggest picture to date, producer Sol Siegel selected the one actor identifiable with epic westerns --- Richard Dix --- -to star in the biopic of Sam Houston, 'founder' of Texas. Poorly constructed, episodic in nature for the first half, the horribly written screenplay begins in 1814 with Andrew Jackson, quickly jumps to 1829 when Jackson is President and Houston is governor of Tennessee, breezes by Houston's ill-fated marriage to Joan Fontaine, leaves him a drunkard for 10 minutes or so, then a supporter of the Cherokees (who have sobered him up with old friend Gabby Hayes' help), he deserts them and finally heads off to Texas where the battle for the Alamo is reduced to two minutes of screen time. The entire mess reduces history to quick, episodic, cliched, comic book coincidence and presents Houston as a self serving, egotistical opportunist-(maybe he was). A complete waste! Producer Siegel found out he'd better stick with Autry and the Mesquiteers. Actors come and go --- often in a blink ---watch for Victor Jory, Robert Barrat (as Davy Crockett), Max Terhune, Edward Ellis (as Jackson, who comes off historically far better than Houston), Gail Patrick (as Houston's second wife), Ralph Morgan (as Stephen Austin), Robert Armstrong (as Jim Bowie), C. Henry Gordon (as Santa Ana), Lane Chandler, Ed Cobb, Hal Taliaferro, Ernie Adams, Billy Benedict, Charles Stevens, Cy Kendall and even George Montgomery.

 MAN FROM OKLAHOMA (1945 Republic)
This film title came as close as any to the 'Oklahoma' Broadway play Republic prexy Herbert J. Yates first envisioned when he began to add lavish musical numbers to Roy Rogers pictures. Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers are cheated out of $900 by fast talking scam artist Arthur Loft over an impending contract in New York City. Returning to Oklahoma, they become involved in a feud between Dale Evans' grandmother, Maude Eburne, and rival rancher Gabby Hayes. Perhaps the wildest wagon race/land rush ever put on film (with stock from IN OLD OKLAHOMA with John Wayne) helps sort out the schemes of plotters Roger Pryor and his boys, Ed Cobb and George Sherwood. Apart from the land rush, action gets short shift with light songs, comedy and romance holding the spotlight for director Frank MacDonald.

 GAMBLING TERROR (1937 Supreme)
A town is besieged by Charlie King's ruthless desperadoes (Dick Curtis, Frank Ellis, Sherry Tansey) demanding protection money. Despite the efforts of courageous newspaper editor Frank Ball and his daughter, gorgeous Iris Meredith, it seems as if the gang, with a mystery man leader, cannot be stopped. Enter Johnny Mack Brown, a tough, no-nonsense gambler, who will not be intimidated by the ruffians. Eventually, the gang holds Bobby Nelson (Iris' young brother) prisoner, which brings about their downfall. The mystery boss angle is better handled here than in any B-western I've ever seen. Your choices are stableman Budd Buster, lawyer Earl Dwire, Sheriff Ted Adams, bartender Steve Clark and goofy, drunkard printer Horace Murphy. This one's of more than passing interest with a solid script by George Plympton and Fred Myton; directed by Sam Newfield.

 OUTLAWS OF SONORA (1938 Republic)
Every cowboy lead had the chance to play his evil carbon copy, this was Bob Livingston's and he plays it for all it's worth with a vicious cackle, evil sneer and drooping cigarette. Detailed to take $22,000 in cash from the bank to the Cattlemen's Association headquarters, Stony Brooke (Livingston) of the 3 Mesquiteers is waylaid in the desert by his evil lookalike who, noticing the similarities between them, holds Stony hostage while he poses as Stony to collect the money, in the process committing a murder for which Stony is blamed. Even the other two Mesquiteers (Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, Max 'Lullaby' Terhune) are confused for a while but it's all sorted out in a rip-roaring saloon brawl finale. This is the B-western at the top of its form!

 WYOMING (1947 Republic)
One of William Elliott's best prestige westerns as Bill rises from pioneer to cattle baron until intruder Albert Dekker publicizes the Homestead Act encouraging nesters on the range which ferments a cattlemen vs. farmers range war allowing Dekker to rustle Elliott's cattle. Elliott's foreman, John Carroll, previously always loyal to Elliott, finally quits when he realizes (and Elliott doesn't) that the homestead act is law which will forever change the old ways. Bill also finds his college educated daughter, Vera Ralston (flatteringly lit as required by husband and Republic honcho Herbert J. Yates), deserting his cause as well. Virginia Grey is the saloon girl in love with Elliott but desired by Dekker --- over whom they come to blows in a terrific battle darn near equaling that of THE SPOILERS. Incidentally, this was Gabby Hayes' last film at Republic after co-starring with Roy Rogers, Bill Elliott, Gene Autry, John Wayne and others in over 65 films since 1935. An empire building western in the tradition of CIMARRON and the Richard Dix/Pop Sherman productions solidly scripted by Gerald Geraghty and Lawrence Hazard with direction by Joe Kane, whose daughter, Louise, incidentally, plays Ralston as a child. Watch for Ben Johnson in a bit part. Also interesting to see the seven top badmen of B-westerns in a film together --- Charles King, Dick Curtis, Harry Woods, Roy Barcroft, Tom London, George Chesebro and Glenn Strange.

 GALLOPING ROMEO (1933 Monogram)
Evil Ernie Adams and Ed Brady are forcing Brady's daughter, smallish Doris Hill, to hide in a trunk on the stagecoach and snatch the money from the express box when no one is looking enroute to the coaches' destination. Two cowboys, Bob Steele and his pal George Hayes, sign up as stage drivers to catch the thieves. Remade as PHANTOM STAGE with Bob Baker in '39. The common thread here is Ernie Adams, who is in both versions, and Paul Malvern who was involved in production on both titles. Malvern or Adams obviously saved their script as many of the scenes and much of the dialogue is exactly the same. Even sidekicks George Hayes and George Cleveland (from the Baker version) are both named Grizzly. A third version came along in 1950 with Tex Williams, FARGO PHANTOM.

 RED RIVER ROBIN HOOD (1943 RKO)
Through a phony Spanish land grant and the help of a crooked judge (Bob McKenzie), swindler Eddie Dew has proven ownership to all the land in the Red River territory with he and his henchmen (Kenne Duncan, Bud McTaggart, Reed Howes) evicting all the ranchers (led by Russell Wade) who pay rent for their ranches. After gaining the confidence of crusading newspaper publisher Otto Hoffman and his daughter, Barbara Moffett, Tim Holt and his partner, Cliff 'Ukulele Ike' Edwards, don black robes and masks to risk their lives helping the ranchers under the Robin Hoodish name of Mr. Justice. Lookout-Earle Hodgins steals every scene he's in as a slow-witted deputy. This was the last picture Tim made before he went into the service for WWII.

 WESTERN CODE (1932 Columbia)
Sudden and tough Tim McCoy that begins with an exciting night-time running gun battle atop a speeding freight train immediately followed by a barroom slugfest with Wheeler Oakman. Texas Ranger Tim helps Nora Lane and her hotheaded brother (Dwight Frye of DRACULA fame) prove Oakman married Lane and Frye's mother then, when she died, forged her will in his favor, cutting the two children out entirely. When Oakman is murdered, both Lane and Frye confess, each believing the other is guilty. Based on a William Colt MacDonald story as most of McCoy's Columbias of this period were. And yes, they really said it again in a movie, "This town ain't big enough ..." Cowboy Cancer alert: Tim bites off a chaw of Bull Durham! Ugh.

 THUNDERING GUNSLINGER (1944 PRC)
Routine Buster Crabbe programmer has Billy Carson out to avenge the mistaken hanging by night riding vigilantes of his uncle, George Chesebro. Charles King and his henchmen, Kermit Maynard and Jack Ingram, are the real culprits who frame rancher Karl Hackett for the hanging, then frame Buster (in the eyes of Hackett's daughter Frances Gladwin) for the bushwhacking of Hackett. Fuzzy St. John, a little tamer than usual, is the town veterinarian in this one. Wally West (seen as one of the bar patrons) is the obvious double for Crabbe in a wreck-the-joint saloon brawl with King.

 SINGING SHERIFF (1944 Universal)
It's Gene Autry plot 3-C-kind of in reverse --- as Universal tries its best to spoof the singing cowboy craze. Wild west Sheriff of Elbow Bend, Samuel S. Hinds, is mortally wounded by Joe Sawyer's gang so he sends for his long lost son, whom he believes to be a tough lawman, to "stand eye to eye and toe to toe with the varmints" and finish the clean-up-the-town job he started. It's a merry mixup from there on. You see, long lost son, Walter Sande, substituted a picture of his night club singer boss, Bob Crosby, to send to his Pop years ago to present a better impression. So Crosby becomes the singing sheriff and falls in love with his 'sister', Fay McKenzie, who is also being courted by crooked lawyer Edward Norris. It's a tame affair and Crosby simply doesn't have the comedic timing or charisma of his more famous brother to bring this farce off in proper fashion. Nor is director Leslie Goodwins and the script up to par with a lot of rehashed old jokes. Resident Universal sidekick Fuzzy Knight is even here. For music fans, the film momentarily comes alive with the toe-tapping music of Spade Cooley, Deuce Spriggens, Tex Williams and Carolina Cotton.

 PHANTOM PINTO (1941 Ellkay)
Boring, static direction by Richard C. Kahn with the worst sounding, most inappropriate canned classical music background I've ever heard (sounding like it's coming out of a record player out on the desert) serve to make this Buzz Henry juveniler a real dud. E. G. Robertson's script is lousy; unfunny, obnoxious Jewish comedian Phil Arnold (who later offended us all on TV's COWBOY G-MEN) is in the cast and midway we're forced to suffer a song by an unknown Sons of the Pioneers wannabee group. The lame plot has Buzzy's grandpop murdered by spies (Sven Hugo Borg and Frank Marlo-on a pinto) seeking strontium, used in making munitions, on grandpop's land. Dave O'Brien has to handle the action stuff for pint sized Buzzy. Dorothy Short (in reality Mrs. Dave O'Brien) is the leading lady.

 WAGON WHEELS (1934 Paramount)
In 1840 a wagon train of settlers leaves from Independence, MO, for Oregon led by scouts Randolph Scott, Raymond Hatton and Olin Howlin. Figuring the white settler will destroy his prosperous fur trade, half-breed Monte Blue plots to stop the train from reaching Powder River. Meanwhile, Scott romances Gail Patrick and befriends her son, cute Billy Lee. The fabulous title tune was first used in ZIEGFELD FOLLIES OF 1934 and again later in Eddie Dean's CARAVAN TRAIL. Even Randy Scott becomes a momentary singing cowboy during the chorus, but you can fast forward through Jan Duggan's "Under the Daisies"! Uneven and episodic under Charles Barton's direction, a man who was better suited to lighthearted fare with the Marx Brothers, Five Little Peppers and Abbott and Costello. Based on Zane Grey's 1929 story which had been filmed before in 1931 as FIGHTING CARAVANS with Gary Cooper.

 THE SHOWDOWN (1940 Paramount)
Gabby Hayes' departure from the Hopalong Cassidy features left a large gaping hole. His replacement in mid-1939 until mid-1940 was Britt Wood who only served to make even more obvious how important Hayes was to the success of the series which didn't get back on track until Andy Clyde came aboard as California Carlson in THREE MEN FROM TEXAS ('40). THE SHOWDOWN also suffers from the replacement of regular Cassidy director Les Selander by mediocre work from Howard Bretherton. The film rambles, goes in several directions and, although Hoppy calls the Baron (Morris Ankrum) a "vile human being ... you're the worst", Cassidy has certainly crossed trails with far worse heavies than a horsethief like the Baron and his men Roy Barcroft, Kermit Maynard and Walt Shumway --- a trio who aren't given enough to do. Then there's another plot involving eastern girl Jan(e) Clayton who's come west to be with her rancher Uncle (Wright Kramer) who turns out to be a swindler. Naturally, Hoppy sidekick Russell Hayden as Lucky (behaving in this script more like the hotheaded, rambunctious Jimmy Ellison's Johnny Nelson) falls for Clayton. In reality, Clayton and Hayden were husband and wife having already been married for a couple of years. Future star Eddie Dean has a nice role as the Marshal and the King's Men sing a song prettily but they're not very western. No wonder Boyd didn't appreciate music in his films. He refers to it here as "howlin'". The best scene in the movie comes midway --- a tense poker game with the Baron in which Hoppy realizes the cards are stacked against him but outwits the Baron nevertheless. Jan Clayton (1917-1983) is best remembered as Tommy Rettig's Mom, Ellen Miller, on LASSIE ('54-'57).

 BLACK HILLS EXPRESS (1943 Republic)
Although Don Barry is an outlaw with a price on his head, general manager Charles Miller of Wells Fargo is sure Don's the only man tough enough to stop the holdups. At first Don refuses the job, but when he and comedy-character deputy sheriff Wally Vernon learn Ariel Heath (an odd looking chick apparently on loan from RKO where she made most of her films) has been orphaned by a particularly brutal holdup of a Wells Fargo stage, Don agrees to take the job and ferrets out banker Hooper Atchley, Marshal William Halligan and gunmen George J. Lewis and LeRoy Mason in their scheme to force Miller out of his business. Watch for the two X'd out wanted posters as dead 'outlaws' --- Roy Barcroft and Yakima Canutt. Good script by Norman Hall and Fred Myton under John English's adept direction.

 SINGING OUTLAW (1938 Universal)
One of the most entertaining Bob Baker B-westerns is his second outing with careful direction from 'Wagon Wheel' Joseph H. Lewis. Rodeo rider Bob Baker stumbles into a showdown between Marshal Jack Montgomery and notorious outlaw Harry Woods. When they're both killed, a posse mistakes Bob for the outlaw and townspeople later assume he's the Marshal. Before he can re-assert his own identity, Bob has to round-up a band of rustlers led by LeRoy Mason and justify his mysterious actions with his sweetheart, Joan Barclay. Some wonderful cowboy songs by Fleming Allen, but, as usual, Bob's voice sounds better blended with a group.

 DUDE RANGER (1934 Fox)
Pure entertainment in a western that builds its mystery angles suspensefully to a stirring climax amidst the gorgeous grandeur of Zion National Park in Utah. Easterner George O'Brien inherits a ranch and moves west only to discover rustlers working his land. At first he suspects Henry Hall, father of the girl he's fallen for, Irene Hervey --- a spoiled thing who has a habit of having her own way. But she's never met anyone like O'Brien! Eventually, foreman LeRoy Mason is discovered to be the true 'brains' behind the rustling. Not a lot of hard riding action, it's O'Brien's bright, sassy charm and the clever, witty, suspenseful script by Barry Barringer (based on Zane Grey's story) that carries this one though. Supposedly remade as ROLL ALONG, COWBOY in '37 with Smith Ballew, but that film bears no resemblance to this superior title. Although still being released by Fox, O'Brien's films, as of this one, were now being made independently by Sol Lesser's Atherton Productions, doubtless an economic move on Fox's part, freeing up their own facilities and cash while still giving them a series of westerns for release.

 SILVER BULLET (1934 Reliable)
One of lowbudget producer/director B. B. Ray's better films with some nice photography touches by J. Henry Kruse. After prospector Tom Tyler stops a gang of outlaws from intimidating general store owner Jayne Regan, her father, Mayor Lafe McKee, appoints Tom Sheriff to curb gang leader George Chesebro and his boys' (Charles Whitaker, Lew Meehan) violence. Tom later discovers 'good citizen' banker Charlie King is the brains behind recent robberies. Watch for former stars Walt Williams (Wally Wales) as a townsman, Franklyn Farnum as the county marshal and Bill Patton as a townsman. Jayne Regan, a better than average leading lady --- especially for Reliable --- made five with Tyler and Jack Perrin before moving on to roles in bigger films, STOWAWAY, SECOND HONEYMOON, a couple of Mr. Moto pictures, and then, like many others, seemed to disappear after 1938.

 PRAIRIE GUNSMOKE (1942 Columbia)
Frantic, full bore western excitement! Advertised as a "hair raising saga of the old West" with "two famous stars who keep the range hummin' with bullets and songs", it is all that and more. Big and greedy rancher Tris Coffin and his hirelings (Joe McGuinn, Frosty Royce) ride roughshod over the small outfits forcing them to sell out. But they go too far when they cold-bloodedly murder popular rancher Rick Anderson before he can pay off his mortgage, then foreclose on his place. This spurs Tex Ritter, his accident prone pal Frank 'Cannonball' Mitchell, rancher Hal Price and his daughter Virginia Carroll (Tex's sweetheart) and the others to take action. As well, Wild Bill Hickok (Bill Elliott), Anderson's nephew, arrives in town to administer his own brand of justice. Right off the bat, Tex has a doozy of a scrap with Coffin and, later, Elliott has a dandy with Francis Walker. The eight Elliott/Ritter titles in '41-'42 are some of the best series B-westerns ever filmed.

 GHOST TOWN LAW (1942 Monogram)
Shadows, gravestones, spiderwebs, hidden tunnels, masked figures, secret passageways in a well, and mysterious threatening notes all held together by sinister Edward Kay music make this Rough Riders entry more of an old dark house mystery than a western adventure. Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton suspect Judge Murdock MacQuarrie of plotting nefarious deeds in his scheme to gain control of an estate owned by Virginia Carpenter and her brother Howard Masters. MacQuarrie and his gang (Tom London, Charles King, Ben Corbett) have learned of a lost vein of gold running underneath the spooky old mansion. Okay, but probably the last Rough Riders title I'd select as representative of the series. Jones doesn't utter a word til about the 25 minute mark.

 SONGS AND BULLETS (1938 Spectrum)
Singer Fred Scott and his guitar player Fuzzy St. John are hired to sing in Frank LaRue's saloon as a cover for their real investigation into the death of Fred's uncle who was killed by rustlers using dum-dum .45s. The rustlers are 'leading citizen' Karl Hackett and crooked Sheriff Charlie King aided and abetted by Sherry Tansey, Jimmy Aubrey, Carl Mathews and Richard Cramer. Meanwhile, French-accented schoolteacher Alice Ardell is secretly seeking the killer of her father. Ardell is an 'actress' who must have been one of producer Jed Buell's girlfriends, it's the only way she could have gotten the job. Songwriter Lew Porter is the piano player in the film --- responsible for such inane song fare as "Arkansaw" and "My 10 Gallon Hat" that severely cramped Scott's abilities as a singing cowboy. This is one of several Scott films billed as "A Stan Laurel Production". To what extent the skinny one participated is unknown. Story editor credit goes to feminist Helen Gurly --- later of Cosmopolitan.

 LAWLESS CODE (1949 Monogram)
Crooked ex-judge Tris Coffin and his associates (Myron Healey, Kenne Duncan, Terry Frost) trick rancher Steve Clark out of his land through their land development corporation then kill Clark and frame his wild and reckless nephew, Riley Hill. Singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely and his bumpkin saddlekick, Dub 'Cannonball' Taylor straighten things out. The late Ellen Hall (1924-1999) is the girl. During a break in the story, Jimmy puts his horse Sunny through his trick paces. This average Wakely, with only one song, closed out his starring days at Monogram after 28 films over a five year period.

 BROTHERS IN THE SADDLE (1949 RKO)
Far more adult in approach than the usual B-western, approaching an A-western in content, this is a strong contender for Tim Holt's best western. It's brother against brother as Tim struggles to keep conniving reckless Steve Brodie from falling into a life of gambling and crime --- to no avail as Steve kills card dealer Francis McDonald in a gambling argument. Even though this shooting was in self defense, Steve's surly, cantankerous attitude and desire for cash to get away sucks him deeper and deeper until, while nervously waiting for Tim's help, he holds up a stage and cold-bloodedly murders gambling hall owner Richard Powers (formerly Tom Keene). Attempting escape, he brutally even tries to kill both his brother and Tim's partner, Richard 'Chito' Martin. So detestable is Brodie, he even steals from his fiancée, ranch owner Virginia Cox. Although the remainder of Tim's westerns for the next three years were far above the product being turned out in this period by Monogram, PRC, even Republic and Columbia for the most part, they unfortunately never again approached the A status of BROTHERS IN THE SADDLE. Cowboy cancer alert --- Tim puffs on his pipe while Martin, Brodie and Cox harmonize during a lighter moment.

 IRON SHERIFF (1957 U.A.)
Suspenseful, extremely well written (by Seelig Lester), overlooked western with lawman Sterling Hayden tracking down the clues to clear his son (Darryl Hickman) accused of robbery and murder after it was Hayden himself who gave the evidence that convicted Hickman and sentenced him to hang. Good roles for John Dehner as a silver-tongued lawyer who pleads for Hickman, bounty hunter Mort Mills, express agent King Donovan and saloon owner Kent Taylor. Leading lady Constance Ford's histrionics are a bit overdone at times, but it's a small price to pay to enjoy a strongly written 73 minute film that should have received more attention over the years than it has. Well directed by Sidney Salkow who'd been at it since 1936, mostly with crime and adventure dramas, but was turning to westerns at this period in his career.

 BRONZE BUCKAROO (1938 Hollywood/Sack Amusement)
Typical B-western plot as Herb Jeffries (as Bob Blake) and his sidekick Lucius 'Dusty' Brooks save the ranch (with a gold ore vein) for leading lady Artie Young from land grabbers Spencer Williams Jr. and Clarence Brooks. The twist here is, the cast is all black. Jeffries' greatest fame came when he joined Duke Ellington's band in 1939 and was featured vocalist on "Flamingo" ('41). But prior to that, Jeffries wanted to created a singing cowboy hero in the mold of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers for the black kids of America. "I could see in my mind those beaming little children raising their faces to movie screens with the same joy and hero worship white kids experienced watching Hoppy, Gene and Roy." His four films exist due to his perserverance. Problem is, they were filmed on a half-a-shoestring budget by Richard C. Kahn so production values are nil. Herb's title song, "I'm a Happy Cowboy", is terrific. (You can hear it in freshened up fashion on Herb's 1995 ten-tune CD, "The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again"). There's way too much 'comedy relief' from Herb's sidekick Lucius 'Dusty' Brooks about $12 and a talking mule. Spencer Williams Jr. (1893-1969) later found lasting fame as Andy Brown on TV's ground breaking AMOS 'N' ANDY (1951-1953).

 BANDITS OF EL DORADO (1949 Columbia)
When outlaws are mysteriously disappearing, Texas Ranger Charles Starrett stages the phony murder of Ranger Captain Fred Sears to establish himself as a wanted outlaw and rout out kingpin John Dehner who, with his boys Clayton Moore and John Doucette, are making a business of hiding outlaws south of the border. One of scripter Barry Shipman's best, serial-like in tone with secret passageways and trap-doors that lead off into underground rivers. Both Starrett 'doubles' are on hand for this Durango Kid --- Ted Mapes and Jock Mahoney with Ranger Jocko chasing himself doubling Starrett down an alley, up the stairs and across the roof tops. One great line, Starrett says, "I can handle outlaws but I can't handle that Smiley." Hint of truth there --- the two were not the best of friends, Starrett tolerated Smiley in his pictures. "He did his thing and I did mine", Starrett often said. Holding this picture back is the addition of Smiley clones --- singers Mustard and Gravy as wrestling promoter Burnette's two protegees --- politically incorrect in blackface! Watch for the wanted poster for Black Murphy, leftover from WEST OF SONORA ('48).

 DAWN ON THE GREAT DIVIDE (1942 Monogram)
Buck Jones' final film is a lonesome affair, released about a month after the star's tragic death in Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire. Unfortunately, the film is a sad end to a stunning career, a plodding concern with the first 10 minutes or more given over to sluggishly introducing the characters on a wagon train of railroad supplies and new settlers (Robert Lowery, Christine McIntyre, Jan Wiley, Robert Frazer and Mona Barrie). It's a long first 30 minutes but scouts Buck Jones and Raymond Hatton finally arrive in Beaver Creek, run by Judge Frazer's brother, Harry Woods, the crooked boss of the outpost whose men (Roy Barcroft, I. Stanford Jolley, Reed Howes) have been raiding other wagon trains disguised as Indians. Buck and Hatton's partner, Rex Bell, has arrived before them and worked his way into a position of confidence. There's a lot of plot and soap-operaish shenanigans --- too much even for the slightly over 60 minute running time confining the action to tepid when it finally arrives. Watch for fiddler Spade Cooley (unbilled) playing "Beautiful Dreamer" while Christine McIntyre and Robert Lowery sing a duet. DAWN --- is a continuation of sorts of Jones and Hatton's Rough Riders series, playing the same characters of Buck Roberts and Sandy Hopkins, with Rex Bell as Jack Carson replacing Col. Tim McCoy who'd left the series to return to Armed Forces duty. If more were planned with this new trio, one could only hope they would have been more lively than this "Yawn On the Great Divide".

 RIDE HIM, COWBOY (1932 Warner Bros.)
The first of John Wayne's six film Warner Bros. series is a remake of Ken Maynard's UNKNOWN CAVALIER ('26). The film introduces Duke, Wayne's horse, who he saves, tames and rides as he tracks down the Hawk (Frank Hagney), the outlaw responsible for a string of bank robberies, the one who tried to have Duke destroyed and who is masquerading as a solid citizen. Ruth Hall is the girl whose father was killed by the Hawk. Excellent photography from Ted McCord who lensed dozens of superior Bs with Buck Jones, Tom Keene, Ken Maynard and Dick Foran before becoming an A-film staple at Warner Bros. in the '40s (ROCKY MOUNTAIN, TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, JOHNNY BELINDA etc.). Holding the film back is a protracted, silly trial midway with unfunny Judge Otis Harlan as well as Harry Gribbon miscast as a fearful, bumbling deputy.

 LOCAL BAD MAN (1932 Allied)
Crooked businessmen Hooper Atchley and Edward Hearn plot to rob their own bank of $25,000 then collect $25,000 insurance from the railroad who transported the funds and lay the blame on charming 'local badman' Hoot Gibson and his buddies 'Skeeter' Bill Robbins and Milt Brown. The story is based on a Peter B. Kyne story, "All For Love" which appeared in Cosmopolitan. There's a very exciting wrap up all-over several speeding railroad cars --- bit different for Hooter --- and some cute scenes between station agent Sally Blane and Hoot. Blane, one of Loretta Young's sisters, entered films around 1917 and worked til 1939. Then married to director Norman Foster, she retired except for a rare film such as A BULLET FOR JOEY in '55.

 SADDLES AND SAGEBRUSH (1943 Columbia)
Thrill a minute action supplemented by William Berke's inventive action direction as fast gun Russell 'Lucky' Hayden and his pals --- Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and Dub 'Cannonball' Taylor --- bring swift justice to range hog William Wright and his gang (Joe McGuinn, Wheeler Oakman, Ed Cobb, Jack Ingram) who try to grab free government range from ranchers like Frank LaRue and his daughter Ann Savage. Savage told us Russell Hayden saved her in a "real --- not reel --- runaway buckboard" as anxious horses took off with her while waiting for a scene. Again, songwriter Cindy Walker supplies the songs ("Hubbin' It", "Toodlelumbo", etc.) for Wills' Playboys.

 WAGON TRAIL (1935 Ajax)
It looks like Sheriff Harry Carey is going to have to hang his own son, Edward Norris, after he arrests him for a stagecoach robbery and killing, not knowing his son was forced into the holdup by nasty saloon owner Roger Williams who holds Norris' IOU gambling notes. Complicating matters further is the fact Norris is in love with Williams' step-daughter, Gertrude Messinger, and can't bring himself to tell her that her 'Dad' is a crook. Earl Dwire has a pivotal role as Carey's faithful friend. Gertrude Messinger (1911-1995) was briefly married to famed stuntman Dave Sharpe. When Gertie's brother, Buddy, died in 1965, Dave married his widow, Margaret Messinger. Gertie later married cameraman Schyler Sanford (primarily at Paramount) who received an Oscar with the Todd-A-O group for AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS.

 SADDLE MOUNTAIN ROUNDUP (1941 Monogram)
In this strict remake of BIG BOY RIDES AGAIN ('35), the Range Busters (Ray Corrigan, John King, Max Terhune) replace Big Boy Williams as they search for $50,000 hidden in the house of murdered old man John Elliott. Our suspects are (once again) lawyer Jack Mulhall, Chinese cook Willie Fong, foreman George Chesebro and neighboring rancher Steve Clark --- the uncle of Lita Conway (with little to do). This Range Busters entry is high on mystery and weak on action content. William Nolte wrote the original story in 1935. Now production manager on the Range Busters series for producer George W. Weeks, he let Earle Snell and John Vlahos tune up his old script. Included this time is Cousin Harold Goodman (out of WSM radio) with a pitiful song, "Little Brown Jug". Obviously, the idea was to add some regional entertainers to several of the Range Busters films in hopes of securing a greater amount of playdates. But producer Weeks' selection of Goodman (and in other films Jerry Smith and Art Fowler) was from an inferior talent pool than that from which Columbia was selecting musicians for their Charles Starrett westerns, so the idea was thankfully soon abandoned. The trained crow seen in this film is the same one, Jimmy, seen in G-MEN VS. THE BLACK DRAGON serial as well as ENCHANTED FOREST.

 ROOTIN' TOOTIN' RHYTHM (1937 Republic)
Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette's misadventures with rustlers (Monte Blue, Max Hoffman Jr., Charlie King) are a little more nonsensical than usual. Hal Taliaferro is Gene's cattle ranch partner. Blue is leading lady Ann Pendleton's uncle. Comedic actress Armida as Pendleton's silly friend is Gene's love interest. Gene's real-life buddy and songwriter partner, Frankie Marvin, is in most of Gene's features but has his biggest role in this offbeat plot. Al Clauser and his Oklahoma Outlaws from WHO in Des Moines, IA, are the featured group (but look for Art Davis as a fiddler). Visiting the band, WHO's sportscaster Ronald Reagan spent his very first day on a movie set during the filming of this picture. Stuntman Yakima Canutt once again performs his hair-raising under-the-stage, grab-the-rear and climb-back-on stunt. Director Mack Wright and cameraman William Nobles took advantage of a real storm at Lone Pine turning it into a stunning chase sequence in the film.

 BIG BONANZA (1944 Republic)
Richard Arlen, a Cavalry officer unjustly court martialed for cowardice, returns home to discover his boyhood pal, Robert Livingston, is now a corrupt saloon owner. Problem is, Arlen's younger brother (Bobby Driscoll) was being raised by Livingston while Arlen was at war. Arlen is aghast to learn Driscoll is living in a saloon with his best friend being dance hall queen Jane Frazee. Arlen moves Driscoll in with schoolteacher Lynne Roberts just as he discovers Livingston's plot to gain control of kindly Russell Simpson's gold mine. When Driscoll sees two of Livingston's men murder Simpson, Livingston even tries to kill the boy. A year later, Driscoll hit the big time with Disney's SONG OF THE SOUTH followed by THE WINDOW, SO DEAR TO MY HEART, MELODY TIME, TREASURE ISLAND and others. Sadly, his outstanding childhood career came to an end when he became addicted to drugs and died destitute without identification and was buried in a pauper's grave in New York. This is Monte Hale's 'test run' in films. He sings a song in the saloon. Republic prexy Herbert J. Yates liked what he saw on film and soon elevated Monte to a starring series.

 SUNRISE TRAIL (1931 Tiffany)
With no action in Wellyn Totman's script til the 57 minute mark (in a total of 63 minutes), there's a lot of latitude for platitudes ...'partners', 'different trails', 'ridin' tonight', 'friendship', 'long ropes', 'tangled ropes' ... in this early Bob Steele cattle thieves western from producer Trem Carr. Leading lady Blanche Mehaffey plays it woeful and forlorn. Well photographed by Archie Stout who kept moving up ... first to John Wayne Lone Stars, then Hoppy and Zane Grey westerns at Paramount, then A films such as THE WESTERNER, CAPTAIN KIDD, G.I. JOE, FORT APACHE and RIO GRANDE. Producer Carr graduated from Illinois University and became chief of a St. Louis construction company before a chance meeting with Al St. John in 1921 fired his interest in motion pictures. The pair turned out several silent comedies. Carr partnered with W. Ray Johnston to produce features. At various times Carr was an exec at Rayart, Syndicate, Tiffany and Monogram which he and Johnston formed in 1931. When the merger with Republic came, he went with the deal but terminated his position there in late 1935 to organize his own producing unit. He signed with Universal in 1936 to produce features, including six adventure films with John Wayne whom he had under personal contract and a series with Bob Baker. Wound down his career back at Monogram in the '40s where he was fond of saying his hobby was beating producer Scotty Dunlap at golf and hearts.

 WAGON TEAM (1952 Columbia)
The whole Autry stock company (Gail Davis, Dick Jones, Cass County Boys, Pat Buttram and heavies George J. Lewis, Gregg Barton, John Cason, Pierce Lyden) are on hand as Gene joins a medicine show to find the robbers of an Army payroll. The medicine show backdrop gives Gene a chance to sing a bit more than usual in his Columbia outings but there's nothing memorable except an uninspired version of "Back In the Saddle". Overall, this picture looks cheaper than some Columbias even to the quite unusual (for an Autry) stunt of lifting a long ambush/fight sequence with John Cason, George J. Lewis and Gene direct from BIG SOMBRERO ('49). It's also a bit on the sloppy side for an Autry picture in the script continuity department with several glaring errors including shots of Dick Jones escaping on horseback midway through the picture that really belongs to an earlier jailbreak sequence when Dickie did not have on the prominent white gunbelt he should have on in the later 'escape' sequence but does not.

 SPOILERS OF THE PLAINS (1951 Republic)
During cold war America, Roy Rogers is fighting enemies of the USA. As the trailer proclaims, "Roy and Trigger don asbestos suits to fight an oil fire, a fire started by our enemies, men who are after our country's newest secret weapon! Roy and his pals (Gordon Jones, Penny Edwards [looking very medicinal], Riders of the Purple Sage) have never before fought such vicious killers! It's rocket fast excitement combined with rollicking western song in the first western rocket picture!" Using an oil well as a blind, Grant Withers, Don Haggerty, House Peters Jr. and Fred Kohler Jr. are working for 'an unfriendly power' as they attempt to steal William Forrest's missiles used for long range weather forecasting. Roy's dog Bullet has a fight with a Doberman while Roy and Haggerty splash around in an oil pit and there's a wild finish with stuntmen jumping back and forth from one wagon to another in an exciting fight while Roy and Grant Withers battle to the death on a tall oil derrick. Watch for the stuntman who attempts a wagon transfer and fails, falling off the wagon under the wheel. Ouch! Current and up-to-date for its time, another dandy Rogers from director Bill Witney.

 GENTLEMAN FROM TEXAS (1946 Monogram)
Better than average Johnny Mack Brown B as he fights the vicious, lawless element of Rimrock (Tris Coffin, Marshall Reed, Terry Frost) who are opposed by newspaper editor Reno Browne and her father, Raymond Hatton. Slam-bang windup after Tris' men kill saloon girl Claudia Drake. Johnny warns Tris, "This is to the finish!" --- and it sure is! Music by Curt Barrett and the Trailsmen.

 THUNDERING TRAILS (1943 Republic)
The Texas Rangers are disbanded in 1871. Overnight, the state becomes the haven of the lawless. If ranchers don't subscribe to the protection the corrupt new county police offer, they find their cattle stolen and ranches burned. The Three Mesquiteers (Tom Tyler as Stony, Bob Steele as Tucson, Jimmy Dodd as Lullaby) are three ex-Texas Rangers who fight back on their own when Stony's father, also a Ranger (Charles Miller), is killed in a stage robbery and Stony's hot-headed younger brother (John James) unwittingly becomes the head of the county police. The crook really running the 'police' is Judge Sam Flint (with his henchmen Reed Howes and Karl Hackett). The Texas Rangers are re-established after a wild windup in the Republic cave set. Politically incorrect now, but standard fare in '43, Jimmy Dodd sings a song in blackface. After a two year run at Universal with Johnny Mack Brown, leading lady Nell O'Day was now freelancing. Sadly, this is her only western at Republic who should have used the spry horsewoman more at this point. Juvenile lead John James (1914-1960) worked quite steadily in westerns (and other films) from '41-'53 without ever quite grabbing the brass ring. His closest brush with the top was as part of a trio with Jimmy Wakely and Lee 'Lasses' White in 1945. His last couple were at Allied Artists with Bill Elliott.

 THE FORTY-NINERS (1954 Monogram)
Trackdown tale with near DRAGNET style narration by Bill Elliott as the U. S. Marshal seeks the identity of three murderers in 1849 gold rush California. Striking up a relationship with card sharp Henry (Harry) Morgan eventually leads Elliott to Sheriff Lane Bradford and saloon owner John Doucette. Also with Virginia Grey. Notable as Elliott's last western after a 16 year run. Unfortunately, Bill leaves the screen with a mild whimper instead of a big bang. Cowboy cancer alert: Bill smokes heavily. He indeed died of cancer after touting Viceroys on TVmercials.

 CODE OF THE PRAIRIE (1944 Republic)
Words instead of guns are now the weapons used by former western lawman Bat Matson, turned frontier newspaperman (Tom Chatterton) who, with his daughter Peggy Stewart, attempt to bring law and order to a small western town. But when Chatterton learns too much about the past of local politician Roy Barcroft, he is killed. However, frontier photographer Smiley Burnette accidentally snaps a picture of Barcroft disposing of the body. It takes Smiley's pal Sunset Carson and misguided Weldon Heyburn (who's running for Sheriff against Sunset under Barcroft's backing) to handle the rough stuff and restore justice. The quite unusual final denouement brings the audience into the explanation of the picture, then Smiley turns directly to the audience and says, "You kids go home now. You been in here all day." The strong supporting cast is a field day for western fans: Bud Geary, Tom London, Jack Kirk, Rex Lease, Horace Carpenter, Henry Wills, Bob Wilke, Charles King, Jack O'Shea, Tom Steele, Ken Terrell, Karl Hackett, Frank Ellis, Hank Bell.

 DEVIL'S TRAIL (1942 Columbia)
There are strong political overtones not common to B-westerns as guns blaze and fists fly when Bill Elliott and Tex Ritter ride roughshod over the Broken-U League headed up by Noah Beery Sr., leader of a secret society sworn to disrupt the Union and advocating slavery in Kansas. Their symbol is a broken horseshoe for 'The Cause' as a horseshoe makes a U for Union and Beery is working for a broken Union. Marshal Tex Ritter (who has a far better and larger role than in most of these films where he's billed second) and Wild Bill Hickok (Elliott) are aided and abetted by the pratfall comedy of Frank Mitchell as they come to Beery's outlaw camp and help Dr. Joel Friedkin and his daughter Eileen O'Hearn of the Frontier Emigrant Aid Society who are being held prisoner by Beery. Beery hopes to bully them into naming the members of his free states society. Terrific windup in what is probably the best of eight Elliott/Ritter pairings. Tough, smart, snappy dialogue by Robert Lee Johnson whose brief 1941-1946 screenwriting career included two others in this series as well as non-western films such as HIT THE ROAD with the Dead End Kids, ENCHANTED FOREST and MAN WHO WALKED ALONE.

 CHEYENNE RIDES AGAIN (1937 Victory)
Regulation cowboy derring-do well done as Cattleman's Protective Association investigator Tom Tyler is suspected of being a bandit as he and his pard Dopey (Jimmie Fox) get the goods on the real rustlers Ted Lorch (as nasty as he can be), Ed Cassidy, Lon Chaney Jr., Roger Williams and Merrill McCormack. Tom's 'plant' inside boss Lorch's house is Lucile Browne who finds herself in trouble when the lecherous Lorch discovers who she is. Browne (1907-1976) worked in films from 1929-1939, and again briefly in 1950. The co-star of six serials and eight westerns was married to actor James Flavin in 1932. Their deaths in 1976 were only weeks apart. Boo-boo: about midway in the film Ted Lorch calls Ed Cassidy 'Ed' instead of his character name of Dave Gleason.

 OVERLAND PACIFIC (1954 World/U.A.)
When undercover railroad agent Jock Mahoney is sent to investigate Indian trouble delaying the installation of track, he finds his old buddy, William Bishop, at the bottom of the raids. Bishop and his pals, Sheriff Chubby Johnson, gunslinger Chris Alcaide and businessman George Eldredge, want the railroad to pass through property they own so they may collect a small fortune. Tried and true B plot marred by some awfully stilted dialog the actors have to wrap their tongues around. Color and cast keep it alive. Also with Peggie Castle (just seeing her in tight britches is reason enough to watch) as love interest for Bishop and Mahoney, Walter Sande as Castle's Dad and Adele Jergens as a dance hall floozy jilted by Bishop. Terrific, memorable street fight between Mahoney and stuntman/actor Fred Graham. Jocko had been starring on TV's RANGE RIDER and had previously worked with Fred Sears, director of OVERLAND PACIFIC, at Columbia in Durango Kid westerns.

 HOME ON THE RANGE (1946 Republic)
Republic's first Trucolor (aka Magnacolor) B-western as well as Monte Hale's first starring western is a major disappointment that certainly didn't get Monte off on the right track with the Saturday matinee audience. Under R. G. Springsteen's direction, it plays more like a juvenile wildlife adventure than a B-western. It's simply too laid back and relaxed, all the while craving some movement. In addition, half the movie sounds like it was 'looped' in later either due to bad location recordings, loss of the soundtrack --- or maybe even work on Monte's Texas-twang so the rest of the U.S. could understand him. Whatever --- the dubbing gives the film a very 'flat' feel at times. The plotline is another of Republic's conservation themes. Grizzly Garth (Tom Chatterton) and his young son, Bobby Blake, have turned their property into sort of a wildlife preserve --- no hunting. Greedy cattleman LeRoy Mason, in an effort to acquire Grizzly's property for his use, employs two henchmen, Roy Barcroft and Kenne Duncan, to carry out his dirty deed of loosing his trained killer bear on cattle in the area to build up sentiment against Grizzly's game preserve ideas. Grizzly's niece is Adrian Booth, who, unlike any other Republic leading lady, got equal billing with Monte in every one of their seven westerns together. It was always 'Monte Hale and Adrian Booth'. Not even Dale Evans got that kind of star treatment. Monte may have set some sort of record for changing outfits in this film --- I count five different outfits. Republic even put the Sons of the Pioneers in to back up Monte in his initial outing, but nothing could save this drab affair.

 ARIZONA TERROR (1931 Tiffany)
Seems 20 minutes longer than it actually is. This one should have top-billed Tarzan over Ken Maynard. The marvelous palomino lays down, leads leading lady Lina Basquette to Ken, bucks off Michael Visaroff and knocks over Hooper Atchley in a fight. Maynard, never referred to by a name, only the Arizonian, captures Atchley's outlaw gang who buy cattle from ranchers then ambush them and take back their money. Visaroff as good-badman Emilio Vasquez, gives his performance too much of the 'heh-heh-heh' phony Mexicano blatherings. There really was a bandido named Vasquez, for which the distinctive rock location in which this western was filmed was named. Born in 1907, fiery Latino Lina Basquette led an off-screen life that itself should be made into a movie. Gaining attention as a Ziegfeld Follies girl, she married Sam Warner (one of the Warner brothers) even though Sam was her senior by 20 years. She bore Sam a child in 1926 and Sam died in 1927 which was the beginning of legal strife and front page headlines for some 24 years as Sam's brothers sought to take the child (and heir) from her unlawfully. With that, as well as a failed attempt at stardom in Cecil B. DeMille's THE GODLESS GIRL ('29) and an unsuccessful marriage to DeMille's cameraman, J. Peverell Morley, Lina attempted suicide in 1930. Divorced from Morley, she drifted into B-westerns with Keene, Maynard and Gibson. In 1931, she was married to boxer Jack Dempsey's trainer, Teddy Hayes, but was soon involved in a front page love affair with Dempsey himself. In 1932 she again attempted to take her own life with caustic acid. She divorced Hayes in early '32 but remarried him later that year. She gave birth to a son in '34 but the marriage again broke up in the late '30s and Lina left on a stage tour of South Africa, New Zealand and South America. During WWII she claims to have met Hitler when she did a stint as a spy for the office of Strategic Services. She'd remarried again to British actor Henry Mollinson but when he left her in Brazil and returned to England, she divorced him in 1947. She retired from showbiz and in 1948 entered the dog show world becoming internationally famous for her Great Danes.

 HAWK OF POWDER RIVER (1948 PRC)
One of Eddie Dean's best even though it is one of his last containing quite a bit of stock from previous episodes. A primary reason it stands out is due to Jennifer Holt's charming but hateful portrayal of the Hawk --- villainous leader of an outlaw gang terrorizing the area with stage and bank holdups while masquerading as sweet Vivian on her uncle Steve Clark's ranch where she's caching the loot. When Uncle Steve discovers the ruse, The Hawk's heavies, Terry Frost and Lane Bradford, mercilessly kill him. Jennifer even plots with her crooked lawyer, Eddie Parker, to murder Uncle Steve's daughter, June Carlson, so the Hawk herself will have complete control of the ranch. All four of Eddie's songs are recycled from previous Dean films (BLACK HILLS, WILD COUNTRY, SHADOW VALLEY) which causes the jarring effect of Eddie being seen riding two different horses! Neither got billing (as usual) this time. Off screen, Lane Bradford (1922-1973) was seriously involved romantically with Jennifer during this time. In later years she often spoke affectionately of him. Jennifer (1920-1997), of course, was the beautiful daughter of Jack Holt and sister of Tim Holt.

 TRAIL DUST (1936 Paramount)
One of the more unusual and one of the best Hopalong Cassidy adventures as he and his Bar-20 pals George 'Windy' Hayes and Jimmy 'Johnny Nelson' Ellison trail drive a huge cattle herd, encountering fire, a midnight killer and rustler Stephen Morris (Ankrum). They even find an unconscious girl on the trail (Gwynne Shipman) who is the daughter of a sheriff (John Elliott) who has been kidnapped by outlaw Harold Daniels now posing as the real sheriff and giving Cassidy even more trouble. Jimmy Ellison 'sings' two songs including "Wide Open Spaces". Was he dubbed or is that Jimmy singing? Episodic in nature, you can almost feel the originators of TV's RAWHIDE watching this and writing their series ideas. Shipman was writer Barry Shipman's wife and TV actress Nina Shipman's mother. At 77 minutes, this is the third longest Cassidy, only the next two, BORDERLAND and HILLS OF OLD WYOMING, topped this entry's running time at 82 and 79 minutes respectively.

 EL PASO (1948 Paramount)
At the close of the Civil War, not wanting to return to his legal career just yet, John Payne former lawyer and captain in the Confederate Army, heads west to El Paso where he encounters not only his old flame, Gail Russell, but corruption in the form of saloon owner/town boss Sterling Hayden and his enforcer, Sheriff Dick Foran. Reluctantly, Payne takes a hand --- legally at first --- but when Foran and his gang cold bloodedly murder Russell's father, Judge Henry Hull, as well as Payne's old friend Arthur Space and his wife (Catherine Craig), leaving their son (Bobby Ellis) an orphan, Payne takes the law into his own hands forming a vigilante group to wage war against Hayden and Foran. Lewis Foster's direction and screenplay for producers Pine-Thomas is that of an overblown law and order B. Stirring final shootout on the dirty, windswept streets of El Paso (actually Iverson's movie ranch). Also with Gabby Hayes (as Payne's friend), H. B. Warner (as Payne's grandfather), Mary Beth Hughes (as Stagecoach Nellie) and Eduardo Noriega (as a Mexican rancher).

 VALIANT HOMBRE (1948 United Artists)
Producer Phil Krasne bought the Cisco Kid rights from 20th Century Fox in 1944 and sold them to Monogram who produced the Gilbert Roland version of the derring-do bandit. When Monogram dropped the idea in 1947, Krasne resumed control of the popular character and made a distribution deal with United Artists. Duncan Renaldo, now a partner with Krasne, returned to the part (he'd done three for Monogram before Roland) and this time established the carefree adventurer spirit of Cisco, dropping the mustache he'd worn before and all of Roland's overt sexuality. The role was now much more solidly in the juvenile mold of a Hopalong Cassidy do-gooder. With Leo Carrillo now ingrained as the perfect Pancho, Krasne and Renaldo issued five features before taking the character to a long run on television from 1950-1956. This, the first of the Krasne/Renaldo five, is an exciting adventure that winds up on the swinging bridge high above the cliffs and river of Kernville. Evil John Litel holds John James and his sister Barbara Billingsly (best known later as Beaver's mom on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) to learn the location of James' gold mine. Cowboy cancer alert --- Pancho smokes several cigarettes. Note that the dog, Daisy, is the same pooch from Columbia's Blondie series of films.

 RUSTLERS ON HORSEBACK (1950 Republic)
Allan 'Rocky' Lane and Eddy Waller infiltrate Roy Barcroft's outlaw gang posing as a killer Barcroft had sent for (but Lane captured --- Stuart Randall) and a cook. Barcroft plots to rob Forrest Taylor, an Easterner bearing $125,000 to purchase a ranch owned by pretty Claudia Barrett and her brother George Nader (in his film debut --- spelled Nadar in the credits). Scripted by Richard Wormser who wrote several other Lane entries (VIGILANTE HIDEOUT, POWDER RIVER RUSTLERS, FORT DODGE STAMPEDE, CAPTIVE OF BILLY THE KID) as well as A-features such as TULSA and BIG STEAL.

 MARKED FOR MURDER (1945 PRC)
It's the goofy antics of henchie badman Charlie King that gives this routine Texas Rangers (Tex Ritter, Dave O'Brien, Guy Wilkerson) effort a viewing lift ... that and three songs by Tex including Don Weston's "Tears of Regret". It's the old outlaws (Jack Ingram, Wen Wright) start a range war between the cattlemen (Ed Cassidy, Frank Ellis, etc.) and the sheepmen (Marilyn McConnell, etc.) to grab off the spoils for themselves plot. Look-alikes Edward and Edwin, the Milo Twins, sing a song. They were also in I'M FROM ARKANSAS and SING NEIGHBOR SING.

 BLAZING ACROSS THE PECOS (1948 Columbia)
Average Durango Kid B with plenty of action (some stock) but the quick-resolve it's-over-before-you-realize-it hurts the whole film. Also Smiley Burnette's songs are not up to par --- even for his silly-symphonies --- and Red Arnall and the Western Aces don't compare with Bob Wills, Pee Wee King, Texas Jim Lewis and Doye O'Dell as featured musicians seen in other Durangos. Story has self appointed Mayor Charles Wilson as a gun running rapscallion (along with his gunman, Jack Ingram) secretly supplying the local Indian tribe (led by Chief Thunder Cloud) with rifles to attack the wagon caravans of Wilson's business rival (Thomas Jackson) in an attempt to drive him out of business. Wilson doesn't reckon on the intervention of Charles Starrett (as the Durango Kid) being appointed clown-sheriff Smiley Burnette's deputy. Watch for Jacques (Jock) Mahoney in a small role. He also doubles Starrett including a startling leap over two horses onto Durango's Raider.

 LAW AND LAWLESS (1932 Majestic)
A showcase for Jack Hoxie's trick riding and shooting skills as he plays a two-gun man who, with his braggadocio Mexican pal Julian Rivero, hires out to rancher Jack Mower and his pretty daughter Hilda Moreno to stop cattle rustling by the Wolf gang, mysterious night riders (Wally Wales, Yakima Canutt, Slim Whitaker, Hank Bell) who shoot flaming arrows and use a chilling wolf-cry as their signal. Onetime silent serial star Helen Gibson (1892-1977) who starred in THE HAZARDS OF HELEN in 1915-'16 along with other silent serials and two-reelers opposite Hoot Gibson, Pete Morrison and others, plays a rancher's wife with child star Edith Fellows as her and Bob Burns' daughter. Dixie Starr, Hoxie's wife of 10 years as of 1930, has a miniscule bit part.

 FRONTIER CRUSADER (1940 PRC)
The first PRC western, if you disregard TEXAS RENEGADES, the first film Tim McCoy made for producer Sig Newfield under the PRC banner, a company which evolved from the restructuring of the short-lived PPC/PDC set-up. And it's a good one from an Arthur Durlam story fleshed out by writer William Lively. (Durlam later reused his story and scripted himself turning it into BOOT HILL BANDITS with the Range Busters at Monogram in '42.) Monument City Sheriff Hal Price sends for town tamer Trigger Tim Rand (McCoy) when Karl Hackett's bandit gang holds the area in a reign of terror. There are several 'moments' in this western that lift it above the ordinary --- Tim kicking the gun out of badman Kenne Duncan's holster; Duncan's slow walk of death; John Merton's realization Tim hasn't been blown to bits. I'm not giving much away revealing the shadowy mystery boss as honest citizen Forrest Taylor ... his voice gives him away instantly in his first 'hidden' scene. Monogram Ranch locations add to the picture also.

 BOOT HILL BANDITS (1942 Monogram)
This surprising entry amongst the usually routine Range Busters westerns is a true delight, pure fun all the way. Both I. Stanford Jolley's swaggering Mesquite Kid and Glenn Strange's hulking scarfaced, dim-witted killer, the Maverick ("That ain't friendly ..."), are well-defined characters, two of the more interesting in B-westerndom. Filled with witty dialogue from Arthur Durlam, this one shows real style and flair in Ray 'Crash' Corrigan's barroom confrontation with I. Stanford Jolley when Crash kicks Jolley's gun from his holster and the way Jolley strikes his match on Corrigan's gunbelt. Other nice touches are Jimmy Aubrey's drunk, Corrigan drinking milk-with sugar (!), a mystery boss angle and the repartee between heavy George Chesebro and Max Terhune's dummy, Elmer. Thoroughly enjoyable! (A remake of Tim McCoy's FRONTIER CRUSADER ['40] also scripted by Durlam but Peter Stewart's direction then doesn't have the inventiveness of S. Roy Luby.)

 TREASON (1933 Columbia)
High grade Buck Jones entertainment. In 1870, self-styled idealist Shirley Grey (in the part of a lifetime for a girl in a B-western) forms a group of Confederate sympathizers to establish the Republic of South Kansas, determined to regain land she believes the U. S. Government unjustly stole from she and her followers. Although on her raids to confiscate government supplies she orders no civilians be hurt, her regulations are countermanded by her second in command, the Quantrillish Col. Robert Ellis who allows the 'soldiers' (Frank Lackteen, Art Mix, Frank Ellis, Ivar McFadden) to pillage a town. This wanton act results in a $10,000 reward for her capture as government agent Buck Jones is loosed on her trail. Infiltrating the band, the scene in which Buck is branded a 'squaw thief' with a hot poker is quite potent.

 NEBRASKAN (1953 Columbia)
Chief Spotted Bear (Jay Silverheels) and his Indians are after Wingfoot (Maurice Jara), an Indian aide to Army scout Phil Carey, who they think killed a tribal elder. Wingfoot is on the run with escaped outlaw-trooper Lee Van Cleef. They, along with Carey's old girlfriend (Roberta Haynes) and her new husband, cowardly gambler Richard Webb, all end up at grouchy old timer Wallace Ford's dugout trading post trapped by the Indians. As in most of these films, the bad guys (Webb, Van Cleef) have the best roles even if the dialogue is crappy, by-the-numbers rote. Originally made in 3-D, so some of the 'comin' at ya' shots look rather foolish in 2-D as does some of the mis-color-matched action stock footage. Watch for Dennis Weaver in a small role as a cavalry officer a couple of years before he became Chester on GUNSMOKE. Produced by former actor Wallace MacDonald and directed by Fred Sears, a veteran of many Durango Kid B's.

 LAW OF THE BADLANDS (1950 RKO)
Posing as outlaws (Tioga Kid and Pancho Chompez) to nab some clever counterfeiters (Leonard Penn, Robert Livingston, Robert Bray, Larry Johns) flooding the country with the phony stuff, Tim Holt and Richard 'Chito' Martin are exposed when an old girlfriend of Chito's (Joan Dixon) suddenly upsets the apple cart. The showdown (Tim once again trapped --- a standard RKO plot ploy) in the badlands is well handled by director Les Selander except for a few time-lapse problems. Nice to see Harry Woods on the right side of the law as an undercover secret service agent. I kept expecting him to pull a gun on Holt and say he wasn't really a secret service man.

 PANHANDLE (1948 Allied Artists)
"Oh the deacon went down in the cellar to pray ... but he got drunk and he stayed all day ... Ain't gonna grieve my Lord no more", so sings Rod Cameron plaintively as an ex-gunman who has to buckle on his guns one more time to avenge the murder of his brother by saloon owner/town boss Reed Hadley. It's not the simple revenge plot that makes PANHANDLE shine, it's the style with which it's carried off, slowly building the tension between Hadley and Cameron to the final showdown in the rain on a dirty street. Anne Gwynne is Hadley's secretary who winds up (naturally) with Cameron who also spars with tomboyish Cathy Downs. Blake Edwards, who later found huge success with the Pink Panther films, VICTOR/VICTORIA, 10, and others, wrote the script and is one of Hadley's gunmen as well. Edwards also wrote another of Cameron's best, STAMPEDE. PANHANDLE contains one of the best screen brawls in westerns between Rod and Jeff York. A highly underrated western directed by Les Selander who was so fond of it, he remade it in 1966 with Audie Murphy as THE TEXICAN, a definitely inferior film. Cowboy cancer alert --- Rod rolls his own.

 RETURN OF THE RANGERS (1943 PRC)
The Texas Rangers (Dave O'Brien, Jim Newill, Guy Wilkerson) expose a gang headed by Glenn Strange of the Custer Land and Cattle Co. attempting to evict people from their long-standing homesteads. They'd been promised a home the balance of their lives and now, when the owner of the land is dead, Strange and his boys (Charlie King, Dick Alexander, I. Stanford Jolley) discover the trustee in charge of the estate (Harry Harvey) will be arriving. They murder him and put in a ringer (Robert Barron) who'll co-operate with their scheme. Nell O'Day is the interim ranch manager caught in the middle being helped by our intrepid heroes. Nell O'Day (1910-1989) was about at the end of her movie trail, having had a very successful two year association with Johnny Mack Brown at Universal. During the War she married actor Larry Williams who became ill and was an invalid for years. Nell turned to plays in New York as well as script writing ("The Monster Maker"). After Williams died, she remarried, lived abroad and wrote for numerous publications. She also acted in some 20 industrial films for the Johns Manville company over the years.

 THUNDER MOUNTAIN (1935 20TH Century Fox)
Based on the Zane Grey novel which was published the same year this film was released, THUNDER MOUNTAIN downplays action in favor of dramatics. After George O'Brien and pal Dean Benton make their gold strike, Benton goes to file on the claim but is dry-gulched and left for dead by corrupt saloon owner Morgan Wallace. When George investigates, he finds their claim jumped and the area inundated with prospectors. The strong plot finds George hooking up with old prospector Gabby Hayes to try and reclaim his strike while he inadvertently falls in love with the wrong girl-mercenary Barbara Fritchie-when he should be looking toward saloon singer Frances Grant who works for Wallace. Good results from director David Howard in this the final of O'Brien's Zane Grey series.

 CALIFORNIA MAIL (1936 Warner Bros.)
Standard stuff well done by Dick Foran and director Noel Smith who helmed five of Foran's twelve series westerns. To award the mail contract, a 30 mile 4th of July stagecoach race is devised over dangerous territory. The bidders are Foran and his Dad (Tom Brower), Ed Cobb and his brother (Milton Kibbee), and old timer Fred Burns. Since Cobb covets Foran's girl, Linda Perry, and he and his brother are no good anyway, they rig the race by sabotaging Foran's coach then later steal his horse, Smoke, in order to blame a robbery on Foran by using the recognizable Smoke and a lookalike Foran (Bob Woodward). Let's just say Smoke metes out justice! One glaring error midway: Foran, for a time, is riding a pinto when he comes upon a stage holdup. Cut to the holdup. Back to Foran --- on a black horse! Back to the holdup then back to Foran once again on the pinto! Roy Rogers fans will be pleased to hear him call a square dance ... and the Sons of the Pioneers all back up Foran on a song. This one is worth watching alone for some of the very funny moments with comedic outlaw Glenn Strange.

 NEVADA BADMEN (1951 Monogram)
Kenne Duncan discovers gold on his place and sends for his brother Jim Bannon who brings along his pals Whip Wilson and Fuzzy Knight. Unfortunately, crooked express agent I. Stanford Jolley, banker Bill Kennedy and their henchmen (Riley Hill, Marshall Reed and Lee Roberts) also learn of the gold and kill Duncan. Our hero-trio helps Duncan's daughter Phyllis Coates find the unrecorded mine and save the ranch. The Wilsons really took a nosedive when Andy Clyde left the series at the end of 1950. Even though replaced by popular Fuzzy Knight and second lead Jim Bannon, the even more threadbare budgets under producer Vincent Fennelly were really beginning to take a toll. Wilson's best westerns were behind him. This one lets Whip pop-it only once, and that's while he's herding cattle. The film is simply saddled with too much milling and riding around.

 RAWHIDE MAIL (1934 Reliable)
Jack Perrin, who made his mark in silent westerns, had a likeable screen persona and looked fine in early talkies, but he never got much help from the production end in all the lowbudget fare he made for Reliable, Atlantic, Big 4, Principal, Syndicate or Horner. In this one, three good-hearted bandits, Perrin and his silly-billy pals, Shakespeare-spouting ex-lawyer Nelson McDowell and Mexican Chris Pin Martin, help out Lillian Gilmore (a real non-actress) when smarmy Richard Cramer cheats her out of a saloon/dance hall she's come west to inherit. Jack and the boys open up a rival saloon to thwart Cramer and his bartender stooge, Lew Meehan. The plot explains where Jack's group gets the liquor to open but fails to detail where the dealers, girls, cards, tables, musicians and gaming equipment came from. I'm sure producer/director B. B. Ray figured, "Aw, who cares? It's just another cheapie western". It's that type of slipshod non-caring thinking that brought so many of these lowbudget oaters to their knees.

 COWBOY FROM SUNDOWN (1940 Monogram)
Lot of palaver abut hoof and mouth disease with very little excitement until the windup, then it's too little too late to save this weary Tex Ritter entry. Sheriff Ritter and deputy Gloomy Day (Roscoe Ates in his sole effort as a Ritter sidekick) foil banker George Pembroke, his son Carleton Young and lawyer Tris Coffin's plan to generate a false epidemic in a scheme to gain control of the valley. Pauline Hadden is the girl with Dave O'Brien as her brother.

 'NEATH THE ARIZONA SKIES (1934 Lone Star)
In search of the father of the half breed girl (Shirley Jean Rickert) he has raised since infancy, John Wayne is overtaken by Yakima Canutt's outlaws who learn the youngster is worth a fortune in oil to them. Rickert's Osage Indian mother had died and her wayward father, Earl Dwire, had skedaddled west. Now Rickert is heir to $50,000 in oil leases, but Wayne must locate Dwire and get his signature on the documents. It's a convoluted plot from Burl Tuttle (also featuring Sheila Terry, Buffalo Bill Jr., George Hayes and Jack Rockwell) which was filmed before as CIRCLE CANYON ('33) with Buddy Roosevelt but the difference between the two films is like night and day as Harry Fraser's direction here brings out and clarifies important plot points only vaguely hinted at in the previous version. (Note --- this film is often listed as 'NEATH ARIZONA SKIES.)

 BROKEN LAND (1962 20TH Century Fox)
Three young drifters (Robert Sampson, Gary Sneed, Jack Nicholson) and a girl (Dianna Darrin) become outlaws when pushed too hard by domineering sheriff Kent Taylor. Jody McCrea (Joel's son) is wasted as a deputy with only one good scene. When the scenery and photography (by Floyd Crosby) is better than the actors, the script or direction --- you're in trouble. Filmed at Apacheland in the shadow of the Superstition Mountains.

 PAINTED TRAIL (1938 Monogram)
Rustling, stage holdups and smuggling along the Rio Grande brings U. S. Marshal Tom Keene undercover as the Pecos Kid to the border country where his ruse gains him admittance to the bandit gang headed up by LeRoy Mason and brutish Walter Long. When the daughter of an old friend, Eleanor Stewart, recognizes him it nearly spoils Keene's plans to work with the Mexican police to round up the border gang. A few deft directorial touches by Robert Hill make this one of Keene's best. Canadian born Hill (1896-1966) started as a director in 1919 directing serials. As well, he often moonlighted as a writer under the pseudonym of Rock Hawley. It's been said that a problem with alcohol kept him bouncing from one independent to another and kept him out of the major leagues, except on rare occasions --- a stint with Keene at RKO in the early '30s and the second Flash Gordon serial, FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS. Nevertheless, much of his work requires no apologies as it's well-set and slickly paced.

 SOUTH PACIFIC TRAIL (1952 Republic)
A reworking of GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY ('41) with Bob Steele, an idea recycled once again for William Elliott's LAST BANDIT ('49). Under director Bill Witney, this third 'version' has nasty Roy Barcroft (as the foreman of a ranch owned by Nestor Paiva and his daughter Estelita Rodriguez) plotting the heist of a train carrying a million in gold, causing it to disappear on a railroad spur leading to an abandoned mine on the ranch. Rex Allen replaces Roy Rogers as Arthur Orloff's script also borrows liberally from the plotline of SONG OF NEVADA. The Republic Rhythm Riders (Darol Rice, George Bamby, Slim Duncan, Buddy ?) back up Rex on songs. In a fight with Barcroft, Rex beautifully performs what became a 'standard' move for him as he pins Barcroft's hands behind his back, then spins him around to administer the final punch.

 RIO GRANDE (1938 Columbia)
A smart, savvy script by Charles Francis Royal highlights this exciting confrontation between Charles Starrett and Dick Curtis. Thoroughly bad Curtis and his right hand man, George Chesebro, want rancher Hal Taliaferro's land for its water. Hal sends for help in the form of his old friend Charles Starrett who arrives too late, Curtis has gunned down Taliaferro leaving his sister Ann Doran alone. But Starrett and his pals, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers, outsmart Curtis and Chesebro every step of the way. One can only speculate, we'll never know for sure what prompted Columbia head Harry Cohn to dislike Bob Nolan's solo voice bad enough to have it dubbed by someone else.

 WESTERN RENEGADES (1949 Monogram)
Bit different twist on an old plot from screenwriter Adele Buffington. Within the first 15 minutes Johnny Mack Brown knows who the bad guys are, after that we just watch his shrewd way of letting them trap themselves. Certainly a more elaborate plan than usual, but a ranch grab nevertheless as boss Hugh Prosser and his henchies (Marshall Reed, Terry Frost, William Ruhl, Myron Healey) frame ex-Marshal now livery-man Steve Clark for the murder of his friend Marshall Bradford. Bradford was awaiting the return arrival of his dead (so he thought) wife. Prosser then brings in an imposter-wife (Constance Worth) so he can slicker the ranch away from Bradford's children, Jane Adams and Riley Hill. Sidekick Max Terhune has a relatively unimportant role in this one as Sheriff. The Steve Clark role seems tailor made for longtime Brown partner Raymond Hatton, but Hatton was now gone from the series.

 GUN LAW JUSTICE (1949 Monogram)
One of the best of the Jimmy Wakely westerns with the part of a lifetime for Lee Phelps (would that he was a slightly better actor) as a paroled ex-outlaw returning to the town he looted 15 years earlier, now determined to go straight. Conincidentally, his release coincides with the 25th anniversary of the gang's raid on the town --- which the town oddly celebrates with a re-enactment of the robbery. (I guess if it's good enough for Coffeyville, it's good enough for West Bend!) Phelps is also adamant about seeing that his wayward son, John James, doesn't follow in his outlaw footsteps, but, James is already riding with I. Stanford Jolley and his bandits (Myron Healey, Carol Henry, Bob Curtis) who have James convinced crime does pay. Wakely and saddle-buffoon Dub 'Cannonball' Taylor help Phelps land a job riding shotgun for leading lady Jane Adams' stagecoach line but Jolley and the boys have plans to lay a real robbery blame on Phelps during the re-enactment. Credit to screenwriter Basil Dickey for coming up with a different story (other than the tired old land grab plots). Well handled by director Lambert Hillyer. Watch for Ray Whitley in a musical number with Wakely at the very start. Whitley was, at the time, Jimmy's manager.

 GUNSLINGERS (1950 Monogram)
The railroad is coming through! Grab that land by hook or crook! Whip Wilson comes to the aid of Andy Clyde, telegraph operator Reno Browne, storekeeper Sarah Padden, blacksmith Steve Clark, Clark's son Riley Hill and the rest of the drought stricken citizens of Rockhill who are being menaced by saloon owner Bill Kennedy, phony marshal Dennis Moore and their henchies, crooked judge George Chesebro, Frank McCarroll and Carol Henry. Whip use - 3. Nice inter-cutting between three locations --- Walker Ranch, Iverson's and Melody (Monogram) Ranch by director Wallace Fox. Reno Browne (1921-1991) was Whip's leading lady in 6 westerns, this being her last. A rodeo queen out of Reno, NV (hence her name), she was one of the best female riders in the business. She was married for a brief period to that other whip-wielder, Lash LaRue.

 OUTLAWS OF THE PLAINS (1946 PRC)
Fuzzy St. John, tricked into believing he is psychic, is told by Chief Standing Pine from the spirit world, there is gold on Charlie King's property. But it's all a scam by King, Jack O'Shea and John Cason to sell Fuzzy the worthless property for $50,000, which Fuz tries to raise by having all his rancher friends who believe in him mortgage their land and go in with him on the 'gold mine'. Enter Fuz's old pal, Buster Crabbe, who has a much more level, logical head on his shoulders-with fists and guns to back it up! This was the last of Buster Crabbe's 36 B-westerns over a six year period for PRC, but this one is Fuzzy's film all the way, including the windup when Fuz chases, bulldogs Charlie King off his horse and captures him rather than star Crabbe. Even at the start --- Crabbe doesn't appear until the 15 minute mark! He went on to make SWAMP FIRE and other B-films as well as three Columbia serials while Fuzzy saddled up with Lash LaRue within the year and kept right on ridin' the sidekick trail.

 STICK TO YOUR GUNS (1941 Paramount)
When you watch a dozen or so PRC and Monogram B-westerns in a row, then slip in a Hopalong Cassidy from Paramount, you effectively realize how much better even an average Hoppy was in production values and overall quality than the best from PRC, Monogram, Spectrum and other low-budget studios. Sound, camera-work, lighting, music score, location (Lone Pine here), subtle script nuances, direction - simply everything was higher in quality. Part of the reason is the care spent on each film --- Hoppy's generally went 13 days in production, while PRC, Monogram --- even Republic --- shot their B-westerns in 5-7 days. This film is a remake of Hoppy's own BAR 20 RIDES AGAIN from 1935 --- albeit a lackluster remake with Dick Curtis as the rustler gang boss, Nevada, given none of the outstanding characteristics that made Harry Worth so memorable in the earlier version. Curtis' outlaw band includes Weldon Heyburn, Ian MacDonald (in one of his first screen roles. He achieved outlaw fame as killer Frank Miller in HIGH NOON ten years later), Kermit Maynard, Jack Rockwell, Frank Ellis and Bob Kortman. A new leading lady is introduced to the screen --- Jacqueline (soon Jennifer) Holt, screen legend Jack Holt's daughter. She isn't given much to do and it's obvious she's still finding her way in her first screen appearance. It's a well known fact William Boyd wasn't fond of singing cowboys, but obviously producer Harry 'Pop' Sherman saw some value in them to combat the onslaught of Rogers, Autry and others as he threw in, as members of the Bar 20 outfit, the Jimmy Wakely Trio for several songs (Wakely, Johnny Bond, Dick Rinehart). A couple of their tunes are quite nice, especially "On the Strings of My Lonesome Guitar" written by Smiley Burnette (Wakely revived it in his own films LONESOME TRAIL ['45] and OKLAHOMA BLUES ['48].) Also Hoppy newcomer Brad King (1918-1981) sings with the Wakely Trio in a love scene with Jennifer. King took the place of Russell 'Lucky' Hayden (who left for Columbia) but was no 'replacement' --- after five films he was gone in favor of Jay Kirby, still no great shakes. With King, producer Sherman reverted to the 'Johnny Nelson' character name used by Jimmy Ellison five years earlier.

 BANDITS OF DARK CANYON (1947 Republic)
A spooky ghost town! A murdered man who isn't dead! An empty grave! A lost gold mine! Texas Ranger Allan 'Rocky' Lane encounters plenty of fights, gunplay and action (including a wild ore-wagon chase) on the trail to clearing escaped convict Bob Steele who was framed by leading lady Linda Johnson's uncle, John Elliott, Steele's former partner, for Roy Barcroft's murder. Barcroft is alive and working for Elliott. Second in the excellent 'Rocky' Lane series is directed by Phil Ford, with a cameo featuring his father, old timer Francis Ford, brother to John Ford. Only drawback to this western is a couple of badly mismatched pieces of stock footage where Lane and the stock used are wearing totally different color shirts.

 CONQUEST OF CHEYENNE (1946 Republic)
Bill Elliott's final western as Red Ryder finds he and Little Beaver coming to the aid of the Duchess' (Alice Fleming) second cousin on her Mother's side, Peggy Stewart, whose property has attracted the attention of unscrupulous banker Milton Kibbee (and his henchmen George Sherwood, Kenne Duncan and gunman Frank McCarroll) due to its vast oil deposits. Jay Kirby, just off a run as Johnny in several Hopalong Cassidy pictures, is the young geologist/love interest for Stewart --- who has a lot of trouble with her horseless carriage.

 CALL THE MESQUITEERS (1938 Republic)
This one's for the action-all-the-way fans as the 3 Mesquiteers (Bob Livingston, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune) run afoul of modern day truck-bandit raw silk thieves led by Eddy Waller in an offbeat role for him as a heavy. When the Mesquiteers are accused of a train robbery and pursued by police, they get help from medicine showman Earle Hodgins (who does his spiel as well as it's ever been done), his daughter Lynne Roberts, her kid brother Sammy McKim and his dog Flash. This was the second film in the long-running series to incorporate 'Mesquiteers' into the title ... the other time was for their first film, THE THREE MESQUITEERS. Very serial-like in its all-action approach by director John English (1903-1969), one of the foremost action directors working for Republic during their golden age of serials in the '40s. A Canadian who settled in Hollywood in the '30s and had a brief apprenticeship at Ambassador and Puritan on Kermit Maynard and Tim McCoy westerns before becoming firmly established at Republic beginning with the serial ZORRO RIDES AGAIN which he co-directed with Bill Witney. Together, they completed 17 serials in a row. However, this was English's first feature for Republic. He went on to helm many others with Don Barry, 3 Mesquiteers, Bill Elliott and Roy Rogers before moving over to Columbia when Gene Autry started his production set-up there in '47.

 BORDER RANGERS (1950 Lippert)
Don Barry's better than average abilities bring off with flair and style a routine plot written, directed and produced by old pro William Berke. Texas Ranger Barry, seeking to avenge the murder of his brother and sister-in-law (Alyn Lockwood), infiltrates Robert Lowery's gang (John Merton, George Keymas, Tom Monroe) in order to lure them back across the border to rob a bank where Rangers (led by Bill Kennedy) lie in wait. Having Barry's nephew (Paul Jordan) captured by the gang adds a new twist. Pamela Blake and Wally Vernon are the must-have-one-in-every-western girl and comic relief. Cowboy cancer alert --- as the outlaw Rio Kid, Barry smokes a cigarette.

 YODELIN' KID FROM PINE RIDGE (1937 Republic)
Gene Autry is dismissed from the ranch by his father (Charles Middleton) because the elder Autry resents his son's interference in a plan to punish suspected cattle rustlers (the redneck Turpentiners who live in the Georgia Turpentine Forest led by Russell Simpson). Gene is sure they're not guilty and is also in love with Simpson's daughter, gangly Betty Bronson. Estranged from his Dad for years, Gene returns with Frog Milhouse's (Smiley Burnette) Wild West Show (which includes a scene of Gene putting Champion through his trick paces). Still at odds with his Pop, Gene has to rout out the real rustlers (LeRoy Mason, Jack Dougherty) to prove himself. The Georgia hill-country is an unusual setting for a 'western', but it works well here with the support of pros like Middleton (Ming the Merciless in the FLASH GORDON serial) and Russell Simpson, later a John Ford stock-company regular. Former silent child-star Betty Bronson (1907-1971) had played 'Peter Pan' in 1924. This was her only western. Gene sings "Sing Me A Song of the Saddle", obviously a tune he liked as he reused it often, including in his final picture, LAST OF THE PONY RIDERS. One gripe --- we could have done without the hill-silliness of the Tennessee Ramblers and an off-key girl duo.

 CYCLONE OF THE SADDLE (1935 Superior)
Pretty lame, lowbudget affair as cavalry officer Rex Lease goes undercover to capture George Chesebro and Yakima Canutt running guns to the Indians. Plenty of silent stock footage of Indian raids on the wagon train and the stockade. Of note is Yakima Canutt as he devises a brutal new weapon, a bullwhip with a knife tied to the end of it. Janet Chandler is the leading lady with William Desmond as wagon master, Milburn Morante as a scout, kid kowboy Bobby Nelson, former silent star Helen Gibson as Ma and Chief Thundercloud. Glenn Strange and his cowboy band sing "Old Wagon Train".

 STORMY TRAILS (1936 Colony)
Convoluted plot based on the novel Stampede by E. B. Mann has Rex Bell and his sibling Bob Hodges plagued by a real estate speculator and a gang of cattle rustlers led by Karl Hackett and Chuck Morrison out to grab Rex and Bob's ranch. Bank robbery, murder frames, night raids, stampedes, loan renewals and a gold mine all enter into the involved plot before Bell and sheriff Murdock MacQuarrie round up the crooks and Rex has his final clinch with pert little Lois Wilde (who needed more to do). Watch for Lane Chandler as one of Rex's ranch hands and onetime silent star Bill Patton as a hard riding cowboy at about the 40 minute mark. The plot is confused but Bell handles the action well in his next to last series western, the fifth of six for Colony. Like all of Bell's Colony westerns, STORMY TRAILS was handled on a states' rights basis by First Division and when that exchange was taken over by Grand National, the series was reissued by them. Following the demise of this series, Bell spent more time ranching and with his wife Clara Bow on their Walking Box Ranch in Nevada. He did manage to co-star with Buck Jones in DAWN ON THE GREAT DIVIDE in '42 and play small roles in TOMBSTONE, THE TOWN TOO TOUGH TO DIE ('42) and two Clark Gable films, LONE STAR ('52) and THE MISFITS ('61).

 YELLOW TOMAHAWK (1954 United Artists)
Ever notice in Cavalry pictures of the '50s, the least important members of the cast are killed by the Indians first --- then pretty much in order of importance. In this one, Scout Rory Calhoun romances Peggie Castle (not too tough to handle) and tries to protect settlers against a Cheyenne uprising led by Fire Knife (Lee Van Cleef) while Major Warner Anderson worries more about his precious desk than the lives of his men and their wives. Heavy on action, particularly brutal and savage for its time. Good supporting cast --- Peter Graves, Noah Beery Jr. (whose French accent --- or is it Mexican? --- comes and goes), Rita Moreno, Walter Reed and James Best. Filmed in Cinecolor in Kanab, UT, but no color prints seem to survive.

GUN RANGER (1936 Supreme/Republic)
After capturing outlaws like Ernie Adams and getting no satisfaction from a crooked lawyer and a misdirected judge (John Merton and Frank Ball), Bob Steele 'resigns' from the Rangers and goes gunning for badmen (like Adams, Lew Meehan and Earl Dwire) on his own. But surprise! Bob is thrown a twist when he discovers Adams isn't all he believes him to be. Average Steele, no better, no worse than many of his others.

 IN OLD SANTA FE (1934 Mascot)
A seminal B-western, important for what it foreshadowed. It marks the beginning of the end for star Ken Maynard and the beginning (with virtually no end) for Gene Autry. It was the starring silent westerns Maynard made in the '20s for First National (soon absorbed by Warner Bros.) that made him a cowboy star of the first rank. When he moved over to Universal in 1929 he was in peak condition, his horsemanship was spectacular. After a brief slide at Tiffany and World Wide in the early '30s, Ken was back on top at Universal once again by 1933, making $10,000 a week --- a truly tidy sum in the wake of the depression. But there were problems, all of which stemmed from Ken's stubborn, demanding nature --- abetted by his fondness for booze. Ken could be a mean drunk. And he drank a lot. He was temperamental, belligerent, he wanted things done his way and flew into temper tantrums when they were not. Ken parted company with Universal in 1934 because they wouldn't give him his way. Nat Levine, owner of tiny Mascot, picked him up immediately, still at $10,000 per week. Levine had big things planned for Ken but after IN OLD SANTA FE and the MYSTERY MOUNTAIN serial, Levine too let Ken go because Ken's low boiling point had become far too difficult to deal with, abusive when drunk and argumentative on the set when things weren't to his personal satisfaction. Levine had planned to star Ken in PHANTOM EMPIRE but gave it to Gene Autry whose seven minute musical segment midway in IN OLD SANTA FE (for which he was paid $75) had generated positive feedback. Gene sings "Wyoming Waltz", Smiley clowns "Mama Don't Allow" and Gene returns for "Old Santa Fe", a song Levine bought and named the picture after even though nothing in the story takes place in Santa Fe. Interesting to note, touches of the Jimmie Rodgers influence in Gene's voice still linger on. Within a year or so, Autry's popularity eclipsed not only Maynard's, but all the other cowboy stars. Maynard was now 40 and, because of his drinking, was becoming increasingly pudgy. Larry Darmour signed him for an independent series of eight released through Columbia. From there it was all downhill --- fast --- at Grand National, Colony and finally Monogram as part of the Trail Blazers. Even there his demanding ways caused his exit from that lowbudget work. It makes one wonder --- what if Ken had been more agreeable with Levine and not been dropped in 1934 before Mascot was absorbed into Republic ... would Ken have been 'the Singing Cowboy' Autry became? Would Bob Nolan have continued to dub Ken's singing voice as he does in IN OLD SANTA FE? The film gives us not only the birth of Gene Autry (and Smiley Burnette) but marks a career turning point for George Hayes as well. His crotchety old characters in John Wayne Lone Star westerns had convinced Hayes this was his best shot at stardom. His loveable old grump persona comes to fruition in IN OLD SANTA FE as Cactus. Producer Harry Sherman was impressed enough with Hayes' role that he hired him for his Hopalong Cassidy films in 1935. Hayes left Sherman in '38 for more dinero at Republic opposite Roy Rogers. After CARIBOO TRAIL with Randolph Scott in 1950, Gabby retired. With an obviously better than average B-western budget, IN OLD SANTA FE is set in the modern day west on a dude ranch owned by H. B. Warner and his daughter (former Wampus Baby Star Evalyn Knapp) whom Ken takes a shine to. Also arriving at the ranch is slick eastern gangster Kenneth Thomson whose father was once an associate of Warner's, so Thomson blackmails Warner into turning over half the ranch to him. Realizing Maynard is a threat to him, he and his henchman (Wheeler Oakman) at first rig a horse race so that Ken loses his prize palomino, Tarzan, and later frame Ken for the murder and robbery of a stage driver. Granted, the final denouement reveals a few off-screen actions we weren't privy to, but overall --- with an exceptionally exciting horse race, a good script, some quite funny lines, Autry and Burnette's musical interlude midway and a quick pace, it's an especially entertaining picture. Indeed, with its fantasy blend of old and new --- cars and horses, gangsters and cowboys, music and western action --- the film truly foreshadowed the Autry films with all of these ideas carried over into his pictures. For IN OLD SANTA FE, director David Howard was hired on loan from Fox but his contract expired before the film was completed, so Joe Kane finished up the picture uncredited. Howard later directed many George O'Brien and Tim Holt westerns. As a footnote to Maynard, he may not have been the first cowboy to sing on screen, but he was in the forefront of popularizing the breed. However, after IN OLD SANTA FE and the advent of Autry, he never sang on screen again. Maynard's final years were spent in virtual poverty with his boozing becoming increasingly worse. Interestingly, one of his greatest benefactors was Gene Autry who had idolized Ken long before this film. Gene never allowed Maynard to be aware of his monetary support in Ken's final years. Ken died a physical wreck at the Motion Picture Hospital in 1973. He was the biggest enigma in westerns --- handsome, romantic and charming on one hand yet troublesome and demanding on the other. So much so that it eventually cost him his career.

 TENTING TONIGHT ON THE OLD CAMPGROUND (1943 Universal)
Definitely not one of the best Johnny Mack Brown/Tex Ritter teamings with the usual at first animosity between the pair seeming forced and contrived. Ritter's role as a New York stageline representative is the kind that obviously made him feel slighted and secondary to Brown. It's totally inferior to Brown's, very adversarial and poorly written as to his intentions. Ritter fans will definitely wince at his often apologetic role. The uneven, episodic script by Elizabeth Beecher (from a Harry Fraser story) has Brown's stagecoach crew trying to finish the road in order to make a test run on time. Brown is aided by pal Dennis Moore (whose role is better than Ritter's until he is killed) and 'legal genius' Fuzzy Knight in two very unfunny courtroom scenes with Judge Earle Hodgins. The bad guys, two former low-budget stars, Rex Lease and Lane Chandler, plot to disrupt construction of the road in order to gain the government mail contract for themselves. Jennifer Holt is Moore's sister and gets to sing "Cielito Lindo" (possibly the most used tune in westerns!). Although Brown and Ritter are at odds over how to handle construction of the road, by the final showdown they're fighting shoulder to shoulder. The Jimmy Wakely Trio contribute some songs.

 THE PHANTOM OF SANTA FE (1936 Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures)
Mesmerizingly dull search (I hesitate to use the word 'chase') for the Zorro-like Hawk (Norman Kerry) who has reportedly stolen priceless treasures from a mission in Santa Fe. Eventually, after mucho-boreo-lingo, the Hawk exposes Americano Frank Mayo as the real thief. Minor silent star Jack Mower plays Mexican Army captain Rubio. One of the earliest uses of Cinecolor, the film was originally produced in 1931 by Ashton Dearholt under the title THE HAWK, but not released until five years later in this re-scored, re-edited and, at least partially if not totally, re-dubbed version. It didn't help!

 PHANTOM RANCHER (1940 Colony)
Another rip and run Harry Fraser directorial job for producers Max and Arthur Alexander. Crooked realtor Ted Adams (and his gunmen, Dave O'Brien, Carl Mathews, Sherry Tansey) wants control of the valley to graze his herds. When farmer John Elliott won't sell, Adams has him murdered and blames Ken Maynard, newly arrived in town to take over his late uncle's ranch. Absolved of the crime by old coot Harry Harvey, Ken dons a black mask and cloak and becomes the Phantom Rider, ala Robin Hood, helping Elliott's daughter, Dorothy Short, and other ranchers to pay off their mortgages to Adams. Ken was paid $10,000 total for these four Alexander-Brothers-produced westerns. They were shot back to back on one week schedules. He wasn't back in the saddle until the brief Trail Blazers series in 1943. Dorothy Short and Dave O'Brien were man and wife when this was made. Producers Max and Arthur Alexander were cousins of Universal's former production chief, Carl Laemmle Jr., who no doubt had a hand in firing Maynard from Universal after Ken's demanding ways on his productions became too much for Universal to handle.

 RIDERS OF BLACK RIVER (1939 Columbia)
No action til the final reel (a bruising fight between Charles Starrett and Dick Curtis) makes this one of Starrett's weaker early westerns. Charlie has to uncover a rustling gang (Dick Curtis, Ed Cobb, Maston Williams, Olin Francis, Carl Sepulveda) who killed his elder sheriff brother (Forrest Taylor) and are using the ranch of young Stanley Brown (brother of Starrett's main squeeze, Iris Meredith) to hide-out their rustled cattle. A remake of Tim McCoy's REVENGE RIDER ('35). Iris Meredith (1915-1980) was the pride of Columbia from 1936-1941 working opposite their two big guns, Bill Elliott and Charles Starrett, in 24 B-westerns as well as OVERLAND WITH KIT CARSON and SPIDER'S WEB serials. She also managed a few opposite Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter, Bob Allen, Buster Crabbe and the Texas Rangers (Newill, O'Brien). She fought a valiant fight against oral cancer the last 15 years of her life, finally succumbing at only 65.

 WAGON TRAIN (1940 RKO)
The film that established Tim Holt as a B-western star boasts a bigger budget than most Bs of the period with dozens of extras, large wagon train scenes and location settings in Kanab, UT. It also boasts a story of A-western proportions as Holt, owner of a wagon train, fights off the unscrupulous schemes of Cliff Clark and his son Bud McTaggart to take over his business as well as all the trading posts in the area, creating a monopoly for father and son along the trade route. Unbeknownst to Tim, Clark murdered Tim's father years earlier. On one of the wagons from the east is Martha O'Driscoll who has come west to wed McTaggart, even though she doesn't truly love him. Needless to say, Tim and Martha tumble for one another. The story by Bernard McConville (who'd written dozens of good ones for the 3 Mesquiteers, Gene Autry and George O'Brien) is an imposing one, fleshed out by Morton Grant who was involved in many of the following Holt pre-war scripts. Watch for Eddie Dew in a small role as one of the farmers. Clem Burgess, Utah's championship square dance caller, supervised the dances in the picture.

 UNDER WESTERN SKIES (1945 Universal)
Musical-comedy western with Noah Beery Jr. as a timid schoolteacher who falls for Martha O'Driscoll, lead singer in a Barbary Coast Revue that's just arrived in the small town of Rim Rock. The complications set in when bandit Leo Carrillo also takes a liking to O'Driscoll. Also with Irving Bacon as a two-gun sheriff who's losing his eyesight, Leon Errol as O'Driscoll's showbiz pop, Earle Hodgins as the slightly larcenous Mayor, Ian Keith as a Shakespearean spouting showman, vaudevillians Shaw and Lee (who perform a quite funny stagebit), Jennifer Holt as Beery's uptight girlfriend, Eddy Waller as the preacher, with Jack Ingram and Frank Lackteen as two of Carrillo's men.

 CROOKED RIVER (1950 Lippert)
Thomas Carr directed six Jimmy Ellison/Russell Hayden co-starring lowbudget Bs for producer Ron Ormond, cobbling all six together in a one month period by using the same casts, costumes and locations and shooting whatever barroom, hideout, ranch house etc. scenes were needed for all six all at once to speed things up. It must have been a script supervisor's nightmare! Considering the hurriedness, it's a distinct compliment to Carr's expertise that the films turned out as good as they are, competent B-westerns, some with quite interesting ideas. Each one was a remake of a '30s western --- this one is based on Bob Steele's SMOKEY SMITH ('35). This is the strangest of the six as in all the others Ellison and Hayden were good-guy pals, but here 'Shamrock' Ellison is the star searching for the killer (John Cason) of his parents (George Chesebro and silent screen serial heroine Helen Gibson). Hayden's a not-too-bad bandit leader for whom Cason now rides. Cason has the hots for Hayden's sister, Betty (Julia) Adams, and blinds Hayden with lye during an argument. Hayden sees the error of his ways and kills Cason in another fight as Ellison saves the town (in an all-too-obvious-Bob-Steele-stock-footage battle in the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine) from another outlaw (George J. Lewis) and his gattling gun gang (Tom Tyler, Dennis Moore, Carl Mathews). Retitled LAST BULLET for TV release.

 LUCKY TERROR (1936 Diversion)
After a promising chase at the beginning, this minor affair bogs down badly with a time wasting extended medicine show scene followed by a drawn-out courtroom sequence before it comes alive with some neat goings-on and trick riding at the windup. Eventually, Hoot Gibson saves Lona Andre's gold mine from Jack Rockwell, Wally Wales and Art Mix. What a cast of characters --- lazy medicine show doc Charles Hill and his Mexican helper Frank Yaconelli, pompous sheriff Bob McKenzie, bewhiskered judge Milburn Morante and the saving grace ... drunken, slovenly lawyer Charles King who absolutely steals the show generating some genuine belly laffs. Written and directed by Alan James.

 THUNDERING TRAIL (1951 Western Adventure Prod.)
The beginning of the end for Lash LaRue. His last four Ron Ormond produced and directed pictures were all slash and run hack jobs filled with stock footage action sequences from previous films making the viewer wonder if he'd already seen this picture. As Lash and Fuzzy St. John attempt to get the newly appointed territorial governor (Archie Twitchell) through to Capitol City, they battle marauding stock footage outlaws all the way. The picture even begins with stock previously used by Ormond in one of those Jimmy Ellison/Russell Hayden quickies. In Lash stock #1 --- from MARK OF THE LASH, John Cason and two others ambush a cattle buyer. Lash intervenes. Lash stock #2 --- from DEADMAN'S GOLD, Lash and Fuzzy (nose twitching) split up on the trail and are then ambushed by John Cason, Pierce Lyden and Steve Keyes. Lash stock #3 --- from SON OF BILLY THE KID, outlaws ambush a stage with Lash and Dee Cooper driving. Lash stock #4 is another brief stagecoach ambush. Lash stock #5 --- from SON OF BILLY THE KID again, Terry Frost and Lee Morgan ambush a covered wagon. It's six-gun-loaded with action --- but you've seen it all before. The fun comes in seeing how 'screenwriter' Ira Webb (and an uncredited Maurice Tombragel) patched it all together. Whip use --- only once in all that stock!

 GUN TOWN (1946 Universal)
Universal pulled out all the action stops for GUN TOWN, reusing lots of footage and plot elements from their BADLANDS OF DAKOTA ('41). At first believed to be an outlaw, Kirby Grant (from the Bureau of Indian Affairs) investigates stage holdups blamed on Indians by saloon owner Lyle Talbot, his singer-girlfriend Claire Carleton (who overplays herrole mightily) and his gunmen Dan White and Ray Bennett. Grant is helped by Fuzzy Knight (now sidekickin' with his 5th Universal hero after having seen Bob Baker, Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter and Rod Cameron either bite the dust or move on to other pictures), Louise Currie (as whip-wielding Buckskin Sawyer from whom Talbot plots to steal the Wells Fargo mail contract) and bumbling sheriff Earle Hodgins.

 HEADIN' FOR THE RIO GRANDE (1936 Grand National)
Tex Ritter's second B-western has the singing cowboy breaking up a cattle-herd protection racket --- if cattlemen like Budd Buster, Charles K. French and his daughter, pretty Eleanor Stewart, don't pay, the outlaws (Warner Richmond, Earl Dwire, Charlie King) rustle their herds. Tex's brother is Sheriff Forrest Taylor who joins him and sidekick Syd Saylor for the final showdown amidst a cattle stampede. Bogs down midway with too much palaver. Ritter, always a fan of Snub Pollard, put the out-of-a-job silent comic to work in this one as one of French's herders. Tex kept finding small roles for Pollard, eventually elevating him to full sidekick in Tex's seventh, RIDERS OF THE ROCKIES.

 TRIPLE JUSTICE (1940 RKO)
Intricate plot has George O'Brien arriving in Star City for his friend LeRoy Mason's wedding, but being immediately blamed for a $30,000 bank robbery and murder of the bank teller. The only one who can save him is Mason, who has been severely wounded. One by one, O'Brien tracks down the robbers (Paul Fix, Bud McTaggart, Glenn Strange) unaware there is a fourth man --- deputy sheriff Harry Woods who is hell-bent to kill O'Brien before he can learn Woods' identity. Along the trail to triple justice are many sideroads, including a romance with McTaggart's sister, Virginia Vale (whom O'Brien finally kisses on screen in this their sixth and final film together). Writers Arthur Jones and Marion Grant packed their intelligent screenplay with some very clever dialogue, all wrapped up in a neat package by director David Howard. At age 40, O'Brien concluded his RKO westerns with this film and returned to his military career. RKO's new cowboy star was youngish Tim Holt.

 OREGON TRAIL (1945 Republic)
When a train is robbed of $50,000 in gold, railroad detective Sunset Carson goes undercover to infiltrate the gang run by John Merton (and his gunnies Kenne Duncan, Bud Geary, Tex Terry) who is fronting for businessman Steve Winston (a bad actor) who is trying to wrest control of the town of Gunsight from Frank Jacquet and his daughter Peggy Stewart as Winston has knowledge the railroad is coming that way. Mary Carr who plays Peggy's feisty grandmother is in reality director Thomas Carr's mother and quite a name during the silent era. Although Monte Hale and Rex Lease are billed, they were cut from the final release print. This film bears no resemblance to the other three westerns in 1936, 1939 and 1959 by the same title.

 WATER RUSTLERS (1939 Grand National)
Grand National's last ditch effort at establishing something different in a B-western series brought forth a singing cowgirl --- Dorothy Page. She could certainly handle the songs, problem was you always needed a male, like Dave O'Brien here, to handle the rough stuff needed in a western. In this, the first of three Page managed before Grand National's demise, ruthless mine owner Stanley Price is in league with Page's duplicitous foreman Warner Richmond to siphon off all the water in the valley for his water-wasteful hydraulic mining operation.

 WESTWARD TRAIL (1948 PRC)
Coming at the end of Eddie Dean's three year B-western career, this is standard, routine stuff --- you've seen it all before as badman Bob Duncan tries to wrest control of leading lady Phyllis Planchard's ranch because it has silver on it. Eddie Dean and Roscoe Ates come to her rescue. Old pro director Ray Taylor does the best he can with a second stringer cast even by PRC standards: Planchard in her only western (instead of Jennifer Holt or Shirley Patterson); snotty, arrogant eastern brother Steve Drake (instead of Riley Hill or John James); Bob Duncan (instead of George Chesebro or Jack Ingram); and where'd they dig up Eileen Hardin who plays Budd Buster's wife? She delivers lines like she's still in the third grade play. Andy Parker and the Plainsmen (unbilled) back up Eddie on one song.

 THE BUSHWHACKERS (1952 Jack Broder Prod./Realart)
Sick of the killing in the Civil War, John Ireland heads home, but in his beloved South there is still no peace, only a continued struggle for power that is, in many ways, worse. So, like many of his comrades, he rides west for the promise of a rich, new life --- a life where he would never again have to bear arms against his fellow man. Unfortunately, he lands in Independence, MO, smack in the middle of old man Lon Chaney and his ruthless daughter Myrna Dell's attempts to run the squatters off their land because only Chaney knows the railroad is coming. Ireland tries to resist getting embroiled, but is forced finally into the fight. Strictly a B-plot idea but director Rod Amateau's film noirish approach gives the film a modicum of class --- along with a good cast: Dorothy Malone as the newspaper man's daughter, Lawrence Tierney as a hired gunman, Wayne Morris as a Sheriff torn between displaced loyalty to old man Chaney and doing the right thing as a lawman, even plug-ugly Jack Elam as another gun for hire.

 DYNAMITE CANYON (1941 Monogram)
Nothing original as Stanley Price and Kenne Duncan stir up trouble on the pretense of a cattle/sheep war with their motive to steal Evelyn Finley's copper-rich ranch. Grinning, devil-may-care Tom Keene infiltrates the gang but is discovered by an old crook (Gene Alsace) he once sent to the hoosegow. All the action comes at the end in this tired, overworked plot. 'Comedy' elements of Slim Andrews, his mule, bees and Sugar Dawn teaching him to be a Ranger are totally dis-related to the plot and not funny. Bit player Fred Hoose doubled as production manager. Filmed around Prescott, AZ.

 FIGHTING HERO (1934 Reliable)
Prime example of who-cares-how-good-it-is-as-long-as-we-have-55-minutes-of-footage poverty row B-westerns produced by B. B. Ray and 'directed' by Harry S. Webb. This was the first of 18 Tom Tyler made for Reliable. Now usually, with the first film of a series, producers take more care so as to get the series off to an impressive start. Not so here. This is bottom of the barrel in every respect --- sloppy staging of scenes, a jumbled, disjointed storyline (express agent poses as a wanted outlaw to catch gold thieves J. P. McGowan and Edward Hearn) and a supporting performance of truly amateur proportions by Renee Border, overacting and emoting the worst Spanish accent you'll ever hear (even from Tim McCoy!). As deputy George Chesebro chases Tom through the brush, midway through the film, listen for the off-screen voice, "Where are you?" Truly slipshod.

 HELLO TROUBLE (1932 Columbia)
A solid story and direction from Lambert Hillyer. A slam-bang fist-fest in the barn with Ward Bond. A showcase for Silver. A tense showdown with killer Wallace MacDonald as the clock ticks away. A thrilling windup that shows off the Bronson Canyon area as well as any western. All these ingredients serve to make this one of Buck Jones' best. Buck, a Texas Ranger sickened by the accidental killing of young Morgan Boyle, resigns from the Rangers and vows never to pick up his guns again even though his captain warns him he was "born to trouble". Buck then heads for the ranch of Russell Simpson (an old friend of his father's) of which Buck is half owner. He arrives just as Simpson is apparently a victim of suicide. Simpson's headstrong daughter, Lina Basquette, blames nearby ranch owner Otto Hoffman with whom Simpson had quarreled because Simpson had turned down a lucrative offer from easterner Al Roscoe to buy both Hoffman and Simpson's ranches-but not just one. Roscoe secretly knows there's a vein of silver criss-crossing back and forth across their property lines. Basquette wants immediate vengeance on Hoffman and accuses Buck of not being a man when he demands proof Hoffman is guilty. Simpson's will states neither Buck nor Lina may sell their half of the ranch upon Simpson's death without the proviso of the other. Eventually, what we've been waiting for --- the inevitable --- comes as Buck straps on his irons and flares into action against Roscoe and his gang in a blazing, hard-bitten finish. Watch for Walter Brennan in a bit part as one of the Texas Rangers.

 COURAGE OF THE WEST (1937 Universal)
"The newest singing hero of wild west lore ... tuned up for a song or a fight! Riding a painted pony like a flaming bullet-streak in the night!" That's the way Universal promoted their new western star, Bob Baker (whom they originally wanted to call Tex Baker, but Bob, being from Iowa, Colorado and Arizona, protested) in his first of 12 starring westerns replacing Buck Jones when he left the studio in '37. Baker was chosen over Dick Weston (soon to be Roy Rogers at Republic) and six others because as Bob said, "I could ride, sing and play the guitar". Formerly of the WLS (Chicago) National Barn Dance, it was another WLS alumni, Max Terhune, who helped Bob hone his acting skills. In this film, possibly Bob's best, Free Ranger J. Farrell MacDonald adopts young Bob (played by Buddy Cox) after MacDonald's Rangers (including Fuzzy Knight) capture and sentence Bob's real father, Harry Woods, to hang. However, Woods escapes and years later reappears when Bob is full grown and a Free Ranger himself with his adopted Dad. Real father and son nearly shoot it out before Norton S. Parker's screenplay neatly rectifies the drama. It's a good story which benefits from director Joseph H. Lewis' inventive camera work in his directorial debut. Several Fleming Allan songs, some sung by leading lady Lois January.

 HIS BROTHER'S GHOST (1945 PRC)
With a reign of terror in Wolf Valley to drive the sharecroppers off their land, Andy Jones (Al St. John) organizes the ranchers to combat the rampaging gunslicks (Charlie King, John Cason, Roy Brent, Frank McCarroll, Dick Alexander --- bossed by Doc Karl Hackett and deputy sheriff Archie Hall). When Andy is killed in a raid, his pal Buster Crabbe devises a plan to have Andy's brother, Jonathan 'Fuzzy' Jones (also Al St. John), appear as Andy's ghost to throw a scare into the outlaws. Quite likely the most entertaining in the Crabbe/St. John series, this one is full-bore action from start to finish with a few moments of humor and spooky goings-on. It also displays the most dramatic and tearful moment in the series as Andy dies with his twin brother at his bedside.

 ALONG THE NAVAJO TRAIL (1945 Republic)
Roy Rogers must smash the set-up of evil rancher Douglas Fowley who craves the big ranch spread of Sam Flint (Dale Evans' father) in conjunction with a large drilling company who intend to run a pipeline across it. Dale's foreman Gabby Hayes aids Roy and falls prey to a band of gypsies (Nestor Paiva, Estelita Rodriguez). Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers are mostly background players in this one, but how can you go wrong when they sing a wonderful rendition of their classic" Cool Water" ? (Note Doye O'Dell subbing for an ailing Karl Farr.) Highlights of the picture are some great stunts by Yakima Canutt such as when Dale's buckboard goes over jump-off rock at Corriganville into the shallow lake ... as well as the absolutely charming moment where Roy and Dale are caught in the rain under his small tent and sing "Savin' For a Rainy Day". These are the moments that made Roy and Dale so popular. Their down-to-earth charm and affection leap off the screen.

 WEST OF CIMARRON (1941 Republic)
Following the Civil War, the 3 Mesquiteers (Tom Tyler, Bob Steele, Rufe Davis) find carpetbaggers (Hugh Prosser, Roy Barcroft) in reconstruction Texas. The Mesquiteers aid a group of Southerners (Budd Buster and his sons James Bush and Mickey Rentschler along with John James) who are resisting the stringent over-taxation by Prosser's troopers. Not exactly 'politically correct', Rufe dons blackface to disguise himself as a Negro --- sings a song about 'Watermelon' and is called Sambo! A young black kid is named Rastus (and chomps away furiously on a watermelon during the action). Also a joke is made about 'stealing chickens'! Director Lester Orlebeck (1907-1970) found a home at Republic in 1935 and never strayed. Mostly, he was an editor on over 100 B-westerns through 1947, but he did try his talents at directing on a handful of Mesquiteers in '41. Leading lady Lois Collier (1919-1999) was often referred to at Republic as the fourth Mesquiteer as she co-starred in seven with the trio between 1941 and 1943. Watch for a young Eddie Dean in a small role as one of the Southerners. This is a remake of John Wayne's LONELY TRAIL ('35).

 BORDER VENGEANCE (1935 Kent)
Gridiron hero Reb Russell was no actor, he'd be the first to tell you so. BORDER VENGEANCE contains the priceless scene where Reb is captured and bound helpless as villain Kenneth MacDonald enters the room in a transparent-to-everyone-but-Reb disguise, then whips off his masquerade to Reb's astonished, "Why --- it's Flash Perdue!" As MacDonald taunts our star, Reb tries his maddening best, "Ah'll kill yew!" And why producer Willis Kent let Reb have the endearing name of Muley, I'll never understand! Sounds more like a sidekick handle to me. Through the filming of an actual rodeo (possibly in Denver, which pads out 10 minutes of running time midway), producer Kent got free footage of Rex Bell, Montie Montana and Mabel Strickland and her trick horse Sunday. Watch for former silent star Bill Patton (unbilled) as one of the cowboys.

 MAN OF THE FOREST (1933 Paramount)
Paramount had been making movies based on the writings of Zane Grey since 1923. MAN OF THE FOREST, directed by Henry Hathaway relies heavily on stock shots from the 1926 Jack Holt version, with Randolph Scott sporting a mustache and wearing buckskins to match the Holt footage. Unfortunately, the silent version seems lost to the ages, so this is your only opportunity to see action footage from the silent Jack Holt version. Verna Hillie, a blonde, wears a dark wig here to match up with Georgia Hale from the earlier film. Tom Kennedy actually repeated the same role he'd portrayed in the silent. In one of his classic sleazy, evil, dirty old man performances, Noah Beery Sr. will stop at nothing to wrest control of water rights away from Harry Carey, including kidnapping Carey's niece, Verna Hillie. According to press releases at the time, Scott was bitten by his 'pet' cougar in the film, Mike, during the scene where he plays with the cat. And for those who keep track of such things, Scott vigorously spanks Hillie in one scene. Good supporting cast --- Big Boy Williams, Barton MacLane, Buster Crabbe, Frank McGlynn and Vince Barnett.

 TRAIL BEYOND (1934 Lone Star)
Very likely the best of the John Wayne Lone Stars with gorgeous locations, terrific action and a solid story, based on a James Oliver Curwood tale. Contains the classic scene during the final chase when Yakima Canutt (doubling for Wayne) gets his spur hung up in his stirrup when attempting a horse to wagon transfer. Director Robert Bradbury left the mishap in as Yak (Wayne) scrambles back onto his horse and tries again --- this time successfully. John Wayne seems to spend as much time in the water as he does on land when he rescues Noah Beery Jr. from cardsharps and the two go on a quest for a missing girl, Verna Hillie (a great screamer!). The 'Gat Ganns' reward poster from Wayne's earlier WEST OF THE DIVIDE can be spotted on the wall of Noah Beery Sr.'s trading post. Loosely adapted from James Oliver Curwood's Wolf Hunters first filmed in 1926 and again in 1949 with Kirby Grant.

 WYOMING WILDCAT (1941 Republic)
WYOMING WILDCAT shows just how excellent a B-westerns could be in the competent hands of actors like Don Barry, directors like George Sherman and wonderful character players such as Frank M. Thomas. Compassion, drama and action as Barry returns home following the Spanish American War to find his father (Thomas) a wanted outlaw. Knowing Barry was a better than average western actor, Republic gave him some talented 'opposition' in actors like Noah Beery Jr., Harry Cording and, here, Frank M. Thomas (father of TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET star Frankie Thomas). Barry's saddlepal is Syd Saylor (1895-1962) who really got around, sidekicking at one time or another to the Three Mesquiteers, John Wayne, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker, Kermit Maynard and Buster Crabbe (at Paramount) but never lasting more than one entry except for four with Bob Steele at PRC in '46. He and his bobbing adam's apple essayed hundreds of character roles in other films. There are some especially nifty running inserts from director George Sherman in WYOMING WILDCAT. Both Ed Cassidy and Jack Rockwell play sheriffs in this film. Between the two of them they played sheriffs in literally hundreds of B-westerns. Leading lady Julie Duncan, under the name Marjorie Manning, had won national horse show awards as one of the nation's top steeplechase riders causing Republic to cast her in two of Barry's westerns. Julie also worked at Monogram and PRC throughout the '40s.

 AMERICAN EMPIRE (1942 Paramount)
Historical, epic-sweep western as Preston Foster builds a vast cattle empire in Texas after the Civil War, all the while battling rapscallion Mexican rustler Leo Carrillo. Eventually, his ruthless tactics separate Foster from his partner, Richard Dix (the rock-steady influence for good), as well as Foster's wife, Frances Gifford, when their son is killed needlessly. But true to form, they're all back together for the terrific all-out neatly filmed nighttime battle at the end. Good support from Big Boy Williams, Cliff Edwards, Jack LaRue and Robert Barrat. Although Dix gets top billing, it's Foster's film all the way.

 HOME ON THE PRAIRIE (1939 Republic)
When crooked rancher Walter Miller and cattle broker Gordon Hart learn their herd is diseased with infectious hoof and mouth disease, they scheme to ship their stock to market before cattle inspectors Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette learn of the contagion. When their plans go awry, they try to shift the blame to rancher George Cleveland and his daughter June Storey, whom Gene romances in his off-time. Much of Smiley's 'comedy' this time is with medicine show man Earle Hodgins and his elephant. As directed by Jack Townley, a comedy writer by profession (MUMMY'S BOYS, SILLY BILLIES, HIGGENS FAMILY, MEET THE MISSUS etc.), it isn't up to Autry par. Townley went back to comedy writing afterward (MEXICAN SPITFIRE OUT WEST, SCATTERBRAIN, GREAT GILDERSLEEVE) then turned in some very decent western scenarios for Roy and Gene (YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS, UTAH, BELLS OF ROSARITA, MY PAL TRIGGER, LAST ROUND-UP, RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING PINES, BLAZING SUN) as well as several late-entry Bowery Boys films. Born in Canada, June Storey (1918-1991) first caught the eye of 20th Century Fox and worked in several films there before being offered a Republic contract by Sol Siegel. Over '39-'40 June became a popular Autry regular, appearing in 10 of his best westerns.

 OUTLAW DEPUTY (1935 Puritan)
Tim McCoy found himself 'out' at Columbia and relegated to independent Puritan Pictures in mid 1935. Although McCoy's 10 Puritan westerns lack the slick production values of his Columbia product (especially when the Newfields took over with the third entry), the bulk of Puritan's product was above par for a poverty row company. Each was budgeted at $10-$12,000 with McCoy getting $4,000 up front on each. OUTLAW DEPUTY, the first of the 10, is given a 'bigger' look by the use of stock footage. Adapted from a Johnston McCulley story (he created 'Zorro'), the film is not action packed but has a strong emphasis on storytelling with a literate script by Dell Andrews that has Tim, a former outlaw, turned sheriff to avenge the death of young George Offerman Jr. (best known for his role as Stuff in THE VIGILANTE serial) at the hand of Hooper Atchley. Tim's old enemy, Bud Osborne, shows up-revealing Tim to have once been an outlaw. Nora Lane's the girl. Directed by Otto Brower (1891-1946) whose career dates back to Zane Grey Paramount westerns. He was one of the several uncredited second unit directors on DUEL IN THE SUN released the year he died.

 RANGER'S ROUND-UP (1938 Spectrum)
Many of Fred Scott's B-westerns are not bad once you get past his operatic high notes which just weren't apropos for westerns. Fred even knows it --- in this one he jokes, "I could sing higher but I'm afraid my eyes would pop out." To make matters worse in this one, leading lady Christine McIntyre (later a 3-Stooges regular), as a singing waitress, also hits the aria trail in the cafe with "Jo-Jo From Mexico". Incidentally, her cross-eyed piano player is Lew Porter who wrote all these 'wonderful' ditties as well as those for other Scott, George Houston, Tex Ritter, Art Davis, Bill Boyd and Eddie Dean films. In this film, Ranger Fred joins a medicine show run by Earle Hodgins (he's at the top of his spiel game here) and Fuzzy St. John to catch a gang of express thieves (Steve Ryan, Karl Hackett, Carl Mathews, Richard Cramer). At the same while he helps young Robert Owen (who's been under the influence of the gang) and his sister Christine McIntyre. This and the two previous Scott films are listed as 'A Stan Laurel Production'. What Stan's actual participation in these films is, we don't know, but his comedic approach is obvious in this entry which should have been a more serious western. Veteran badman Carl Mathews was Scott's double in all his B-westerns.

 FEROCIOUS PAL (1934 Principal)
Police dog Kazan captures a ruthless sheep rustler (Tom London) and his killer dog who are raiding the modern day west ranches of Oregon. Made quite watchable by Spence Bennet's direction and Edward Kull's camera work. There's one extremely vicious, yet heart-rendering, scene when London brutally encourages his mean dog, Prince, to fight with and kill a young boy's pet dog. Theatre chain owner Sol Lesser (1890-1980) formed Principal in '32 to have more control over films in his own theatres. He distributed several independently-made films (THE TEXAN w/Buffalo Bill Jr.) as well as making his own, including three serials, TARZAN THE FEARLESS w/Buster Crabbe, RETURN OF CHANDU w/Bela Lugosi, and the infamous LOST CITY. To get more mileage out of the serials, each was also edited into a feature (or features). Lesser seemed extremely fond of dog stories, releasing JAWS OF JUSTICE and FEROCIOUS PAL with Kazan and FIGHTING TO LIVE with Captain and Lady. Jungle pictures seemed another of his priorities (AMAZON HEAD HUNTERS, TARZAN THE FEARLESS, ISLAND CAPTIVES, etc.), so it came as no surprise when Lesser joined RKO in '41, purchased the rights to Tarzan and made 19 features about the jungle lord. Cinematographer Kull was involved in the filming of the land rush scenes in CIMARRON in '31 and lent his talents to dozens of B-westerns in the '30s and '40s (Tom Tyler, Bob Custer, Bob Steele, Jack Randall, Range Busters and Trail Blazers).

 GOLD (1932 Majestic)
The lumbering, aw-shucks boyish charm of Jack Hoxie is about all GOLD has to offer. It seems to drag on twice as long as it should while crooks Hooper Atchley, Matthew Betz and Bob Kortman buy out gold claims from miners then rob and kill the miners to get their money back, thus both owning the claim and having the cash. But the thieves don't reckon on Jack Hoxie's resolve when they swindle his partner Lafe McKee (and his daughter --- Alice Day) out of his half of he and Jack's claim, then laying blame for Lafe's murder on Jack.

 ALIAS JOHN LAW (1935 Supreme)
The group of B-westerns Bob Steele made for Supreme are among his best lowbudget affairs. Steele and deaf pal Buck Connors doctor U. S. Marshal Jack Rockwell, then take his place in tracking down the ambushers who ride for the notorious mail robber, the Kootney Kid (Earl Dwire) gang. Soon, through old girlfriend Roberta Gale, Steele learns the devious Dwire is out to grab his lately deceased mother's oil rich ranch by representing himself to be Steele, who has been away for years. Exciting finish on the swinging footbridge above the Kernville River. Recently interviewed, Roberta Gale finds her westerns "embarrassing" and terms Bob Steele "a little shrimp who couldn't act but could ride horses well, at least." Remade in 1950 with Jimmy Ellison and Russell Hayden as WEST OF THE BRAZOS.

 CALL OF THE FOREST (1949 Lippert)
Producer Ed Finney has found another outlet for his wild horse footage he used before in SILVER STALLION and KING OF THE STALLIONS in this part western, part wildlife adventure rambling patchwork of disjointed scenes and stories. Basically, a young boy (Charlie Hughes) joins his father (Ken Curtis) out west where Dad has just captured a wild stallion for him (Black Diamond). Dad, to make ends meet, searches for a lost gold mine which his 'pal' Robert Lowery also wants. Young Charlie makes friends with not only the wild stallion but every other fuzzy, furry animal in the forest/desert, as well as an Indian (Chief Thundercloud) who gives Charlie a map to the gold mine for Pop 'cause Ken has done nice things for the Indians. Then Lowery kills Curtis, sets fire to the forest and steals the map. Of course, the wild horse herd tramples Lowery before he can kill young Charlie too-oh, but not before we see that black horse/white speckled wild horse fight one more time. Before he gets killed, Ken gets to show off his two-gun tricks and sing two traditional western songs. The horse, Black Diamond, is best known for his role as FURY on TV.

 PATHFINDER (1952 Columbia)
"In 1754, the American territory around the Great Lakes was sought by both England and France. The Indians, as a matter of preservation, were forced to take sides. Once friendly tribes became bitter enemies. The peaceful Mohicans had formed an alliance with the English while the war-like Mingos, a branch of the Iroquois under Chief Arrowhead, had thrown their lot in with the French. Bad blood existed between the two tribes." Not much from James Fenimore Cooper's 1840 novel can be recognized in this George Montgomery colonial western. Pathfinder (Montgomery) and Chingachgook (Jay Silverheels) are sent on a dangerous mission to find the secret defense of the key French fortress of St. Vincente commanded by Col. Stephen Bekassy. As Pathfinder doesn't speak French, he's forced to take along spy Helena Carter who does parlez the vou. Rodd Redwing (1904-1971), a full-blooded Chickasaw Indian, who has a fight with Montgomery, was one of the top gun/knife/tomahawk/whip instructors in Hollywood. After coming to films for Cecil B. DeMille in THE SQUAW MAN ('31), he became gun handling coach to Alan Ladd, Ronald Reagan, Burt Lancaster, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, Charlton Heston, Dean Martin, Fred MacMurray and scores more. Typical Sam Katzman Columbia stuff, in color, with the distinction of being director Sidney Salkow's first western, although he'd been directing since '36. It wouldn't be his last.

 WEST OF PINTO BASIN (1940 Monogram)
When the ranchers of Pinto Basin are in danger of losing their drought-stricken land because frequent robberies of the stagelines endanger an irrigation project, the Range Busters (Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, John 'Dusty' King, Max 'Alibi' Terhune) come to investigate. This is the well-remembered Range Busters western containing the clever scene in which Alibi loses all their horses in a poker game and Crash wins them back by busting up Tris Coffin's stacked-deck card game. Singer Jerry Smith, the yodeling cowboy of WHO, Des Moines, IA, is spotlighted with two songs. He simply didn't photograph as well as he sings and was never heard from again. Bit of a weak windup as the round-up of cut-throats Tris Coffin and Jack Perrin is only mentioned, not shown.

 IN OLD CHEYENNE (1941 Republic)
When Rap Brown (Gabby Hayes) is forced into outlawry by cattle baron George Rosenor, young eastern news reporter Roy Rogers comes west to get the story. He meets Dolores Casino (Joan Woodbury with an overdone Mexican accent to rival Tim McCoy), daughter of local newspaperman J. Farrell MacDonald who is campaigning against Hayes believing Rosenor to be an upright citizen. Rosenor's men are led by Hal Taliaferro and William Haade in another of his wonderful comic badman interpretations. Roy also encounters Hayes' daughter Squeek (Sally Payne) who takes a fancy to him. Somehow, it never all quite comes together and remains uninvolving. Watch for Spade Cooley playing fiddle at the square dance (which Roy 'calls').

 RIO GRANDE RANGER (1936 Columbia)
Where have you heard this plot before? A gang of outlaws led by deep-throated Paul Sutton (Tom London, Slim Whitaker, Dick Botiller) raids banks and ranches in Texas then escape across the state line into the outlaw town of Shonto City. Ranger Bob Allen rides into Shonto masquerading as outlaw 'Smoke', with a big buildup and reward offered by his sidekick, Ranger pal Hal Taliaferro (formerly Wally Wales), to seal the deal. When the outlaws raid the ranch of John Elliott and his daughter and son, Iris Meredith and Buzzy Henry, Bob tricks the gang across the state line into the waiting arms of Ranger Captain Jack Rockwell. Iris Meredith (see RIDERS OF BLACK RIVER) is always gorgeous to look at --- and here she 'sings' a duet with Bob. I see why Columbia didn't ask her to sing again! Bob Allen, after co-starring in a couple with Tim McCoy, self-promoted himself into a starring position with Columbia but couldn't cut the mustard with Saturday matinee crowds and his six-film series was over practically before it started.

 LAST HORSEMAN (1944 Columbia)
Very possibly the most overlooked and underrated series of B-westerns ever filmed are the six Russell Hayden made in the mid '40s backed up by Bob Wills' Texas Playboys and sidekick Dub "Cannonball" Taylor. Wild, free-swinging action (the fist fights are some of the best ever committed to film ... this one concludes with an extended rooftop chase and fight) and great western swing music (mostly written by Cindy Walker) were the keywords. Plus, LAST HORSEMAN has some truly genuine belly laughs from Cannonball (especially when he plays his xylophone) and dresses in drag. The plotline about stolen checks, foreclosures and the coming of the railroad is simply an excuse on which to hang the fast action and wonderful music. Ann Savage is Russ' bank teller girlfriend. At the time she and Hayden were an item while he was going through divorce proceedings. Savage found lasting fame in the film noir classic DETOUR two years later.

 CISCO KID RETURNS (1945 Monogram)
Extremely weak Cisco Kid (Duncan Renaldo) 'adventure' as he romances two senoritas (former sweetheart Cecilia Callejo and French maid Jan Wiley) and exposes a plot by Roger Pryor, Anthony Warde and Vicky Lane to murder a man and claim his inheritance by getting custody of his quite young daughter, Sharon Smith. Convoluted and boring. Vicky Lane's only other film of note was JUNGLE CAPTIVE in which she took over the role of Paula, the Ape Woman, from Acquanetta who had played the role in two previous Universal horrors. Lane was briefly married to actor Tom Neal.

 FAST BULLETS (1936 Reliable)
One of the better Tom Tyler Reliables. Texas Ranger Tyler captures outlaw Rex Lease and convinces him to go straight. Lease leads Tyler into Al Bridge's outlaw den with Tyler masquerading as another outlaw. Bridge's outlaw gang includes Slim Whitaker, Charles King, Frank Ellis, Lew Meehan and Jimmy Aubrey. Music is included (the oncoming Autry influence) with a couple of trail songs sung by an unknown cowboy band. This is dancer Margaret Nearing's only decent role in films, with her other parts being relegated to dancers for the past three years (BABES IN TOYLAND, IT'S GREAT TO BE ALIVE etc.). The very-blonde Nearing curiously tap dances (?) in a saloon full of toughs. Obviously, dancing got her into films and her superb acting abilities cancelled her career after this effort. Just so you know, director Henri Samuels is an alias for producer Harry Webb who ran Reliable with B. B. Ray. The assistant director is R. G. Springsteen who later did a lot of top work at Republic. Screenwriters Rose Gordon and Carl Krusada often worked in tandem on Tyler and Jack Perrin Bs.

 RHYTHM OF THE SADDLE (1938 Republic)
For the most part, up until mid 1938, Gene Autry's pictures had been under the sure hand of director Joe Kane. But now Kane was gone, having taken over the Roy Rogers pictures. Gene now went through a succession of directors-some who understood the Autry mystique, some who were puzzled by it. George Sherman was one of those who later admitted he never understood Autry's popularity, altho several of the pictures he handled (SOUTH OF THE BORDER, MEXICALI ROSE, ROVIN' TUMBLEWEEDS) are among Gene's best from this period of his career. A strong plot line enhances RHYTHM --- as young ranch owner/Frontier Week Rodeo manager Peggy Moran (and her pal comic Pert Kelton) is in danger of losing her rodeo contract to crooked nightclub owner LeRoy Mason. Peggy's foreman Gene Autry (and Smiley, of course) help her overcome a bum murder rap, burning barns, fixed rodeo events and the Republic staple of a terrific stagecoach race finale.

 BEYOND THE ROCKIES (1932 RKO)
Rustlers! Tom Keene and his fun loving singing/roving buckaroos (Ernie Adams, Julian Rivero and Hank Bell) help Rochelle Hudson and her father William Welsh keep cattle queen and big rancher Marie Wells and her foreman, Tom London, from rustling their stock. (Songs are obviously performed by Jack Kirk and his pals rather than Keene's group.) Routine stuff well done. Written by Oliver Drake who reworked the story for BATTLING BUCKAROO in 1934 with Lane Chandler.

 RECKLESS BUCKAROO (1936 Crescent/Spectrum)
Under producer Ray Kirkwood, Spectrum announced a slate of 8 westerns to star Bill Cody and his son Bill Cody Jr. (Spectrum had already released one Cody title --- FRONTIER DAYS --- under another production set up.) However, of the 8, only four wound up featuring both Bills, the other four were singular Cody Sr. affairs. RECKLESS BUCKAROO was the first, and possibly the best, enhanced (read saved) by the excellent deep-focus desert photography of James Diamond. The two Bills help wounded (perennial) sheriff Ed Cassidy (father of leading lady Betty Mack) round up smugglers Roger Williams and his men --- Budd Buster, Lew Meehan (wearing the most abused vest in B-western history) and Francis Walker. Buzz Barton, often credited with a role in this film, in not in it. With the enormous popularity of singing cowboy Gene Autry, Spectrum abandoned Cody in mid '36 and signed warbler Fred Scott to compete with Autry.

 CIRCLE CANYON (1933 Superior Talking Pictures)
Muddy, confusing relationships, script is based on Burl Tuttle's magazine story, Gun Glory, which he adapted for the screen. It's a lame, tedious Victor Adamson produced and directed affair. Buddy Roosevelt and his adopted daughter, Clarise Woods, are pursued by outlaws led by Clyde McClary. The outlaws' motivations for pursuing Woods are never satisfactorily explained. The rest is a mish-mash of real fathers, aunts, robber-nephews, old friends --- -you're better off to watch the year later remake 'NEATH THE ARIZONA SKIES with John Wayne which makes much more sense. Some nice desert photography from Bert Longnecker.

 RANGE FEUD (1931 Columbia)
Fascinating to see the pre-star John Wayne learning the ropes (no pun intended) as he's nearly hung for a murder he didn't commit in this strong, dramatic Buck Jones B. With overtones of Romeo and Juliet, two Arizona families (one led by cattleman Edward LeSaint, the other by William Walling) come to blows over a land dispute that threatens to destroy the romance between Susan Fleming (LeSaint's daughter) and John Wayne (Walling's son). When LeSaint is mysteriously murdered, and Wayne accused, it's up to Sheriff Buck Jones (Walling's foster son) to save Wayne from an angry lynch mob headed up by sleazy Harry Woods and LeSaint foreman Wallace MacDonald. Terrific barroom brawl between Woods and Jones midway.

 SANTA FE RIDES (1937 Reliable)
Bob Custer --- singing cowboy! It's Gene Autry plot 2-B as Custer becomes a 'singer' for a radio station promoter (Snub Pollard) in order to raise cash to re-stock his ranch with cattle lost during a drought. But Roger Williams, who craves Custer's ranch, does everything he can to prevent him from performing. Williams frames Dave Sharpe (kid brother of Custer's fiancée Eleanor Stewart) for rustling and tries to blame Custer for the killing of Williams' henchman, Slim Whitaker, even though he knows it isn't true. Every lowbudget producer was forced to put music in their westerns one way or another in the wake of the over-whelming popularity of Gene Autry at Republic. Custer was no singer! He looks either terrified or uncomfortable when he's 'singing' (lip synching) the mournful Oscar Gahan songs, backed up by Lloyd Perryman, Rudy Sooter and Curley Hogg. Custer should look terrified --- he was at the end of the trail. Real singing cowboys were in, old-time action heroes were out. Custer was handsome and handy --- he looked good, fought well. Custer's curse was --- he simply couldn't deliver dialogue. Although released in February '37, this film was made just prior to September 1936 when Lloyd Perryman became a member of the Sons of the Pioneers.

 HIDDEN GOLD (1932 Universal)
More like a big city crime drama as Tom Mix goes to prison, posing as a crook, to get in with some bank robbers (Donald Kirke, Eddie Gribbon, Raymond Hatton) and recover the bank loot they hid before they were captured. Filmmakers couldn't get away with this today, but director Arthur Rossen filmed some scenes at the conclusion amidst an actual forest fire they encountered while on location. Thank God for that fire, it gives the film the only excitement it has!

 FRONTIER INVESTIGATOR (1949 Republic)
A killer (Roy Barcroft) with a telescopic sight on his rifle sets Allan 'Rocky' Lane on the vengeance trail after Barcroft bushwhacks, kills and robs Rocky's brother (Harry Lauter). Tracing the killer to Arizona, Rocky becomes embroiled in Barcroft and mild-mannered Robert Emmett Keane's plan to set stagecoach operators Eddy Waller and Francis Ford against one another in order to grab title to Ford's stageline. An extremely sinewy Bob Williams plot with his usual intriguing, slightly offbeat villains --- plus a Republic staple: the stagecoach race for the mail contract. Ford's son is Clayton Moore. Gail Davis is Moore's love interest --- but blink and you'll miss her.

 LAW COMES TO TEXAS (1939 Columbia)
The fourth and last of Bill Elliott's independently produced Larry Darmour productions released through Columbia. After this, Elliott's Columbia titles were in-house productions. Young attorney Bill Elliott is appointed by the governor of Texas (Paul Everton) to investigate a law preventing peace officers from following outlaws across county lines. Elliott, in disguise as a wanted criminal, joins crooked judge Bud Osborne's surly band and discovers corruption near the top in the guise of Lt. Governor Lee Shumway. Interesting to note, when masquerading as a badman, Elliott wears a Stetson blocked like his later William Elliott Republic big-budgeters. As usual, scripter Nate Gatzert inserts some comical moments between owlhoots, this time betwixt scrubby, corrupt judge Osborne and rowdy henchman Slim Whitaker. Leading lady Veda Ann Borg could have knitted 5 sweaters the week this was made she has so little to do. Delightful to see Charlie King on the right side of the law, escaping from nasty badman typecasting as Elliott's pal, Kaintuck. Watch quickly for Buzz Barton and Dave Sharpe in unbilled roles.

 DEATH GOES NORTH (1939 Warwick)
Talk. Talk. Talk. Canadian-made film as Mountie Sgt. Edgar Edwards and Rin Tin Tin Jr. uncover the murderer of Sheila Bromley's uncle. For Mountie fans only!

 SO THIS IS ARIZONA (1931 Big 4)
Badly written, staged, acted and photographed. Ranger Wally Wales must arrest outlaw (former silent star) Fred Church, the brother of his fiancée Tete Brady (an absolutely overwrought actress). Wally soon discovers she's in league with her brother, but that's good because his true love is old flame Lorraine La Val, whom he does actually walk off into the sunset with at the end. La Val asks Wally, "Are you hurt?" He should have answered, "Only by appearing in pictures like this!" (For more on Big 4 see RED FORK RANGE.)

 COWBOY AND THE PRIZEFIGHTER (1949 Equity/Eagle Lion)
Red Ryder (Jim Bannon) and his extended family --- Little Beaver (Don Kay Reynolds aka Little Brown Jug), The Duchess (Marin Sais), Buckskin (Emmett Lynn) and newfound friend Don Haggerty --- expose a crooked prize fight promoter (John Hart) and his cohort, another sleazy saloon owner that B-westerns loved to portray, Marshall Reed. Haggerty's father (Forrest Taylor) had been murdered earlier by Hart when Taylor threatened to expose Hart's illegal boxing practices with his fighter, Lou Nova. A real life heavyweight contender in the '30s and '40s, Nova ran for President as the 'Poor man's candidate' of the Utopian Party against Ronald Reagan in the '80s. None of the Bannon Red Ryder films reached above the norm, their primary claim to fame was the use of Cinecolor when most other B-westerns of the day were still being lensed in black and white. That, along with Bannon's more-true-to-the-comic-strip-look of Red Ryder, give this short-lived series of four a certain distinction.

 FRONTIER BADMEN (1943 Universal)
"The close of the Civil War found the North facing a beef shortage. Then in 1869, out of Texas came the answer, a cattle drive unequalled in history. Northward along the Chisholm Trail saddle-weary Texans drove their herds a thousand miles or more through flood, hostile Indian country --- their goal, the mushroom town of gambling halls and loading pens known as Abilene, Kansas." Highly entertaining, often overlooked B+ feature with a strong supporting cast. Robert Paige and Noah Beery Jr. are the cattlemen who overcome the Abilene cattle syndicate run by Thomas Gomez, sadistic Lon Chaney Jr. and Arthur Loft. Robert Paige is top-billed but is hampered in looking realistic by the biggest, silliest hat ever in westerns while Noah Beery Jr., billed second, gets the badguys, winds up with lovely Anne Gwynne and has all the best scenes. Their sidekicks are Universal workhorse favorites, Andy Devine and Leo Carrillo. Tex Ritter, currently co-starring at Universal with Johnny Mack Brown, is curiously given a bit-part of a cattle buyer in suit and top hat!?! Three former stars, William Farnum, William Desmond and Kermit Maynard, are also on board.

 DESERT VIGILANTE (1949 Columbia)
Nearly continuous wild, rampant action makes this one of the best late '40s Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) B-westerns as stolen silver certificates are being used by outlaws led by bedridden old lady Mary Newton to buy silver illegally in Mexico. To perfectly illustrate movie location illusion, a secret passageway begins underneath the middle Iverson ranch house and comes out ... in the film ... only hundreds of feet from the house in a cave. The cave is Bronson Cave which is located in Griffith Park in Hollywood actually 40-some miles distant. Leading lady Peggy Stewart, now freelancing after leaving Republic a year or so previous, looks terrific. As in most Durango films, the story comes to a complete halt when Smiley Burnette sings his silly ditties, otherwise he has little to do this time. The Georgia Crackers beautifully sing Jimmy Wakely's "I'll Never Let You Go Little Darlin'". Assistant director on this one (to Fred Sears) is Earl Bellamy who began in 1935 and eventually became a full director with SEMINOLE UPRISING starring George Montgomery in 1955. The real oddity here is the re-emergence of Tex Harding (as Paul Campbell's brother) who had been ejected (along with Dub Taylor) in early '46 from Starrett's films with the coming of Smiley Burnette. Here he returns in a small role for one film 3 years later.

 YUKON MANHUNT (1951 Monogram)
Plays more like a Charlie Chan Monogram murder mystery than a Kirby Grant Mountie film with a trainload of suspects following mysterious murders on a speeding train and a series of payroll robberies. Grant and snow dog Chinook have a lot of suspects to sort out, two of whom are girls (Gail Davis and Margaret Field). Field was later married to Jocko Mahoney and is the mother of Sally Field. The mystery angle serves to make this one of the best of Grant's Northwest Mountie films.

 POWDER RIVER (1953 20th Century-Fox)
Rory Calhoun is at the top of this game in this very loose adaptation of Stuart Lake's Wyatt Earp bio. You can change the names to Chino Bull (Calhoun) from Wyatt Earp and Mitch Hardin (Cameron Mitchell) from Doc Holliday and the location from Tombstone to Powder River, Wyoming, but it's still the same story. Louis King's direction concentrates more on characterization than action, but the suspense and tension remain. Corinne Calvet is way over the top as saloon girl Frenchy in love with Mitchell while Penny Edwards (moving up to A's from Roy Rogers B's) is still pretty Penny, with her subdued acting not quite up to the challenge. John Dehner and Carl Betz (in one of his few westerns) along with Bob Wilke, Ethan Laidlaw and Zon Murray stand in for the (all names changed) McLowery/Clanton gang. In Technicolor.

 RANGE LAW (1944 Monogram)
Land grab plot #101 --- there's silver on Steve Clark's ranch that only saloon owner Jack Ingram and his gunnies (Sheriff Hugh Prosser, Art Fowler, Stanley Price, Bud Osborne) know about, so they frame Clark for rustling who is then tried and sentenced to hang. Clark's friendly neighbor, Sarah Padden, sends for help in the form of her old pals U.S. Marshals Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) and Nevada Jack McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown). Watch the jail window wall quiver when Steve Clark escapes. Them cardboard jails ain't too sturdy! Although old pro Lambert Hillyer directed, this one is strictly by the numbers. Slow and uneventful. The cost cutting shows, even the final fight between Johnny and Ingram is done out of sight behind the bar as if Hillyer was short on time to wrap this up. Best line: Stanley Price --- "I been waiting a long time to get even with that Marshal. Now he's here. I shoulda plugged him right off." Hugh Prosser --- "Why didn't you?" Price --- "Because he turned around."

 FUGITIVE SHERIFF (1936 Columbia)
Newly elected sheriff Ken Maynard is framed by the lawless element (led by Walter Miller) for a train robbery. Tried and convicted by judge John Elliott, Ken decides the only way to prove his innocence is to flee. He secretly visits his fiancé, judge's daughter Beth Marion, and, with prospector Frank Ball, constructs an elaborate trap for Miller and dummy Sheriff Hal Price. Not enough stunts, action and Maynard horse work to make this anything other than average even though it's under the expert guidance of Spencer Gordon Bennet. Beth, now nearing 90, and living in Oregon, honed her artistic talents and became an accomplished artist in her late '70s. Noted silent screen actress Virginia True Boardman, who entered films in 1911, plays Elliott's wife.

 OLD BARN DANCE (1938 Republic)
1938 proved to be the year that confirmed Gene Autry's position as Hollywood Cowboy King as he saw his popularity spreading to take in audiences who would not normally come to see B-western films. These audiences didn't go to see Gene's films just for western action, they went to hear him sing and display his easy-going, bashful charm. The plot has horse traders Gene and Smiley Burnette (who, like him or not, did pull in the audience also) aiding farmers who are being cheated by a company selling tractors. Gene is duped by the culprits (Ivan Miller, Carleton Young, Hooper Atchley, Ray Bennett) into working for a radio station owned by the company and managed, unwittingly, by leading lady Helen Valkis. The farmers then believe Gene has double-crossed them. Gene sings the title song, his hit "You're the Only Star In My Blue Heaven", and "Rocky Mountain Rose" astride Champion in the middle of the street while adoring townsfolk listen --- just as they were in the theatres. It's a perfect Autry moment. There's plenty of other music from the Maple City Four, Stafford Sisters and Walt Shrum and his Colorado Hillbillies (including brother Cal Shrum). The acceptance by rural audiences of this hillbilly and barn dance music obviously helped pave the way for Republic's series of Weaver Brothers and Elviry rural music comedy/dramas. Roy Rogers, still using the name Dick Weston, is a square dance caller at the barn dance. Also, is it an in-joke when Smiley announces the big barn dance at Corrigan's barn? Watch for a scene with three Republic B-western movie posters on the side of a building. One appears to be a Johnny Mack Brown Supreme and another from a 3 Mesquiteers western. During the filming, a realistically staged mob scene went awry leaving Gene with a wrenched shoulder, Smiley with a sprained left wrist and Colorado Hillbillies' fiddler Robert Hoag with a fractured right leg. As well, stuntman Fred Kennedy had his foot stomped on by a horse and Fred Burns wounded his arm in a buckboard wreck. Upon completion of OLD BARN DANCE, wanting to amend his Republic contract, Autry took a 'walk' from his duties at Republic and did not show up for shooting of WASHINGTON COWBOY. Officially on strike, he headed out for a personal appearance tour in January of '38. Negotiations between Gene and Republic prexy Herbert J. Yates continued hot and heavy until everything was finally settled in early May. His new contract gave Gene $6,000 apiece for the first two films of each year and $10,000 per film on the remainder. Filming on his next, GOLD MINE IN THE SKY, began on May 21.

 RIDE THE MAN DOWN (1952 Republic)
RIDE THE MAN DOWN is one of those rare little movies where everyone is perfectly cast and every performance is dead-on as Mary McCall Jr. translates Luke Short's excellent Saturday Evening Post short story to the screen. It's very possibly the perfect casting more than the actor's abilities that makes their performances shine, as Short's story is strictly traditional. However, originality isn't the hallmark of excellence. Westerns like RIDE THE MAN DOWN transcend formula without destroying it. Producer/director Joe Kane, a fan of Short's stories, simply gives us an excellent western! When the tough old Hatchet ranch owner dies, that leaves his daughter (Ella Raines) and her weak kneed brother (James Bell) to maintain the thousands of acres as owners with strong willed ranch foreman Rod Cameron to preserve the fabulous ranch and save it from other greedy ranchers (Brian Donlevy and Forrest Tucker) who would move in on their grass. Stirred into the evolving story is a romantic foursome --- Tucker loves Raines but Raines has always looked up to Cameron who thinks he's in love with haughty town girl Barbara Britton. Along for the intriguing ride are Sheriff J. Carroll Naish, Donlevy's henchman Roy Barcroft, crooked saloon owner and rustler Jim Davis (in one of his nastiest roles), ranchers Paul Fix and Douglas Kennedy, Hatchet cook Chill Wills, young rawhider Roydon Clark (later stunt double for James Garner) and Britton's sleazy storekeep father Taylor Holmes. Fine example of how good a B-film can be.

 LAW OF THE SADDLE (1943 PRC)
Notable as the first use of Corriganville after the popular townsite was constructed on the 1,740 acre spread purchased by Ray 'Crash' Corrigan in 1937 for $11,354. Bob Livingston as the Lone Rider is after slick polecats who get their boss (Lane Chandler) elected Sheriff in a town, then strip the place of all its money and move on to pull the same stunt elsewhere. Livingston, as the Lone Rider, first arrives at a ranchers' meeting wearing his Lone Rangerish mask, then it's never referred to again. What's the point? Also, is it some sort of inside joke ... as Livingston and Fuzzy St. John talk, Jimmy Aubrey walks by and they comment on him looking familiar. But nothing more is made of it. Some sort of reference to the fact Aubrey was in nearly all of producer Sig Neufeld's westerns? For the record, fabulous horsewoman Betty Miles is the leading lady as rancher John Elliott's daughter.

 WILD HORSE RANGE (1940 Monogram)
Horse trader Jack Randall and sidekick Frank Yaconelli (Oh my God! He's singing!) capture horse thieves (Tom London, Charles King, George Chesebro) who are stealing herds from rancher Marin Sais and her niece Phyllis Ruth, then blaming the losses on a wild white stallion. Pretty routine you've-seen-it-all-before stuff.

 TRIGGER TRICKS (1930 Universal)
Texas Ranger Hoot Gibson helps sheep rancher Sally Eilers (Mrs. Hoot Gibson) outwit murdering cattleman (Robert Homans). Early Gibson 'talkie'. Former silent star Neal Hart is the Sheriff.

 ARIZONA RANGER (1948 RKO)
Father and son fighting back to back --- Tim and Jack Holt co-starred together for the only time in their careers. Our loss. Tim and two pals (Bill Phipps, Richard Benedict) return to Tim's father's ranch after being mustered out of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders with instructions to bring law to Arizona Territory so it may achieve full statehood. Tim and Papa Jack are at loggerheads as Dad wants Tim to help him run the ranch, not organize the Arizona Rangers. Tim then clashes with outlaws Steve Brodie, Jim Nolan and Robert Bray when Tim interrupts a wife beating by Brodie of pretty Nan Leslie --- who Tim promptly falls for. The film, like several early Holt post-war titles, plays like a big budget A-western with emotional strength and terrific action. The fact the at odds father and son are played by real father and son only serves to deepen the emotional impact. First film to utilize the 'Holt cabin' at Lone Pine which still exists today. It's used as Brodie and Leslie's ranch house. The oft-seen Andy Jauregui Ranch is Holt's spread.

 BLACK LASH (1952 Western Adventure)
If you've seen FRONTIER REVENGE ('47) you've basically seen BLACK LASH as it's a 'new' story built around footage lifted and re-edited from the earlier Lash LaRue western with tidbits of connecting new footage (scripted by uncredited Maurice Tombragel). Curiously, in one of these new segments, sidekick Fuzzy St. John mentions Frontier --- Lash's brother in OUTLAW COUNTRY as well as its re-edit FRONTIER PHANTOM. Padding out BLACK LASH is a 7 minute narrative prologue with rodeo stock footage and footage lifted from CROOKED RIVER with Jimmy Ellison/Russell Hayden. Still odder --- footage of Jim Bannon from FRONTIER REVENGE is used, but Bannon was apparently not available for BLACK LASH (as were Ray Bennett and Peggy Stewart reprising their previous roles in new footage) so producer/director Ron Ormond had Byron Keith, with his back to the camera, 'stand-in' for new scenes needed for Bannon's character of Brandt. Keith also plays another role, that of Bennett's crooked lawyer. Obviously, viewers in 1952 must have had a feeling of deja vu when they went to see this --- or they simply felt cheated! Oddly, in a film they titled BLACK LASH, LaRue never uses his whip, even in stock footage. On another level today, it's intriguing to see the ingenuity that went into constructing a 'new' B-western from an old one with only about 10 minutes of new footage. Producer Ormond pulled the same stunt on Lash's last four westerns before theatre goers and distributors got wise. But Ormond wasn't down yet, he went to TV and re-used the footage several times again to construct LaRue's 15 minute TVers, LASH OF THE WEST, with Lash doing new narration over the old footage. Talk about stretching a buck!

 IRON MOUNTAIN TRAIL (1953 Republic)
Although one of Rex Allen's most action-packed westerns, it was the beginning of the end for Rex as prexy Herbert J. Yates tightened the purse strings another couple of notches, eliminating all of Rex's songs (and the Republic Rhythm Riders group) and cutting the running time another 6 minutes to 54 min. The Arizona Cowboy's films began at 67 min., were then cut to 60 and finally to 54 for the last five beginning with this William Witney directed entry revolving around crooked clipper ship owner Grant Withers who'll go to any means, even murder, to protect his mail contract from being taken away by a faster overland stagecoach route operated by Forrest Taylor and his daughter Nan Leslie. Roy Barcroft is Withers' ship skipper henchman who, oddly, has a cute pet monkey, Marie. Unusual for one of the bad guys to have a pet the audience sympathizes with. The oft-used bridge-is-out-stagecoach-into-the-river Republic stock footage is reused.

 ARIZONA WHIRLWIND (1944 Monogram)
The Trail Blazers (Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Bob Steele) combat crooked banker Karl Hackett (and his gun-rannies George Chesebro, Charlie King, Bud Osborne, Al Ferguson, Frank Ellis, Ernie Adams) who has hidden uncut diamonds in a stagecoach to be received by gangster Ian Keith. Meantime, Hoot and Ken find time to string telegraph wire for Dan White while Bob romances Myrna Dell who once told me, "I adored Bob Steele, he wasn't as old as Ken and Hoot. Gawd! They were old enough to be my grandfather!" Young Don Stewart is the Trail Blazers young pal. He was also in their WILD HORSE STAMPEDE and Tom Keene's WHERE TRAILS END then disappeared from sight. This is one of those action-packed B-westerns where the only people in town are the outlaws and the good guys ... no budget for any extras or townspeople of any sort. This was Maynard's last ride with the Trail Blazers, he quit the series for monetary reasons.

 SONG OF THE GRINGO (1936 Grand National)
Tex Ritter's first western is somewhat of an improvement over its source material --- OKLAHOMA CYCLONE ('30) w/Bob Steele --- but still a quite slow, dreary affair, not much of a film on which to launch a promising singing cowboy's career. What does come through is Tex's boyish charm and his raw energy with a song, such as on his popular "Rye Whiskey" dramatized midway. Working undercover for Marshal Monte Blue, Tex arrives during a thunderstorm (a nice touch) at a Spanish rancho owned by Martin Garralaga and his daughter Joan Woodbury. The rancho is being used as a hideout by outlaws (Ted Adams, Warner Richmond, Glenn Strange, Jack Kirk). Perennial sidekick Fuzzy Knight is even one of the outlaws, but sees the error of his ways and helps Tex eventually. Real life Oklahoma outlaw Al Jennings is the courtroom judge and old timer William Desmond is the court clerk.

 BORDER G-MAN (1938 RKO)
You have to put your mind in a 1938 pre-World War II mode for this one as Justice Department investigator George O'Brien comes to Texas to rout out John Miljan whose company has been involved in questionable horse buying and apparent cavalry training of men, a violation of the Neutrality Act in force at the time. Blackmailing a senator's son (William Stelling) to give him a cloak of respectability, Miljan, his men (Edgar Dearing and Edward Keane) and girl friend (Rita La Roy), plan to smuggle not only horses but munitions out of the country by boat. The inland cove-waterway action finale gives this on a bit of a twist. Stelling's young sister is played by Laraine Johnson (later Laraine Day) in her first real part after a bit in STELLA DALLAS. She signed with MGM in '39 and gained popularity as Nurse Mary Lamont, fiancée of Lew Ayres in the Dr. Kildare series. She later married baseball manager Leo Durocher, took an active interest in the game and became known as 'the first lady of baseball'. This is the first film in which what was to become Gene Autry's themesong, "Back In the Saddle Again", was performed, by writer Ray Whitley. Whitley was awoken at 5am one morning by director David Howard who told Ray he quickly needed a song to be performed during a barn dance scene to be filmed that day. Whitley sleepily rolled out of bed and told his wife, "They need a song. Looks like I'm back in the saddle again." His wife Kay happily exclaimed, "You just wrote the title right there." Watch for Art Davis on fiddle with Whitley at that dance scene. Gene Autry heard it, used it in ROVIN' TUMBLEWEEDS ('39) and made it the title of his 1941 film. It's been identified with Autry ever since.

 WEST OF TEXAS (1943 PRC)
Routine Texas Rangers (Dave O'Brien, James Newill, Guy Wilkerson) B-western. Nothing less. Nothing more. Crooked railroad supervisor Robert Barron (and his gang shrewd lawyer Tom London, gunman Jack Ingram, saloon girl spy Frances Gladwin) is changing ranchers' boundary lines to match them to their crooked surveys so they can grab up valuable ranch land from rancher Henry Hall and others. The Texas Rangers sort out the trouble, at first believing Hall guilty of sabotaging the railroad. The leading lady, Marilyn Hare, is yet another gal who had small parts in big films. (LADY FOR A NIGHT, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY) and the lead in this one western, then disappeared. Directed by Oliver Drake. A streamlined 40 minute version, SHOOTIN' IRONS, was reissued in 1947.

 CALIFORNIA FIREBRAND (1948 Republic)
A top candidate for Monte Hale's best western! In Trucolor, perfectly paced by director Phil Ford with strong action, good music (four songs by Monte plus the Riders of the Purple Sage) and light comedy (Paul Hurst's evasion of his wife) makes this a winner in every department. Disguised as notorious outlaw Gunsmoke Lowry, Monte investigates a series of mining claim thefts by human vultures Le Roy Mason, Douglas Evans and Tris Coffin. Monte's helping Adrian Boot and her granny (Sarah Edwards) when the real Gunsmoke Lowry (Dan Sheridan) shows up. Listen closely --- for whatever reason, Adrian Booth's brother, Chad, has his voice dubbed by Roy Barcroft.

 CARAVAN TRAIL (1946 PRC)
Eddie Dean is the 'star' but Al LaRue (no 'Lash' yet) and his sidekick Charlie King absolutely steal the show from Eddie --- who has to look to LaRue half the time for guidance. Eddie looks just plain lost at times! King is laugh-out-loud hilarious, especially when he complains about eating nothing but "rabbits, rabbits, rabbits!" The stunning Cinecolor adds greatly to one of producer/director Robert Emmett Tansey's favorite simple plots about reformed outlaws (LaRue, King , Black Jack O'Shea) helping Marshal Dean (and his deputy Emmett Lynn) clean up a corrupt town run by saloon owner Robert Barron, slick smiling judge Forrest Taylor (another pro at the top of his game in this one) and gunmen Bob Duncan and Lee Roberts. A sub-plot involves LaRue's years long vengeance hunt for the man who killed his brother, Terry Frost (never looking more dapper when he finally arrives for the final showdown). Cowboy cancer alert --- LaRue smokes several cigarettes (probably caused several young kids in the audience to emulate him and later regret it!). Dean's singing of "Wagon Wheels" will send a chill down your spine every time you watch this one. There simply was no singing cowboy with a more thrilling voice.

 ALONG THE SUNDOWN TRAIL (1942 PRC)
The last of the Frontier Marshals six-film series has Lee Powell, Bill 'Cowboy Rambler' Boyd and Art Davis out to stop the hijacking of mine owner Karl Hackett's tungsten ore wagons. Charlie King, as nasty, mean and murderous as ever, and his gang (Kermit Maynard, John Merton, Jack Ingram) are looting, plotting and murdering to get the ore by substituting their own worthless 'stuff'. Hackett's daughter is cute Julie Duncan and his weak-kneed son is unknown actor Howard Masters who also bears the brunt of King's ruthlessness. The Frontier Marshals series was not a top priority item even at lowly PRC, and, as usual, there are a few lapses in continuity you could ride a horse through. The ever prevalent on-film distrust of lawyers in the '30s and '40s is noted here when our heroes mention Charlie King is " ... going to see his lawyer.  It's for no good, we know that." When the series ended, Lee Powell joined the Marines and died in the Pacific.

 GREAT STAGECOACH ROBBERY (1945 Republic)
Intricate and different B-western plot (by Randall Faye) as old time bank robber Francis MacDonald plans to return $150,000 he stole years ago --- but mean, abusive schoolteacher Don Costello and his pard Bud Geary have other ideas. They enlist the aid of MacDonald's son, John James, to rob the stage carrying Pop and the money. What they didn't reckon on was the intervention of Red Ryder (Bill Elliott) and Little Beaver (Bobby Blake) who is a school chum of MacDonald's young daughter, Sylvia Arslan. The trail to redemption twists and turns many ways before the grim showdown, certainly the most downbeat of any Ryder western. Screenwriter Faye, just in from England, wrote three of Republic's most offbeat stories --- the other two being Elliott's CHEYENNE WILDCAT and Sunset Carson/Smiley Burnette's lighthearted spoof, FIREBRANDS OF ARIZONA. Here, Faye injects both menace and dark humor in the Costello role. Second unit action is supplied by old pro Yakima Canutt.

 RANGERS TAKE OVER (1942 PRC)
The first of 22 Arthur Alexander/Alfred Stern (in tandem or separately) produced Texas Rangers B's starring James Newill (as Jim Steele) and Dave O'Brien (as Tex Wyatt). (Newill was replaced by Tex Ritter in the last eight entries.) In the origin opener, after a long absence, O'Brien becomes a Ranger in his father's (Forrest Taylor) outfit. Taylor resents not having seen his son for years and is overly hard on Dave, offering no fatherly feelings --- eventually dismissing him as a Ranger following a barroom brawl with suspected rustlers (I. Stanford Jolley and his gang, Bud Osborne, Lynton Brent, Carl Mathews, Charles King). O'Brien is reinstated by the end when he, Newill, leading lady (clean cut Iris Meredith --- operating a low-life bar ?!) and the third member of the newly formed 'Texas Rangers' film trio, Guy Wilkerson, roundup the outlaws. One of four songs baritone Newill sings (with help of Cal Shrum's Rhythm Rangers) is the rollicking "Roll Out, Cowboy" , written by Robert Hoag and Jack Williams. There's a classic line as Newill accosts Jolley, " We're such good friends that I always back out of a room when you're in it." This is one of the best entries in the lowbudget PRC series with a little more thought and conflict going into the plot. Meredith is a definite asset also. She'd been a stalwart at Columbia with Bill Elliott and Charles Starrett for the past 5 years, 33 films --- most of them westerns and serials. She made a couple at PRC in '43 before marrying director Abby Berlin and retiring to have children. The pairing of Newill and O'Brien is a re-teaming of sorts, as O'Brien had been Constable Kelly to Newill's warbling Renfrew of the Mounted in several of the Renfrew series at Grand National and Monogram. O'Brien gained greater success with the Pete Smith one-reeler comedies at MGM in the mid-'40s.

 LONE RIDER AMBUSHED (1941 PRC)
It's George Houston's turn to play a double role as the Lone Rider impersonates just-paroled outlaw Keno Harris allowing him to infiltrate Keno's old gang (plug-ugly Frank Hagney, Jack Ingram, George Chesebro) and recover loot hidden after a robbery five years past. At least these badmen aren't quite as gullible as some seen in other westerns-they DO wonder about his fancy clothes, his horse, his memory and his newly acquired singing voice belting out a duet, the very melodic "If It Hadn't Been For You" , with Keno's old love interest, Maxine Leslie. Naturally, George's banty-rooster sidekick, Fuzzy St. John, is in on the fun. a pretty watchable entry written by Oliver Drake. Startling to see usual badman Charlie King playing a deputy and wearing a fancy Gene Autry-style shirt. The three songs are by Johnny Lange and Lew Porter who began their songwriting careers independently in '36, collaborated for the first time on HARLEM ON THE PRAIRIE ('37), found they worked well together and went on to write dozens of songs for westerns starring Tex Ritter, Fred Scott, Tex Fletcher, Jack Randall, James Newill, John King, Judy Canova, Art Davis, Bill Boyd and George Houston. In 1943, they went their separate ways again. Lange wrote for Disney (" Song of the South", "Melody Time" ), Gene Autry and Vaughn Monroe while Porter worked on Eddie Dean and Jimmy Wakely titles as well as some Universal musicals.

 WELLS FARGO GUNMASTER (1951 Republic)
Although all the pre-requisite fistfights and gun battles are here, this Allan 'Rocky' Lane is hampered by an underdeveloped head villain (Stuart Randall) while his henchies (Roy Barcroft, Lane Bradford) are not given as much to do as usual. To the film's credit, the final chase in buckboards is unusual and creative. Wells Fargo investigator Lane tracks down the outlaws who try to rob Chubby Johnson of $120,000. Roy Barcroft has the unusual character name of Brick Mason. Excellent supporting cast --- Mary Ellen Kay, Walter Reed, Michael Chapin (later kid star of his own Rough Ridin' Kids series at Republic), William Bakewell.

 MAN FROM THE RIO GRANDE (1943 Republic)
"The period of reconstruction following the Civil War saw the most stupendous railroad building program in the history of the world. Not the least of their enemies were the greedy cattle kings who sought to line their pockets at the expense of the nation." Such a man was domineering King John (Harry Cording) of the Santa Rita Valley who, as executor of the estates of his beautiful niece Nancy Gay and precocious young ice skater, Twinkle Watts, plots to do away with the two girls. Then, claiming the Santa Rita himself, he'll accept the railroad's half million dollar offer to run a right of way through the vast property. Newspaperman Kirk Alyn (better known later as Superman in two Columbia serials) opposes Cording's stranglehold on King City. Joining him in the fight are Don 'Red' Barry --- known as the Man from the Rio Grande --- and his New Yawker vaudeville sidekick, Wally Vernon. This western marks the auspicious debut of Twinkle Watts, a professional ice skater from early childhood, however the lengthy sequence midway given over to her talents on ice puts a real drag on this otherwise, fine action-packed Barry western. "Remind me to set a trap for her" , remarks Vernon. Off camera, Barry was known to refer to the troublesome tot as Winkle Twats. For whatever reason, his choice or theirs, Harry Cording was under used at Republic. This is the talented actor's best showing at the action factory. Born in England in 1891, he entered films here in the early '20s. Although he worked at nearly every studio, the majority of his employment seems to be at Universal who found him a natural for Sherlock Holmes features, war films, swashbucklers and sword and sandal epics as well as quite a few westerns (WHEN THE DALTONS RODE, BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PRAIRIE, RAWHIDE RANGERS, THE SPOILERS, BADLANDS OF DAKOTA). Averaging 15 or more films a year in the '40s, the prolific Cording died 9/1/54 with his last film, EAST OF EDEN, released posthumously.

 STRAWBERRY ROAN (1933 Universal)
The wild horse western by which all others must be judged. Wild bronc rides! Dangerous wild horse stampedes! Terrific chases! Exciting horse fights! Some excellent trick photography and some terrific, inventive overhead photography by Ted McCord during the tear-the-joint-apart bunkhouse brawl between Ken Maynard and Harold Goodwin. Maynard sings and fiddles (w/pals Charlie King and Frank Yaconelli) Curley Fletcher's title tune as he romances Ruth Hall. Watch for 'Slim', played by former silent star Bill Patton. A dandy western --- a class act all around, directed by Alan James. A top contender for Maynard's best sound western. Cinematographer McCord lensed dozens of westerns with Buck Jones, Tom Keene, John Wayne, Dick Foran, Ken Maynard and others from '31-'40. After that he moved up to A films like DEEP VALLEY, JOHNNY BELINDA, TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE and ROCKY MOUNTAIN.

 WAR PARTY (1965 (20th Century-Fox)
Seldom seen Cavalry patrol Vs. Comanches B-plus is better than some of the 'trek and talk' westerns of the late '50s-early '60s. Middle age Don Barry gets top billing as the hard-bitten, cigar chomping Cavalry sergeant assigned at all costs to deliver a message to the troop via a mountain pass, but unknown Michael T. Mikler (who's not bad) as an Army Scout is the real hero and gets the girl (Davey Davison). Mikler had minor roles in GUNFIGHT AT COMANCHE CREEK, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, and WESTWORLD then disappeared from sight. Former B-sidekick (to Dave O'Brien and James Newill) Guy Wilkerson steals every scene he's in as nutso Indian Woodenface. "See-gar, Amen!" Partly filmed at Lone Pine and directed by old pro Lesley Selander.

 TRAILIN' WEST (1936 Warner Bros.)
"In the dark days of 1864 ... a country divided ... the fate of a nation resting upon the stooped shoulders of a lonely war-weary man ..." Abraham Lincoln (Robert Barrat) sends secret service operative Lt. Dick Foran to Kent City to investigate enemy activity there and quell an uprising of guerilla warfare instigated by Addison Richards, Henry Otho and Gordon (Bill) Elliott. To do so, Foran enlists the aid of undercover secret service agent Paula Stone, posing as a dance hall girl in Richards' gambling establishment, and Eddie Shubert (as designated sidekick Happy). Extremely well directed with a flair for excitement, speed and movement by Noel Smith, such as the scene where Dick edges his horse, Smoke, narrowly over a fallen tree resting atop a dangerously deep chasm. Also when Foran and Richards tangle midway over Paula Stone, it's a slam-banger! Stirring music score by Leo Forbstein (music director for the series). Foran belts out the spirited "Drums of Glory" with lusty bravado. A bit jarring in retrospect to witness Bill Elliott as the boss heavy after seeing him as the stalwart hero in scores of Columbia and Republic westerns, but at the time this was made he was still on his way up ... his starring days were still a couple of years away. Watch for native American sports hero Jim Thorpe as Indian leader Black Eagle. The casts of WB Foran westerns were always interesting in that they were usually a mixture of traditional western actors (Glenn Strange, Bud Osborne, Rocky Camron, Art Mix) and WB stock players more used to the east side of New York than the west side of Cheyenne (Eddie Shubert, Henry Otho).

 UNDER STRANGE FLAGS (1937 Crescent)
No film bodes well that casts B-western screen old timer Budd Buster as a Mexican named Tequila. The Crescent Tom Keene films were promoted as 'historical dramas', but the only true history in any of the fictionalized plots is an actual name or place bantered loosely about with few, if any, historical facts related to the plot. The 'story' here has something to do with the Mexican armies of Generals Barranca and Pancho Villa (who is made to act like a complete buffoon) and Keene's silver mine. Never mind that, after 10 minutes or so you'll be sound asleep anyway! Rita Hayworth was originally cast in the role eventually played by Luana Walters.

 LONE STAR TRAIL (1943 Universal)
Framed for a robbery he didn't commit and now pardoned from prison after serving two long years, Johnny Mack Brown returns to Dead Falls to prove his innocence and rout out the men who framed him --- Mayor Earle Hodgins, saloon owner Robert Mitchum and businessman Michael Vallon. Johnny is helped by new friend Tex Ritter and old pals Fuzzy Knight (who, thankfully, does not sing in this one), Jennifer Holt, the Jimmy Wakely Trio and, supposedly, George Eldredge who is secretly the man behind the three who framed Brown. Also what no one knows except Sheriff Harry Strang is that Ritter is an undercover U.S. Marshal searching for $75,000 in unrecovered stagecoach loot. Good, solid Oliver Drake (based on a story by Victor Halperin) script and plenty of slam-bang action including a humdinger of a barroom brawl with Mitchum, Eddie Parker and Jack Ingram. This being the final pairing (they made 7 together) of Brown and Ritter, the series winds up with a real winner. Even while this film was in release, Johnny rode over to Monogram as a replacement for Buck Jones' Rough Riders series. Ritter stayed on at Universal for a few, then wound up at PRC with Dave O'Brien. Old time stars Bob Reeves and William Desmond have bit parts in LONE STAR TRAIL.

 TRAILS OF THE WILD (1935 Ambassador)
McKenna of the Mounted (Kermit Maynard) and his fellow officer, Fuzzy Knight, are out of uniform trailing the kidnappers of mining engineer John Elliott. Also searching for Elliott in the labyrinth of caves in Ghost Mountain is his daughter, pert Billie Seward. Although a bit slow with only a few bursts of the robust action you expect in a Kermit Maynard picture, Joseph O'Donnell's script provides a few surprises and includes a direct steal from the conclusion of Buck Jones' SUNDOWN RIDER. O'Donnell's screenplay also throws several characters into scenes without being properly introduced to the viewer which proves confusing at times. Cast of vets includes Wheeler Oakman, Roger Williams, Matthew Betz, Dick Curtis, Charles Delaney and Robert Frazer who uses the totally inappropriate phrase, "There's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere" --- a phrase (thankfully) never heard in any other B-western! Credits suggest the story was based on James Oliver Curwoods' CARYL OF THE MOUNTAINS, but so was a 1936 Reliable film, and the two stories bear no resemblance to one another. Go figger!

 PONY EXPRESS (1953 Paramount)
"Their unfailing courage, their matchless stamina knitted together the ragged edges of a rising nation" , so said Abraham Lincoln about the Pony Express. In an attempt to emulate the vast scope of a Cecil B. DeMille big scale western, producer Nat Holt hired writer Charles Marquis Warren, costumer Edith Head, cinematographer Ray Rennahan (DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, BELLE STARR, UNCONQUERED, STREETS OF LAREDO, etc.), music director Paul Sawtell (Tim Holt, Rod Cameron and James Warren B's, CARIBOO TRAIL, GREAT MISSOURI RAID, DENVER AND RIO GRANDE, etc.) and DeMille star Charlton Heston along with Forrest Tucker and Rhonda Fleming. The result is a big budget B-western with Heston (as Buffalo Bill) and Tucker (as Wild Bill Hickok) pulling out every acting trick in the book as they bounce witty dialogue off each other as well as Fleming and Jan Sterling (in a thinly disguised Calamity Janeish role). The real establishment of the Pony Express from St. Joe to Sacramento is totally lost in this highly entertaining but overblown mythological western. Apparently, producer Holt spent all his money on his four stars, because when it comes to much needed villains, they come off a bit weak in Stuart Randall, Henry Brandon, Pat Hogan and Michael Moore. The film begs for the likes of Victor Jory, Dean Jagger, Lyle Bettger or Barton MacLane. But all in all, 100 minutes of grand scale Techicolor B-western.

 TERRORS ON HORSEBACK (1946 PRC)
One by one, Buster Crabbe and Fuzzy St. John track down the vicious range rats (Jack Kirk, Bud Osborne, George Chesebro) who held up the stagecoach and murdered all the passengers, including Fuzzy's young niece. Also tracking down the gang --- and murdering them so they won't reveal his secret identity --- is the black-clad mystery leader of the killers known only as 'Buck'. Slightly different concept (by George Milton) makes this one of the better 'Billy Carson' Crabbe westerns.

 DESERT VENGEANCE (1931 Columbia)
Quite unusual Buck Jones western casts him as outlaw Jim Cardew who rules the ghost town of Skyfields where his gang hides out in the desert (actually the Nevada ghost town of Rhyolite at the gateway to Death Valley) surrounded by 40 miles of barren desert. While vacationing in San Francisco, Buck's conned by Barbara Bedford and her 'brother' Douglas Gilmore (who fakes suicide). Discovering their scheme, Buck imprisons them both to his desert hideaway. Religiously, the bandits always attend Sunday night church services. One night, the old Parson (Buck Connors), who has lived in the wasteland for 40 years, quotes the Old Testament about a den of thieves defiling a place of worship and that if they aren't reformed, a sword will be visited upon them. Alas, that sword is indeed visited in the form of a rival gang, led by Al Smith, who sweeps down on Skyfields, killing everyone in their wake, including the Parson. The only ones left alive are a deeply wounded Buck and repentful Barbara who have at last found true love --- and hopefully, redemption. DESERT VENGEANCE is very adult in approach, slow and deliberate and not what you expect from a Buck Jones western. More appreciated upon a second or third viewing. Directed by Louis King (1892-1962) who later directed several classic 'horse' films in the '40s --- SMOKY, THUNDERHEAD SON OF FLICKA, GREEN GRASS OF WYOMING and SAND.

 ROUGH RIDERS' ROUND-UP (1939 Republic)
As Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders are mustered out at the end of the Spanish-American War, Roy Rogers, Raymond Hatton, Eddie Acuff and several of their pals head for Arizona to join the Border Patrol who are being plagued by outlaw Arizona Jack (William Pawley) hiding in Mexico and raiding in the U.S. Trouble sets in when eastern girl Mary Hart (later Lynne Roberts) arrives unexpectedly to marry George Meeker, foreman of her father's (Guy Usher) mines who is secretly in league with Arizona Jack. Former silent star Dorothy Sebastian is Meeker's jealous cohort who is in love with Meeker herself and upsets the apple cart. One does wonder why both these women are in love with Meeker who seems no prize catch. Watch for George Montgomery (then Letz) in a bit role as Border Patrol Captain Jack Rockwell's telegrapher. Some second unit work was done in the Nevada ghost town of Rhyolite.

 LAW OF THE TEXAN (1938 Columbia)
If this western seems like familiar territory for Buck Jones, it should. He'd done it twice before as BORDER LAW ('31) and FIGHTING RANGER ('34). Texas Ranger Jones fakes his dishonorable discharge from the service allowing him to cross the border into Mexico, infiltrate the gang and learn the true identity of outlaw El Coyote. Turns out to be good citizen and leading lady Dorothy Fay's uncle, Kenneth Harlan, who is stealing silver from his own company with the aid of vicious Bob Kortman. Cowboy cancer alert --- as a member of El Coyote's gang, Buck smokes a cigarette. Monroe Shaff produced these last four starring pictures for Jones independently through his Coronet Pictures and struck a releasing deal with Columbia. They're all cheap and sub-par to Jones' previous work. Several plotlines are left unfinished in this shoddy entry.

 NIGHT RIDER (1932 Artclass)
Slowly --- waaaaaayy too slowly --- Harry Carey uncovers the identity of the mysterious, bold night-riding bandit who has been robbing banks and raiding ranches. Yep, it's the obvious suspect. What I wanna know is, how come the first robbery we see the night rider pull is in obvious daylight? Harry's pals are George Hayes and Julian Rivero. The night rider's henchmen are Tom London and Bob Kortman.

 BLAZING SIXES (1937 Warner Bros.)
To the booming refrain of "The Prairie Is My Home", we're off on another fun-loving Dick Foran adventure with he and his pal, Pee Wee (Glenn Strange), as undercover government agents out to capture 'respected citizen' John Merton and his desperadoes (headed up by Milt Kibbee) who rob gold shipments being sent from the mint to local banks and then smelt it down and ship it out of the country. Helen Valkis and her Aunt, Mira McKinney, upset the bandit's plans when they arrive from the east, having inherited the ranch Merton is using as a hideout for his crooked smelting operation.

 FIGHTING CABALLERO (1935 Superior Talking Pictures)
Pretty Dorothy Gulliver arrives in the near ghost town of Gold Center on the pretense of looking for insects. In reality, she's the owner of the Katy Did Mine investigating the death of her mining engineer who was killed by sneering George Chesebro and his pals, Wally Wales and Robert Walker, who are using the mine as a headquarters for their counterfeiting. Hot on Chesebro's trail are Rex Lease and his pard Earl Douglas, undercover agents in disguise as Mexicans. Trust me, Lease's Mexican dialect is as annoying as Tim McCoy's many Spanish impersonations. I reckon, after Warner Baxter's success as the Cisco Kid, everybody wanted to get in on the act. Watch for silent star Franklyn Farnum who gets big billing but has only a barely seen bit part as a bartender. The silliness offered up by Milburn Morante and George Morrell is simply inane, especially the business with the mule. Thankfully, Dorothy Gulliver is attractive and acquits herself well in this otherwise lame production.

 DESERT PHANTOM (1936 Supreme)
You certainly can't judge a book by its cover. That old adage is well-proven when sharp-shooter and supposedly-dude gun salesman for Gigantic Shells, Johnny Mack Brown, comes to town and is asked by ranch owner Sheila Mannors to track down the mystery phantom sniper who killed her brother and ranch hands and is trying to drive her from her ranch. This time you may not be able to guess who the Phantom is. Your suspects include Mannor's invalid stepfather Karl Hackett, Mexican bandit Ted Adams (with whom Brown has an old score to settle), Charles King --- Adam's chief enforcer, and jolly saloonkeeper Hal Price.

 RED FORK RANGE (1931 Big 4)
Rough-hewn but exciting early talkie as frontiersman Wally Wales routs Indians and wins a thrilling stagecoach race thereby saving the government mail contract for Lafe McKee and daughter Ruth Mix. The outlaws (Bud Osborne, Al Ferguson, Cliff Lyons, Jim Corey) do everything they can to stop them. Lafe McKee not only plays Ruth's father but dons a beard and plays the part of a wagon train Colonel as well. Some really nice photography by William Nobles. Alan James (1890-1952) (working as Alvin Neitz), a good director, makes more of his tight-purse-strings budget than most others would. His work in low-budget westerns paid off, he was soon at Universal working on Ken Maynard titles. Cinematographer Nobles was one of the best, cutting his teeth on independents in the early '30s then moving to Republic in 1936 where he lensed dozens of westerns with Gene Autry, 3 Mesquiteers, John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Don Barry. Big 4 was formed by veteran producer John R. Freuler in 1930. He employed nearly every second echelon B-western cowboy available --- Jack Perrin, Lane Chandler, Buffalo Bill Jr., Buzz Barton, Wally Wales, Franklyn Farnum, Fred Church, Bob Custer --- even Rin Tin Tin in his final film role before his death. The cowboy stars took turns playing heroes, sheriffs and heavies in each other's films. Biggest detriment is the soundtrack, crude even by 1931 standards.

 LARAMIE MOUNTAINS (1952 Columbia)
Average Durango Kid with Cavalry Major Fred Sears and his aide (Lt. Marshall Reed) hating all Indians. Then, while Jack Mahoney, as a white man raised by Indian Chief John War Eagle (after his folks were killed by white men), hates all white men, it's not very hard for renegades Rory Mallison, Zon Murray, Chris Alcaide, Red Morgan and boss Bob Wilke (spending most of his time hidden in the Columbia cave set) to instigate a war between Indians and Cavalry so they can lay claim to gold they've discovered in Indian caves. Insufferable Smiley Burnette is a singing three-striper mess sergeant with a dog (!) named Ringeye --- just like his horse, which we never see in this one as Smiley barely leaves his one-man mess hall. Contains one of the oft-requested scenes where Charles Starrett rides into a 'cave' (at Corriganville) and rides back out instantly as Durango. It's all compliments of the standard Starrett set-up: director Ray Nazarro and scripter Barry Shipman.

 SIX GUN SERENADE (1947 Monogram)
Stale Jimmy Wakely programmer as he and saddlepal Lee 'Lasses' White save Kay Morley's ranch from banker Steve Clark's land grab plot. Ho-hum heavies in mild-mannered old man Clark (usually the put-upon rancher himself) and his henchie, non-actor Jimmie Martin (usually the juvenile lead in Wakely/Dean/LaRue B's). Leading lady Morley doesn't cut the mustard either. Off day for all concerned in an A-B-C plot. Even the songs are blah and repetitive.

 DESERT PASSAGE (1952 RKO)
When Tim Holt and partner Richard (Chito) Martin tell leading lady Joan Dixon they're selling their stageline, Michael Mark asks Tim, "You ain't quittin' are you?" Prophetically, Tim sadly answers, "It's the end of our bankroll." Indeed. After a post-war run of 29 westerns from 1947 to 1952, the increasing costs of producing B-westerns and the encroachment of TV, spelled an end to the excellent RKO Holt series. This last film shows its budgetary restraints with more talk and less action as prison parolee Walter Reed returns to town to recover $100,000 he embezzled years before from Joan Dixon's father's bank. Many old pals of Reed's (Dorothy Patrick, Clayton Moore, Denver Pyle, Lane Bradford, John Dehner) lay in wait for Reed and the hidden cache. Clayton Moore was at liberty from his LONE RANGER TV series over a salary dispute.

 RANDY RIDES ALONE (1934 Lone Star)
Possibly the most entertaining of John Wayne's early Lone Stars as he plays express agent Randy Bowers riding alone to corral a gang who in a bloodthirsty massacre have left several persons murdered at Half-Way House while looking for a strong box. Charged with the murders himself, Wayne is arrested by the posse led by Marvin Black (alias Matt the Mute, the real head of the outlaw band --- played by George Hayes). Freed by Alberta Vaughn, daughter of the murdered Half-Way House owner who knows Wayne to be innocent, Wayne hooks up with the gang and eventually brings them to justice. Notice when Wayne and outlaw Yakima Canutt go to do some target practice shooting at wanted posters, Wayne has on a very plaid shirt. All of a sudden, it's a completely different shirt! It also changes back and forth several times as Wayne escapes Canutt's waterfall hideout. Homely Alberta Vaughn replaced cute Cecilia Parker who was originally intended to co-star.

 THE TEXAN (1932 Principal)
Principal Dist. Corp. (formed by Sol Lesser) picked up this two-year-old William Pizor western starring Buffalo Bill Jr. as one of several films to kick off its schedule. Nothing like starting at the bottom! Bill Jr., unjustly on the lam from the law, becomes involved with two con men betting on a horse race while he's trying to help Lucile Browne and her kid brother Bobby Nelson. Nelson had starred in the Pioneer Kid silent series in '28-'29 and later teamed up with Rex Lease for several at Superior Talking Pictures in the mid-'30s. He made his last westerns with Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Steele at Supreme in '37. Very little is known of him from there on. Although released in '32, THE TEXAN was made in '30, the year leading lady Lucile Browne (1907-1976) began, making it one of her earliest films ... also appearing in George O'Brien's LAST OF THE DUANES at Fox the same year. What a difference! Through 1937 Lucile co-starred in 5 serials (including BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL and LAW OF THE WILD) and 9 westerns (including Gene Autry's first, TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS, and John Wayne's RAINBOW VALLEY). Her wide-eyed blonde innocence was always welcome in a western. Director Clifford Smith was on his last legs, having helmed dozens of silent westerns with Jack Hoxie, Hoot Gibson, Art Acord, etc.

 RIDERS OF THE NORTH (1931 Syndicate)
After a fairly decent and interesting beginning, considering it's directed by a hack like J. P. McGowan, this Bob Custer Mountie film sinks slowly in a sea of melodramatics. No-goods Eddie Dunn and George Regas frame Buddy Shaw, an unwilling accomplice, for murder and crime. Dunn pulls his usual sleaze act (lusting after Blanche Mehaffey just as he did in SUNRISE TRAIL with Bob Steele the same year). Blanche wrings her hands and looks forlorn as only she can do. Buddy Shaw whines, cries and overacts badly while arrow-straight Bob Custer delivers his lines as always in his flat, staccato style. The windup comes mostly from the Chief Inspector (rather than Custer), played with his customary stage demeanor by William Walling. An extremely good (but unbilled) cowboy band sings a quite listenable, up-tempo but plaintive song about Mounties always getting their man ... the theme music of which recurs throughout the film as Mountie Custer gets closer and closer to his quarry. Watch for Wally Wales (unbilled) as another Mountie.

 PIONEER TRAIL (1938 Columbia)
The film gets its two-star rating due to small border collie, Tuffy, and the outlaw Slim Whitaker/Marin Sais relationship, not from star Jack Luden. Non-heroic Jack, roped and tied by outlaws, is saved by Tuffy who also stops a run-away team. Tuffy gets an extra bone for this job ... but Luden doesn't! As Art Davis sings a "farm song", Luden is making silly faces and imitating donkeys, chickens, cows and turkeys. This bit would embarrass Max Terhune! Then Luden "plays a tune" on half-full drinking glasses! Not what we expect from our cowboy hero. Perhaps all this was at director Joseph Levering's behest or even writer Nate Gatzert but it was ill-advised! More likeable is loutish old reprobate outlaw Slim Whitaker in his exchanges with his tough "old lady", Marin Sais. Look for Ma Allen --- played by Eva McKenzie, wife of character actor Robert (Bob) McKenzie (who's here also). They are the parents of B-western leading lady Fay McKenzie. Granted, Luden is a weak lead, but the film itself (filled with Ken Maynard stock footage), about rustlers along the opening of the Chisholm Trail is quite watchable, due to the stated reasons.

 GHOST TOWN GOLD (1936 Republic)
In this, the second of the 3 Mesquiteers series, Ray 'Crash' Corrigan and the other Mesquiteers, Robert Livingston and Max 'Lullaby' Terhune, get involved in a prizefight to help save Kay Hughes and her father Mayor Burr Caruth's bank and catch a gang of bank robbers (LeRoy Mason, Yakima Canutt, Bob Kortman). The trail leads to some wild shenanigans in a spooky old ghost town (Brandeis Ranch) with a crazy old miner (Milburn Morante). Although the second Mesquiteer film, it's the first for Max Terhune, replacing Syd Saylor after only one entry. This film shows how Max acquired his 'talking doll', Elmer, in a rigged game of Three Card Monte. Whatever 'magic' Terhune with his dummy Elmer added to the mix is sometimes hard to analyze, but it worked. The trio (with Livingston and Corrigan better dressed than in the first film) clicked and one of the best and longest running series of B-westerns was off and running, this time with a good Oliver Drake and John Rathmell script piloted by Joe Kane's direction.

 LONE BANDIT (1935 Empire)
The mystery element of just who the black-clad Phantom Bandit will turn out to be is interesting, but lowbudget director J. P. McGowan is burdened as usual by his own inadequacies. McGowan's pictures are generally filled with mismatched shots, odd reaction takes, stilted dialogue that doesn't seem to relate and other inadequacies such as the terribly unfunny padding of Ben Corbett 'humor' here. LONE BANDIT is no exception! In Lane Chandler's final slugfest with Slim Whitaker, you can even hear director McGowan say "cut" after one particular knockdown. And yes, they really said it in a movie --- Slim Whitaker: "This country ain't big enough for the two of us!" You don't see many cowboy heroes with a mustache, but both Chandler and Sheriff Wally Wales sport lip-hair in this one. An unknown cowboy band sings a couple of songs, one about Susie and one about a pinto pony.

 HOME IN WYOMIN' (1942 Republic)
Guitars, guns, gold and girls as radio star Gene Autry foregoes a personal appearance tour to return to his roots in Wyoming (with his pals Smiley 'Frog' Burnette and Joe 'Tadpole' Strauch Jr.) to help Forrest Taylor, owner of a rodeo troupe, whose son (James Seay) is ruining the business with his drinking and gambling. Reporter Chick Chandler and photographer Fay MacKenzie are ordered by their editor to follow Gene and get some 'hot' publicity pictures. What they wind up getting are photos of gangster George Douglas (and his henchmen Bud Geary and Ken Cooper) on the lam from the Chicago mob. When Chick is killed, Seay is blamed from the rodeo arena (he'd lost in a big poker game to Chick the night before). Gene finds himself enmeshed in a thrilling murder mystery that reaches its finale in a spooky, dark gold mine with crazy miner Olin Howlin in one of the best roles of his career. Gene sings "Be Honest With Me", "Tweedle-O-Twill", "I'm Thinking Tonight of Blue Eyes" and Irving Berlin's "Any Bonds Today". Gene was the first movie star to aid the U.S. Defense Bond campaign by highlighting the official song of the campaign. Tom Hanlon plays Gene's radio announcer in the film. Hanlon was the announcer on Gene's real radio show, MELODY RANCH.

 OUTLAW RULE (1935 Kent)
Lowbudget producer Willis Kent cast Reb Russell in a series of eight westerns based on Reb's notoriety as an All American fullback at Northwestern who led the Big 10 in scoring. He averaged six yards every time he carried the ball. He graduated in '32. Reb may have been the worst actor ever to star in B-westerns, but his boyish aw-shucks charm earned him his share of devotees over the years. In this one, Reb is a lawman known as The Whistler trying to prove young rancher John McGuire is innocent of the murder of the Sheriff. With the help of leading lady Betty Mack and Jack Kirk (who sings), Reb proves Yakima Canutt, Al Bridge and Henry Hall are the real badmen. At one point, an outlaw known also as the Whistler (Jack Rockwell) enters the fray. The terribly dubbed whistling for Rockwell is absolutely laughable. And who is that unbilled Bobby Breen-like kid singer at the start?? Best line, "If I knew a little more about drugstores, I'd go to Hollywood and get to be a cowboy star."

 RANGE RIDERS (1934 Superior Talking Pictures)
With his town plagued by a gang of toughs led by broken-nosed Lew Meehan, rancher Horace Carpenter sends for his son whom he calls 'a Texas terror' (Buddy Roosevelt). Buddy arrives to rout the bullies masquerading as a milquetoast easterner (very much resembling comedian Charlie Chase) then switches to a gay caballero. Merrill McCormick is his Mexican sidekick, Pedro, with Fred Parker's daughter, unknown Barbara Starr, as Buddy's love interest. Not exactly great western filmmaking from director Victor Adamson, but it's certainly never boring with its constant movement. Benefits greatly from the excellent photography of Byron Baker and snappy editing of Frances Burroughs.

 HIDDEN DANGER (1948 Monogram)
Plenty of six-gun action in one of the best of the latter day Johnny Mack Brown B-westerns as he and his two pals, Raymond Hatton and Max 'Alibi' Terhune, expose a crooked Cattleman's Protective Association run by Myron Healey as the brains heavy in the first of his many B-westerns and TV episodes. Even Healey's niece, Christine Larson, is deceived by her uncle's underhanded ways. Distinctive for a B-western is the uncommon 'gunman's code' duel between Johnny and hired gunslinger Carol Henry wherein the two opponents know each other and show respect for each other's reputation as a gunman. Both Hatton and Terhune were in three together with Brown, but after this one it was just Terhune for 5 more leaving Johnny with no sidekick to rely on for a while. Brown and Hatton had been a team for 45 westerns since GHOST RIDER in '43.

 FRONTIER OUTLAWS (1944 PRC)
The simplest of plots. Buster Crabbe and pal Fuzzy St. John stop Charlie King, Jack Ingram and their henchies led by Kermit Maynard from taking over Marin Sais and her daughter Frances Gladwin's ranch along with the rest of the valley. This is the infamous Crabbe western where he loudly and noticeably but accidentally whacks his head on the window as he backs out of it after a confrontation with King. Too cheap to shoot it over, director Sig Neufeld left it in! In another cheap (and time-wasting scene) Tex Williams and two other musicians sing a song, starting in one tempo then quickly correcting it. No retakes here! Midway through the film, Crabbe impersonates a Mexican rustler and does no better at it than Tim McCoy did numerous times. Also for 8 minutes midway, the film comes to a grinding halt with a lot of courtroom foolishness involving bumbling judge Emmett Lynn. A real low-point in Crabbe's B-western career, made fast, loose, sloppy, piecemeal and on the cheap even for Sig and Sam Neufeld!

 RATON PASS (1951 Warner Bros.)
Devious Patricia Neal walks away with acting honors in Tom Blackburn's sweeping soap operaish cattle-baron western, making much more of her conniving villainess role than is written into it. Land, the most precious commodity in the old west. Land, that men (and women) would do anything to have and hold. And Dennis Morgan and his father (fervently and energetically played by Basil Ruysdael) have thousands of acres of land until scheming, cunning Patricia Neal arrives in Raton, sweeps Morgan off his feet, marries him, then cheats him and his father out of their land with the help of weak but rich railroad man Scott Forbes and vicious gunman Steve Cochran. But getting the land is not all she bargained for-holding it is another problem as Morgan devises a way to fight back. Best line: Forbes to Neal --- "Half a million acres won't make a cattleman out of me and it can't make a lady out of you." Morgan (who sings one song) is out-gunned by everyone in the cast. He's just too bland to stand up to the acting talents of Neal, Ruysdael and Cochran with fine support from Louis Jean Heydt, Roland Winters, John Crawford, James Burke, even Dorothy Hart as a Mexican girl in love with Morgan. Rugged Tom Blackburn script based on his novel is in the vein of his other 'mini-epic-like' westerns - SHORT GRASS, CATTLE TOWN, COLT .45, CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, SIERRA PASSAGE and SIERRA BARON. Blackburn knows his west and writes about it with a passionate vigor. Swift and sure direction from Edwin L. Marin who was nearing the end of a 20 year career, having started directing in the early '30s (primarily mysteries and light comedies). His first western wasn't until TALL IN THE SADDLE in '44, but after that he gave us plenty of other good ones --- ABILENE TOWN, CANADIAN PACIFIC, FIGHTING MAN OF THE PLAINS, YOUNGER BROTHERS, CARIBOO TRAIL, COLT .45, FORT WORTH and SUGARFOOT.

 OUTPOST OF THE MOUNTIES (1939 Columbia)
Crooked businessmen Kenneth MacDonald and Ed Cobb frame beautiful Iris Meredith's young brother, fur trapper Stanley Brown, for the murder of MacDonald and Cobb's trading post partner (Dick Curtis) who wants out from under their high-priced crooked ways. Too much to-do about a backroom trap door and missing gold and too little hard riding action in this Charles Starrett northwestern. Listening to the Sons of the Pioneers sing "Rocky Road In the Rockies" is like going to church. The Sons also sing Tim Spencer's "Timber Trail" which Tim wrote in two hours when they needed an extra song for this film. They reused the song in YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS with Roy Rogers in 1944. Later Republic used it as the title of a Monte Hale B in '48 with Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage singing Spencer's tune.

 BILLY THE KID OUTLAWED (1940 PRC)
1872 --- Gun law prevails in Lincoln, New Mexico, as range war sweeps the country. Behind the climate of lawlessness are Joe McGuinn, owner of the general store, and Ted Adams, running for Sheriff against weakling Hal Price. Opposing the gangsters are a group of long-standing ranchers, but when one important member of that group (Jack Ingram) is killed, his old friends Bob Steele, Carleton Young and Fuzzy St. John, join the battle along with federal judge Walter McGrail, his daughter Louise Currie, Kenne Duncan (in love with Louise) and loyal ranch hand Steve Clark. After judge McGrail is killed by McGuinn's gunmen (John Merton, Reed Howes, Sherry Tansey) and Adams is elected Sheriff, his first official act is to declare Billy the Kid (Steele) and his friends outlaws! There's enough action here for two films with a fast-moving script by Oliver Drake. Never the 'leader' in western film production, every now and then, such as here, PRC turned out a quite good western. This is the first of the popular PRC 'Billy the Kid' series. Bob Steele starred in the first six then Buster Crabbe took over. Al 'Fuzzy' St. John was sidekick to both men, even after PRC dropped the Billy the Kid theme and changed Crabbe to Billy Carson.

 RED RIVER SHORE (1953 Republic)
After Marshal Rex Allen guns down Bill Phipps' father (Trevor Bardette) --- who is actually tied in with a gang of bank robbers unbeknownst to the young man --- Phipps goes gunning for the Marshal when the rest of the gang (Doug Fowley, John Cason, William Haade) twist the truth around and use Phipps for their own oil swindling purposes by turning him against Rex. Pretty Lyn Thomas is the girl in love with Phipps. William Haade essays one of his priceless 'dimwitted comic-badmen'. Watch for oldtimer Jack Perrin as one of the bank workmen at the start of the film. Directed by Harry Keller who went on to helm several of the best Audie Murphy A's at Universal. One of Rex's later 'all action' pictures with the only song being "Red River Valley" sung over the titles/credits.

 FIGHTING PIONEERS (1935 Resolute)
Boring, trite and sluggish. Not much to keep you awake as Cavalry Lieutenant Rex Bell discovers trader Stanley Blystone and supply sergeant Earl Dwire selling guns to the Crow Indians led by the late Chief Standing Bear's daughter, Ruth Mix (real-life daughter of Tom Mix) and her sub-chief, Chief Thundercloud. Former silent kid kowboy Buzz Barton is wasted as Bell's ebullient young orderly.

 RIDERS OF THE WEST (1942 Monogram)
As William S. Hart said, "The thrill of it all!" And it still thrills today to see Buck Jones and Tim McCoy riding in tandem to the exhilarating Edward Kay Rough Riders music. But anyone who believes Jones/McCoy and Raymond Hatton were equal in this series, take a closer look at the on-screen credits. You'll find Buck's name larger than McCoy's and Tim's slightly larger than Hatton's. In print ads Jones' image is always larger ... some ads don't even show Tim. Sheepish banker Walter McGrail, saloon owner Harry Woods, rancher Robert Frazer, Sheriff Lee Phelps and gunman Bud Osborne are in cahoots to take over the whole valley. Feisty, fire-breathing Sarah Padden (in the type of role she relished --- and she never did it better than here) sends for the Rough Riders!

 WHERE THE WEST BEGINS (1938 Monogram)
If it was director J. P. McGowan's intent to emulate the musical western/light comedy style of Gene Autry, he failed miserably in this often over-the-top Jack Randall western. It's the overused ranch grab plot (by crooked Dick Alexander and his men Kit Guard, Jack Ingram) with plenty of bad booming baritone songs by Jack (5) and lots of love-bantering between Jack and Luana Walters whom Jack accuses of having a 'Sarah Bernhardt complex'. Problem is, Randall is not Autry and the script doesn't let Luana be a very likeable character. Jack's sidekick, Fuzzy Knight, who had been riding with Kermit Maynard, Tex Ritter and others, found a home this same year at Universal and went on to play opposite all their cowboy heroes. The 'song' Fuzzy sings here will make you yearn for his Universal silly-tunes. In the bar, watch for Ray Whitley and his Six-Bar-B Cowboys who quickly saddled up with George O'Brien at RKO.

 GHOST VALLEY (1932 RKO)
Returning to his hometown after a long absence, Tom Keene is hired by crooked judge Mitchell Harris (who believes Tom to be a drifting cowboy) to impersonate himself in a scheme to convince his adopted father's niece, Merna Kennedy, to sell her share of her dead uncle's inheritance, a ghost town in the desert which just happens to include an abandoned gold mine. To help persuade Merna to sell, Harris and his partner, Ted Adams, hire Tom London's desert bandits to scare her and her nervous Aunt, Kate Campbell, but Tom masquerades as a mysterious black-caped night rider to catch the outlaws and save Merna. Filled with hard riding and spectacular stunts. This film creates a new hybrid genre --- the horror/western --- which spawned others such as HAUNTED GOLD, HAUNTED RANCH, RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING SKULL, MYSTERY OF THE HOODED HORSEMEN, TOMBSTONE CANYON, GHOST OF HIDDEN VALLEY, GHOST PATROL, WHISPERING SKULL, GHOST TOWN LAW --- even the MYSTERY MOUNTAIN serial.

 VALLEY OF FEAR (1947 Monogram)
A Monogram who-done-it worthy of Charlie Chan. Action and plenty of mystery that will keep you guessing. Who is the killer of Johnny Mack Brown's uncle and the man who framed Johnny for helping his late uncle embezzle bank money? There are plenty of suspects --- Sheriff Pierce Lyden, rancher Ed Cassidy, his daughter Christine McIntyre, rancher Steve Darrell, Darrell's foreman Ted Adams and banker Tris Coffin. Finally, Johnny and his old pal Raymond Hatton smoke out the real killer. Good location use of both the Monogram (Melody Ranch) town and the Walker (Placeritas) Ranch.

 MURDER ON THE YUKON (1940 Monogram)
When old miner Budd Buster is killed, it sets off an investigation by Mounties Sgt. Renfrew (James Newill) and Constable Kelly (Dave O'Brien) that leads to a counterfeiting ring (William Royle, Karl Hackett, Kenne Duncan, Chief Thundercloud). Plenty of action, romance with Polly Ann Young (Loretta's sister) and light-hearted bantering between Newill and O'Brien makes for an enjoyable hour, perhaps the best of the eight film Renfrew series. Dave Sharpe is an obvious stunt double for Newill. Jack Clifford as deaf trading post operator Whispering Smith steals every scene he's in. Cowboy cancer alert --- O'Brien tries to roll his own but never gets it done.

 SUNSET IN EL DORADO (1945 Republic)
Highly entertaining! One of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans' most charming blends of OKLAHOMA-style musicals and action westerns neatly scripted by John K. Butler. Big city tour company worker Dale tires of talking about the wild west and desires to see where her grandmother once reigned as queen of the Golden Nugget saloon in the gold mining Arizona town of El Dorado. Escaping westward, she is pursued by her fiancé (Hardie Albright) and old maid aunt (Margaret Dumont). When their car breaks down in the desert, the trio are rescued by Roy who takes Dale to the now ghost town of El Dorado. In a dream sequence, Dale becomes Kansas Kate, her own grandma. She's grubstaked Gabby Hayes, who has at last struck it rich. Albright (Dale's fiancé again in the dream) and his henchmen, Roy Barcroft, Stanley Price and Bob Wilke, rob Gabby of his map and it's up to Roy and Dale to set things right. A real showcase picture for Evans. Sadly, only 53 minute edited versions of the original 66 minute full length feature seem to exist. The Sons of the Pioneers play a distinctly minor role in this effort.

 PRIDE OF THE WEST (1938 Paramount)
Nothing special in this routine Hopalong Cassidy adventure, but routine Hoppys are usually better than above average PRC and other shoestring producers' fare. Hoppy plays a waiting game as he (with the help of Russell Hayden, Gabby Hayes, Sheriff Earle Hodgins and his son Billy King) smokes out real estate agent James Craig, banker Kenneth Harlan and their stagecoach bandits (Glenn Strange, Earl Askam, Henry Otho).

 VIGILANTES OF BOOMTOWN (1947 Republic)
With the unusual real life backdrop of the 1897 Gentleman Jim Corbett (George Turner)/Bob Fitzsimmons (John Dehner) prizefight in Carson City, NV, (which Fitzsimmons won), Red Ryder (Allan Lane) puts the boxing technique he learns from Corbett to good use in a dandy wind-up cliff-top fight with bank robber Roy Barcroft. Rancher Peggy Stewart and others oppose staging the championship fight in Carson City as they're afraid it will attract too much riff-raff --- which it does, Roy Barcroft, George Chesebro and their gang who stage a bank hold-up. Indicating this script may have been a hold-over from Bill Elliott's Red Ryder days, the Duchess (Martha Wentworth) makes two comments about Red being 'a peaceable man', a reputation usually afforded Elliott. A big brawl at the start features some of Republic's best stuntmen --- Tom Steele, Cliff Lyons, Dale Van Sickel and Ken Terrell. Roscoe Karns adds credence as Corbett's New Yawkish manager. Script by Earle Snell, nicely paced by director R. G. Springsteen.

 ROAMING COWBOY (1937 Spectrum)
Pretty much a paint-by-the-numbers B-western plot starring Fred Scott and Al 'Fuzzy' St. John, made palatable by Robert Hill's direction. Forrest Taylor wants rancher Richard Cramer's land so he'll have more water for his cattle and he and his men (Roger Williams, George Chesebro, Victor Cox) will do anything to obtain it including killing Cramer's neighbor, orphaning his child (cute little Buddy Cox --- any relation to Victor Cox?) and kidnapping Cramer's niece Lois January. The best line comes when Lois exclaims to Fred, "You're incorrigible!" His reply, "Am not. I'm a democrat." Fred sings several songs, three of them Stephen Foster tunes. Catch all the trouble Forrest Taylor's restless horse gives him in the early scenes. Story editor Helen Gurley is Helen Gurley Brown, famous years later for heading up COSMOPOLITAN. Glaring error of all time department --- the same stock footage of a white-hatted rider and his horse in a horse fall is used twice ... once early in the film supposedly Scott, late in the film, supposedly Roger Williams!!

 BETWEEN FIGHTING MEN (1932 World Wide)
It's sheep, the murder of a sheepman, and rivalry for the sheepman's daughter (Ruth Hall) that come between fighting cattlemen Ken Maynard and Wallace MacDonald. The real troublemaker in this offbeat, likeable Maynard story is badman Albert J. Smith. Former star Jack Perrin has a small role. Leading lady Ruth Hall, a former Eddie Cantor ingenue, married top cameraman Lee Garmes (SCARFACE, DUEL IN THE SUN) and retired from the screen in 1934 --- too soon, because she had talent. She's also in John Wayne's THREE MUSKETEERS ('33) serial as well as Wayne's RIDE HIM, COWBOY ('32) and MAN FROM MONTEREY ('33). Her other with Maynard was STRAWBERRY ROAN ('33). Ken's pal here, Wallace MacDonald, was a handsome leading man in dozens of silents beginning in 1914. He also starred in several silent serials. He gave up acting in 1934 and turned to scripting with Maynard's IN OLD SANTA FE ('34). By 1937 he was producing several Boris Karloff horror titles and went on to produce dozens of titles at Columbia through 1959, including many westerns.

 WILDERNESS MAIL (1935 Ambassador)
Kermit Maynard's entry into the dual-role western field is actually a northwestern in which Kermit portrays a Mountie killed by the brutally cold-blooded Fred Kohler (and his cohorts Dick Curtis and Syd Saylor), as well as his own revenge-bent brother, a dog-team wilderness mail carrier. You'll not soon forget Kohler's ruthlessness as he ties the wounded Mountie to a tree in the middle of nowhere and leaves him for the timber wolves. The intense climax comes at the same tree. Main problem with the film is, taking Kermit away from horseflesh and putting him on a dogsled is tantamount to taking Costello away from Abbott.

 ARIZONA GUNFIGHTER (1937 Republic)
Bob Steele's lost another father! Seems that happened in every other Steele western. After he takes the law into his own hands to avenge the murder of his father by gunning down Karl Hackett and John Merton, Bob becomes an outlaw, seeking protection of the Jack Pine Mountain Gang headed up by Ted Adams (with Lew Meehan, Ernie Adams). Great story telling with plenty of surprises by George H. Plympton based on an original by Harry Olmstead (aka Olmsted) who was responsible for several other well-done Steele and Johnny Mack Brown stories in the '30s as well as the brutal OUTLAWS OF THE PRAIRIE w/Charles Starrett.

 SUNDOWN ON THE PRAIRIE (1939 Monogram)
Action packed finale at Vasquez Rocks helps this otherwise routine western as Federal agents Tex Ritter and Horace Murphy (as Anaias) foil smugglers using Frank LaRue and daughter Dorothy Fay's ranch as a pass. In real life, Tex and Dorothy fell in love and were married in 1941. What an outlaw gang --- Charlie King, Karl Hackett, Frank Ellis, Ernie Adams, Sherry Tansey, Bud Osborne, Hank Worden! The Monogram Ritters would have been much better films in the hands of a capable director instead of a hack like Al Herman. In fact, they improved greatly when a talent such as Spence Bennet (RIDERS OF THE FRONTIER, RIDIN' THE CHEROKEE TRAIL, etc.) took over the reins.

 YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS (1944 Republic)
A Roy Rogers 'western' where he's on a showboat stage thrice as much as he is on Trigger! With an emphasis on OKLAHOMA-styled musical numbers, the lightweight plot is interrupted every few minutes for another big production number. At least the riverboat setting (Yellow Rose of Texas is the boat's name) allows the show pieces a natural setting. Dale Evans' Dad, Harry Shannon, was framed years ago by Grant Withers for an express payroll robbery he didn't commit. He breaks jail to clear his name and undercover insurance investigator Rogers suspects Shannon and daughter Dale know where the loot is hidden, so he joins Dale's showboat troupe. The Sons of the Pioneers sing "Timber Trail" (previously heard in Charles Starrett's OUTPOST OF THE MOUNTIES) and one of Bob Nolan's best, "Song of the Rover". Shug Fisher becomes Pat Brady's official comic/bass player replacement in this film. William Haade is Roy's titular sidekick. Child actor Don Kay Reynolds (later Little Beaver in Jim Bannon's Red Ryder films) makes his film debut.

 HITTIN' THE TRAIL (1937 Grand National)
Big action finish comes far too late to save this pallid Tex Ritter horse thieves effort filled with songs, most of them unmemorable except for Tex's classic "Blood on the Saddle". Even Tommy Bupp gets to "sing". This was leading lady Jerry Bergh's first film. The 18 year old New York debutante and socialite only made one other, MYSTERY RANGE ('37) with Tom Tyler, before disappearing. Keep your eye out for Snub Pollard as the bartender, two films later the silent comic was elevated to Ritter's sidekick PeeWee, one of Tex's longer lasting saddle pals. Hank Worden (Heber Snow) performs those duties in this one. Although publicity states this was singer Ray Whitley's first film, he'd already appeared in HOPALONG CASSIDY RETURNS and GIT ALONG LITTLE DOGIES with Gene Autry.

 STAGECOACH TO DENVER (1946 Republic)
Schemer Roy Barcroft brutally wrecks the stage carrying the land commissioner so he can bring in a phony and doctor the surveys to steal land from the ranchers. In killing the commissioner, a young boy (Bobby Hyatt) is hurt in the same wreck. Red Ryder (Allan Lane) sends for the boy's aunt but she (Marin Sais) is kidnapped along with a replacement commissioner and ringers brought in. Peggy Stewart, in one of her more challenging roles, is the substitute aunt. She plays it as a brassy, cigarette smoking bad girl with good intentions when she's faced with a life or death decision about Hyatt's life. Bobby Blake as Little Beaver has very little to do in this one. Martha Wentworth is the Duchess. Bit of a weak comeuppance for Roy Barcroft after all his nefarious doings, but not enough to keep this out of the winner's circle. Note that Marin Sais became the Duchess herself when Jim Bannon played Red Ryder at Eagle Lion. Tom Steele doubles Lane and Fred Graham stands in for Barcroft in the action segs.

 MELODY OF THE PLAINS (1937 Spectrum)
Dave Sharpe aids some rustlers (Slim Whitaker, Lew Meehan) then changes his mind at the last minute. During the rustler's raid Dave is killed and Fred Scott (the Silvery-voiced Buckaroo) believes himself responsible, although it was actually Whitaker. Later, when Fred and pal Fuzzy St. John wind up working at Dave's father (Lafe McKee) and sister's (Louise Small) ranch, the two rustlers also turn up, now working for Hal Price, a crooked cattle buyer. Bennett Cohen reworked his own good story in 1940 for George O'Brien as BULLET CODE, not even changing the character names! Oddly, Slim Whitaker plays O'Brien's sidekick rather than the rustler in the remake. Story editor is Helen Gurley, better known later as Helen Gurley Brown, inspirational editor of Cosmopolitan. Cute four year old Billy Lenhart makes his screen debut and nearly steals the show dancing, playing the bullfiddle and singing Fred's popular "Ridin' Down the Trail to Albuquerque", reused in TWO GUN TROUBADOUR ('39) which Lenhart was also in as well as MAN FROM MONTANA ('41) with Johnny Mack Brown and ROUGH RIDIN' JUSTICE ('45) with Charles Starrett. Scott also sings "Hideaway in Happy Valley", economically recycled two films later for FIGHTING DEPUTY ('37).

 BOOTS OF DESTINY (1937 Grand National)
The first of a series of four Ken Maynard made for Grand National following his Columbia titles; made for about $30,000, roughly half the budget of his prior Columbias. Maynard had been appearing about this time for Cole Brothers Circus so the tricks Tarzan performs are the ones Ken and his horse did at those personal appearances. Ken goes to work at Claudia Dell's ranch where her foreman, Ed Cassidy, is rustling her stock as well as searching for the reported Vasco family Spanish treasure hidden in the house. Meantime, Ken's pal, trouble-bound Vince Barnett, has relieved Martin Garralaga of the fabled 'Vasco good luck boots' which the Mexicans keep trying to retrieve. Certainly intricate plotlines but oddly uninteresting under Arthur Rossen's bland direction. Also there are several lesser roles filled by bad actors which give this film an unprofessional look in several scenes. Ken forces his singing and banjo playing on us --- thankfully interrupted mid-song. Of Maynard's four for Grand National, the first two, BOOTS OF DESTINY and TRAILING TROUBLE (both '37), were produced by M. H. Hoffman who had produced several Gibson pictures from '31-'33. Both were a step down for Maynard but even more so were the next two (WHIRLWIND HORSEMAN and SIX SHOOTIN' SHERIFF-both '38) made by the Alexander brothers, Max and Arthur, when Hoffman died quite suddenly. The Alexanders then moved Maynard under their Colony banner and produced four more quickies in 1940.

 APACHE KID (1941 Republic)
Although there's enough action, this is somehow a fairly tame Don Barry western. Producer/director George Sherman made a slight misfire with first time scripter Richard Murphy's plot which has elements of this and that as slick schemer Robert Fiske (who never leaves his office) and his unhappy 'partner', LeRoy Mason, devise a plan to trick immigrant settlers into building the main road to Oregon in exchange for phony land promises. Trusting his uncle, Fiske's nephew, Don Barry, has brought the latest group of settlers (John Elliott, Charlie King, Hal Price) into the Valley. Oddly, director Sherman built up absolutely no rapport between Fiske and Barry. They act like they barely know each other!?! Lovely Lynn Merrick, as Elliott's daughter, has virtually nothing to do but look pretty. There's no sidekick role as such, with black comedian Fred 'Snowflake' Toones and (we assume) his dog, Duke (used in other Barry features), along with soon to be resident PRC saddlepal Al St. John as a stage guard doing their best to add some comedy relief where there is none. Watch for former (but minor) B-western star Buddy Roosevelt as a posse member/outlaw. Future B-Badman John Cason has his first role in APACHE KID as a deputy. He wears an expression of "follow the leader" and "where do I go next?" He learned, and well.

 SHERIFF OF MEDICINE BOW (1948 Monogram)
Unusual in that, instead of being an out of town stranger who helps those in need, Johnny Mack Brown lives in and is the sheriff of prosperous Medicine Bow, to which paroled old time bank robber Raymond Hatton returns to see his daughter Evelyn Finley. Their handyman, Max 'Alibi' Terhune (and his dummy Elmer) discovers gold on the ranch but sly badman Bill Kennedy (the banker), Frank LaRue (the assayer), George J. Lewis, Carol Henry, Peter Perkins and Bob Woodward frame the one-time bank robber in an attempt to grab the ranch from Hatton and Finley. Finley, one of the best stuntlady doubles in the business, gets several chances to display her riding ability and expertise with a buckboard. This was Max Terhune's first with Brown. Hatton hung on for two more before Terhune stepped in as Brown's sidekick for five, then the budgets were cut and Brown went a while with no saddle partner at all. Badman Peter Perkins has his best role of the only six westerns he appeared in for '47-'48. After this one he vanished. No telling if he became a plumber in Boise, ID, or a grip in Hollywood. Good J. Benton Cheney script nicely paced by director Lambert Hillyer make this one of the best of the late '40s Brown Monograms.

 MOUNTAIN RHYTHM (1939 Republic)
Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette come to the aid of Smiley's aunt, Maude Eburne, when she and other ranchers are in danger of losing their land to eastern promoter, Walter Fenner (and his dirty tricks henchie Jack Ingram) who wants their land to develop a resort and health farm. In the depression era fantasyland of Gene Autry, he enlists the help of the hobos in the Valley as ranch hands, who amazingly are all willing to work and know how to herd cattle! June Storey is the girl as she was in ten of Gene's films. Heavy on comedy and music, the Autry formula was beginning to tire, but a rejuvenation was in store within the year with SOUTH OF THE BORDER.

 FRONTIER LAW (1943 Universal)
Tex Ritter fell from a hay barn, breaking his arm, necessitating his replacement in this western by Russell Hayden. Dennis Moore was brought in as second banana. Jack Ingram and his gun talent (George Eldredge, I. Stanford Jolley, Art Fowler) stir up a hornet's nest between cattlemen and sheepmen so they can jump in and grab off all the free range that's any good. In trying to help rancher Hal Taliaferro and his attractive daughter Jennifer Holt organize a protective association to combat the badmen, Russell Hayden crosses paths and guns with old pal Dennis Moore (looking smart all dressed in black) who is now slinging a gun for Ingram. Johnny Bond and his Red River Valley Boys (Wesley Tuttle, Jimmie Dean, Paul Sells) provide some good music but for all the great Universal action and production values, suffer we must their resident sidekick, Fuzzy Knight. Watch for old time silent star Neal Hart as one of the ranchers. Watch the concluding action in town. Musician Wesley Tuttle was riding that horse that went down in the street, knocking him cold. Produced by Oliver Drake using his 'formula' (see BEYOND THE PECOS).

 OVERLAND EXPRESS (1938 Columbia)
Buck Jones forms the pony express and battles sabotage by stageline owner Maston Williams and marauding Indians. Poorly developed script with no character evolvement by Monroe Shaff. Drew Eberson's long and medium shot direction desperately cries for some closeups, of which there are very few. Lots of action but still winds up boring. That oft used silent Wind River Indian footage from WAR PAINT ('26) turns up for the umpteenth time.

 RIDING AVENGER (1936 Diversion)
Hoot Gibson's last starring B-western before his Trail Blazers series with Ken Maynard began seven years later, and it's not particularly suited to Hoots comedic cowboy style. Dressed all in black, uncommonly decked out with a two gun rig, Marshal Hoot goes undercover as the Morning Glory Kid to infiltrate Stanley Blystone's rustler band. Although Ruth Mix and Buzz Barton get co-star billing, their roles are quite insignificant compared with June Gale as Hoot's love interest and Blystone. Barton is simply one of the Sheriff's deputies and Ruth is Blystone's scorned and cast off wife. One unintentionally hilarious scene has Ruth performing what is supposed to be a seductive dance. It isn't! The story line constantly refers to Marfa and the Big Bend area of west Texas and, judging from the uncommon on-screen locations, may have been filmed in that area.

 BELLS OF CORONADO (1950 Republic)
Screenwriter Sloan Nibley delighted in making little old ladies or kindly doctors (as here) offbeat heavies in Roy Rogers films. We expect gruff Grant Withers to be the villain as usual, but it's a Nibley red herring as elderly family physician Leo Cleary and his gang, headed up by Clifton Young (simply no substitute for Roy Barcroft), are selling uranium to foreign buyers. The final chase is a thriller with Young and insurance investigator Rogers high atop an electrical tower. Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage work for the telephone company as does Dale Evans who seems out of step in this entry, playing the role for comedy. There's an implausible, strained and silly set-up between Dale and Roy where she believes he's a desperate character. Pat Brady (out of the Pioneers) is once again Roy's pal, Sparrow Biffle. Director William Witney's desert settings are nicely captured in Trucolor.

 LAW OF THE PAMPAS (1939 Paramount)
At 73 minutes, this Hopalong Cassidy film is a little too drawn out for its slim plotline about Hoppy and Lucky (Russell Hayden) delivering a herd of cattle to Argentina and finding a killer (Sidney Blackmer) and his henchies (Glenn Strange, Eddie Dean) trying to wrest Pedro de Cordoba's estancia from him. Although it's slow going, it finishes with the by now requisite big action finale amongst the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine standing in for the Andes. Watch Hoppy finish off Blackmer with a boleras rather than a pistol. Look for Montie Montana (unbilled) trick riding at the beginning of the film. Briefly out of his Charlie Chan get-up, is Sidney Toler trying to add comedy as an Argentinean. Sultry Steffi Duna also adds a little Latin fire.

 KING OF THE BULLWHIP (1950 Western Adventure Prod.)
The best known and most popular of Lash LaRue's B-westerns has he and saddlepal Fuzzy St. John out to corral El Azote, the masked, whip-cracking outlaw leader of a gang terrorizing the range. Behind the mask is banker Jack Holt's clerk, Dennis Moore, whose plan is to break all the banks in the country and set up his own banking empire. Trouble erupts when another gang led by Tom Neal tries to horn in on the whip-wielding bandit's game and brings Lash (working under cover, natch) in as an imitation El Azote, trying to place the blame for their robberies on the real El Azote. The excellent camera angles and overall good 'look' of the film including a terrific barroom fight between Lash and George J. Lewis can be credited not so much to director Ron Ormond but to cameraman Ernie Miller who'd been at his craft for 20 years and had lensed literally hundreds of films including numerous westerns with Hoot Gibson, Gene Autry, 3 Mesquiteers, Roy Rogers, Don Barry, Bill Elliott, Eddie Dean and Rocky Lane as well as countless non-westerns. The highlight of the film, and a highlight of all B-westerns (!), is the climatic cliff-top whip duel between Lash and El Azote. Especially memorable because whip fights in westerns were not normal fare. The fact Lash takes his licks during the lengthy duel adds to the suspense. Anyone who saw it in theaters always remembered the exciting scene. As well, Lash used his bullwhip three other times in this B-western classic written by Jack Lewis. Former Universal leading lady Anne Gwynne is given hardly anything to do --- no wonder she prefers not to remember this film. Mary Lou Webb (as Mary Lou) was related to associate producer Ira Webb, possibly his daughter. Gunman 'Willis' is Willis Houck, a relative of money-man producer Joy Houck. Stuntman Hugh Hooker (1909-1987) is the stage driver. A horse and stagecoach specialist, Hooker doubled Gene Autry, John Derek and others. Beginning film work about 1944, TEXAS PANHANDLE is his earliest western. Later worked on the low budget Sunset Carson Yucca films, James Ellison's TEXAN MEETS CALAMITY JANE, Spade Cooley's SILVER BANDIT and such before moving up several notches for EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, HOOPER, SCARFACE and others. His two sons, Buddy Joe and Billy Hank, are still in the stunt profession. Hugh even starred in his own lowbudget western, ADVENTURES OF THE TEXAS KID in '54. Cliff Taylor (as townsman Mr. Palmer) is in at least nine of Lash's last 12 films and is on his TV series, LASH OF THE WEST. He's director Ormond's father-in-law. Taylor once ran Coffee Cliff's, a favorite Broadway nightspot where gangster Jack 'Legs' Diamond and other low-lifes gathered after-hours. Other studios had definitely noted Lash's popularity. Monogram had invented Whip Wilson a year earlier. Republic injected a whip fight into Roy Rogers' NORTH OF THE GREAT DIVIDE ('50) and even Gene Autry cracked one in MULE TRAIN ('50).

 WOLVES OF THE RANGE (1943 PRC)
Why do they call Bob Livingston the Lone Rider when he rides into the film with sidekick Fuzzy St. John? At any rate, it's Fuzzy's picture all the way, stealing every scene he's in. It's delightful to watch him match wits with a mystic fortune teller, the unlikely Slim Whitaker. Crooked I. Stanford Jolley of the Cattlemen's Association has a deal with an eastern syndicate and craves the whole valley for an irrigation project. Jolley must see the local cattlemen (Karl Hackett, Budd Buster, etc.) don't recover from the current drought so he imports Kenne Duncan and his gunslingers (Jack Ingram, Roy Brent). At one point, following an ambush, a crack on the noggin induces amnesia in Livingston. When scripter Joseph O'Donnell recycled his own story for RETURN OF THE LASH ('47) with Lash LaRue and Fuzzy, he let Fuzzy receive the whack on the cranium and be stricken with amnesia. Leading lady Frances Gladwin, a PRC regular, is at her best as banker Ed Cassidy's daughter.

 OKLAHOMA BLUES (1948 Monogram)
One of the more pleasing Jimmy Wakely westerns as he impersonates singing killer, the Melody Kid, a fabrication of Jimmy's 'handicap', Dub 'Cannonball' Taylor. Townsfolk (restaurant owner Virginia Belmont, Sheriff Steve Clark, Judge Frank LaRue) desire Rainbow's End as county seat but local undertaker I. Stanford Jolley is the leader of a gang (George J. Lewis, Zon Murray) attempting to have Yuba Junction, where Jolley owns a lot of land, declared the county seat. Jimmy sings the title song, "Git Along Little Dogies" and "Judy" (to demure Virginia Belmont) as well as "On the Strings of My Lonesome Guitar" written by Smiley Burnette. Fiddlin' Arthur Smith is unbilled.

 ROARING SIX GUNS (1937 Ambassador)
Although young rancher Kermit Maynard is in love with cute Mary Hayes, her uncle (Sam Flint) is one of Kermit's bitterest enemies. Flint's bent on Mary wedding his conniving partner, John Merton, with whom Flint is trying to finagle away Kermit's grazing land. Failing legally, they resort to force hiring professional gunman Earle Hodgins (as Sundown) in a truly offbeat role for him. An unknown and unnecessary Fred Scott/George Houstonish type balladeer sings "Prairie Lullabye", an obvious attempt to fit in to the newly popular singing cowboy trend.

 FEUD OF THE RANGE (1939 Metropolitan)
Following an exciting montage of marauding outlaws and striking lightning, battling Bob Steele (and his pal Happy --- sourpuss Budd Buster) returns to his home territory to stop a phony range war being stirred up by Jack Ingram and Charlie King in the age-old B-western plot: the railroad is coming, grab the investment property at any cost. Bob whups up on both of 'em before it's over. Gertrude Messinger (at one-time married to Dave Sharpe) is Bob's girl while snarling Richard Cramer (1889-1960) is Bob's unlikely father. Billed as associate producers, Chaunce and Wilt Parry (misspelled on screen as Chance and Witt) were businessmen interested in bringing more films to Kanab, UT, where this was made. Plenty of action but directed with his usual lack of artistic ability by Harry Webb, who also produced this for he and B. B. Ray's independent Metropolitan Pictures.

 FIGHTING MUSTANG (1948 Yucca/Astor)
Sunset Carson's series of Yucca pictures all have a homemade feel to them, so much so you can almost hear one-time top-flight director Oliver Drake saying to his pals (referred to by Ollie as the Beasties), "Hey guys, lets get together and make some cowboy movies." In this one, Texas Ranger Carson fights a band of outlaws (Polly McKay, Steve Keyes, Al Ferguson) opposed to the annexation of badlands territory, Three Corners, to Texas. Meanwhile, Sunset's pal, Al Terry, proves wild mustang Cyclone is no killer. Several songs by Little Joe Hiser's Wranglers including "Son of a Son of a Son of a Gun" (originally sung by Fuzzy Knight in one of his Universal films). Pretty much inept on every front --- direction, photography, script, stunts and acting --- including Forest Mathews who possessed the most stilted voice in B-westerns.

 WILD HORSE MESA (1947 RKO)
Good strong storytelling highlights the post-war Tim Holt films, especially the earlier ones, and this remake of his father's (Jack Holt) 1925 Paramount is no exception. After capturing wild horses in the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine, Tim's employer (Jason Robards) is cheated then murdered by Harry Woods and disgruntled former Robards employee Tom Keene (under his Richard Powers alias). When Woods turns up dead also, Tim is blamed. Keene's final retribution comes at the hooves of Panquich, leader of the wild horse herd whom Keene once mistreated with barbed wire. Nan Leslie is Robards' daughter and Dave Sharpe doubles Tim for the fight scenes in the last of the Holt films to carry the Zane Grey name. Very noticeable is the fact Tim does not ride Lightning in this entry. Perhaps RKO thought the beautiful palomino would steal the limelight from Panquich.

 MOJAVE FIREBRAND (1944 Republic)
Wild Bill Elliott cleans out the lawless elements (LeRoy Mason, Forrest Taylor, Bud Geary, Hal Price, Jack Ingram, Kenne Duncan, Marshall Reed) in the frontier town of Epitaph founded by God-fearing Gabby Hayes. At the same time, Bill helps a young boy (Sammy McKim's brother Harry McKim) learn that hero worship of a gambler like LeRoy Mason (referred to on-screen as "a skunk of the frontier") doesn't pay rewards. Harry's school teacher is Anne Jeffreys. As action packed as they come! In the saloon brawl midway through, the punches look as real as any I've ever seen. A bonus --- Gabby even sings (w/Anne Jeffreys) and dances a soft shoe! Few westerns have ever pointed up the dilemma of misplaced hero worship as well as this excellent film.

 DALTON GANG (1949 Lippert)
After five years out of the saddle, Don Barry realized that's really where audiences appreciated him most, so he struck a nine picture production deal with Robert L. Lippert, seven of which were westerns plus two crime dramas. DALTON GANG (retitled OUTLAW GANG for TV) was the first western in the set-up. When the Rincon Land and Water Co. (headed up by Ray Bennett) hires former members of the Dalton Gang (Robert Lowery, Greg McClure, Lee Roberts) to drive the Indians (led by George J. Lewis) off their land, U.S. Marshal Don Barry is sent to investigate. He's helped out by newspaper editor Byron Foulger, Betty (later Julia) Adams, daughter of a murdered land agent and, eventually, Sheriff James Millican. As produced by stockmeister Roy Ormond, the film opens with nearly a reel of stock footage foreword about the old west and the Dalton gang.

 FRONTIER AGENT (1948 Monogram)
High action content makes this a better than average Johnny Mack Brown as land promoter Kenneth MacDonald and his outlaw ranihans (Dennis Moore, Lane Bradford) want the telegraph to come to their town of Spurlock rather than through Baxter where rancher Ted Adams, his daughter Reno Browne, foreman Raymond Hatton and ranch hand Riley Hill are bringing the line. The outlaws cause plenty of trouble before Brown and his pals bring them gun law justice. Brown is in top form looking great in an untypical black hat and black bib shirt. Watch for Monte Hale's brother Bill as 'Edwards' near the end of the show.

 DEVIL RIDERS (1943 PRC)
With Buster Crabbe B-western #14, the star suddenly became Billy Carson rather than Billy the Kid. Two schools of thought exist as to why producer Sig Neufeld made the change midstream: as the result of an outcry from parents followed by exhibitors over glorifying an outlaw --- or --- writers simply ran out of ideas on how to have Billy chased by the law on one hand and helping it on the other. Whatever the reason, the tally is 13 Crabbes as Billy the Kid, 23 as Billy Carson of which this is the first. As a Pony Express rider, Buster is still willing to help stageline owner Frank LaRue and daughter Patti McCarthy battle crooked lawyer John Merton, Charlie King and the usual gang of PRC badmen (Bud Osborne, Frank Ellis, Jack Ingram, Kermit Maynard, Al Ferguson, George Chesebro) who want the rich land over which LaRue has secured permission from the government to run a road. Music at the dance by Tex Williams and his Big Slicker Quartet while Al Fuzzy St. John entertains with his acrobatic dancing. Pull out your video of Whip Wilson's STAGECOACH DRIVER and see how screenwriter Joseph O'Donnell rewrote it for the whipmeister in '51. Boo Boo: at about 42 min., as Osborne apparently shoots Crabbe, watch for the car on a road back of the bushes behind Osborne.

 OUTLAWED GUNS (1935 Universal)
An often overlooked Buck Jones western. It shouldn't be, it's an excellent one with a strong story, fine acting and many interesting touches from producer Jones, writer Cliff Farrell (his only credit --- did he change his name?) and director Ray Taylor. When Buck's younger brother Pat O'Brien (the other one) becomes involved with oily Roy D'Arcy's outlaw gang over gambling debts, Buck sets out with oldtimer Frank McGlynn (in an extremely well-drawn characterization) to save his sibling. The picture opens with newsreel footage of dust storms which must have related strongly to the Depression era audience. There's a cute scene where Silver, who's covered himself with a blanket for the night, is awakened on the range by Buck's alarm clock (on the range?). Then digs a hole in which he buries the disturbing noise. Other interesting touches are Buck's touching farewell to his brother upon his death; Joan Gale and D'Arcy surprised while making out when a jailbreak occurs; the comic exchanges between two outlaws (Charlie King, Lee Shumway) tied back to back in a shack; and especially the striking, scenic Kernville photography from William Sickner and Allen (Allan) Thompson. Sickner and Thompson worked on many Jones titles. Sickner went on to shoot many Johnny Mack Brown films at Universal before finding a home at Monogram in the '40s and '50s on films with the Bowery Boys, Shadow, Joe Palooka, Bomba, Charlie Chan as well as Jimmy Wakely and Johnny Mack Brown. Thompson later worked on special photographic effects for Howard Hawks' RED RIVER. Cliff Lyons doubles Buck and Babe De Freest stands in for leading lady Ruth Channing.

 SOUTH OF MONTEREY (1946 Monogram)
Gilbert Roland's romanticized, stylized version of the Cisco Kid foils a land grabbing scheme by tax collector Harry Woods and the commandante of police Martin Garralaga who turns out to be (surprise!) the Silver Bandit who wears a black cape and rides a horse with a silver saddle. Meanwhile, Cisco romances Garralaga's sister, Marjorie Riordan, who's really in love with the local friend of the people, George J. Lewis. Cowboy cancer alert --- Cisco, Baby (read as Pancho [Frank Yaconelli]), George J. Lewis, everyone smokes! You might try indoctrinating your B-western-hating wife on a Roland Cisco Kid --- women adore his character.

 WAY OF THE WEST (1934 Superior)
Good photography by Brydon Baker highlights this one as Government man Wally Wales lands smack in the middle of an age-old sheepman/cattleman range war protecting Myrla Bratton, her little brother Bobby Nelson and their father Fred Parker from gunmen William Desmond, Art Mix and Jim Sheridan. Englishman Jimmy Aubrey plays two roles --- a sheriff putting up a wanted poster and an over-the-top bartender. Watch for silent star Bill Patton who receives good billing but only has a few lines as a bar patron. Energetic leading lady Myrla Bratton made only one other western, TIMBER TERRORS. Too bad. Boo Boo: Wally draws his gun on William Desmond in the medium shot, then draws it again in closeup. Irish born William Desmond (1878-1949) is the acknowledged "King of Silent Serials", appearing in 34 from '22 to '40, two thirds of them westerns. THE RIDDLE RIDER and its sequel were two of the most popular silent western serials ever produced. Desmond left films in the late '20s to return to the stage. When the 52 year old actor came back to Hollywood he was relegated to character roles, albeit dozens of them.

 COURAGE OF THE NORTH (1935 Empire/Stage and Screen)
Lifeless and pedestrian, this is the first of two Mountie films in which John Preston starred as (Sgt. Bruce) Morton of the Mounted. The determined-looking Preston was a handsome but wooden actor and leading lady June Love is pretty but sooooooooo bad. Pros Tom London (the badguy), William Desmond (Love's father), Jim Sheridan [aka Sherry Tansey] (the half breed), Jimmy Aubrey (Preston's Mountie pal) and Captain the dog (See FIGHTING TO LIVE) shouldered most of the thespian activities. There are ludicrous scenes such as when someone fires a shot through the window in an attempt to kill William Desmond and none of the four seated at the dinner table are even concerned enough to get up from dinner. Heck, that would have required director Bob Tansey to do another set-up or two. No budget. No time. Move on. Empire Pictures emerged in the mid '30s with an ambitious slate of films from various producers such as Tansey on the Preston films and Nathan Hirsch on the 'Phantom Rider' Lane Chandler series which also went nowhere. Within 18 months the company was history.

 ARIZONA BUSHWHACKERS (1968 Paramount)
President Abe Lincoln granted Confederate prisoners the opportunity to enlist in the Union Army. They were not asked to fight their brothers in the South but were instead asked to help settle and patrol the west. One such rebel to accept these terms was Howard Keel, before the war a Mississippi riverboat gambler and gunfighter. In 1862 a Rebel, now in 1865 a Union officer headed for a troubled town in Arizona --- a town that welcomes him as a Reb traitor. Another of producer A. C. Lyles' old fashioned B-westerns dressed up in a tidy budget, color, extended running time and a long-in-the-tooth A-western cast: Yvonne DeCarlo is the millinery shop owner and Union Spy Keel falls for; John Ireland is a prejudiced one-armed deputy; Marilyn Maxwell is the saloon girl; Scott Brady is the crooked saloon owner; Brian Donlevy is the Mayor; Barton MacLane is the corrupt Sheriff; Montie Montana is the stage driver and stuntman Reg Parton is a bushwhacker. Roy (Dusty) Rogers Jr. makes his adult screen debut in a bit and producer Lyles conned old pal James Cagney into narrating the intro. Directed by Les Selander who had helmed enough Hopalong Cassidy, Tim Holt, Bill Elliott and Buck Jones westerns that he could have done this one in his sleep.

 BORDER FEUD (1947 PRC)
Whip crackin', six gun action as Marshal Lash LaRue and Sheriff Fuzzy St. John deal swift justice to Bob Duncan and his boys (Casey MacGregor, Mikel Conrad) who want to keep the Hart (Kenneth Ferrell)-Condon (Brad Slaven and sister Gloria Marlen) feud going so they can grab the rich Blue Girl mine. B-western logic will tell you Dr. Ian Keith is the 'brains' --- he's the only other man in the cost-conscious cast! Nothing new, but in his second outing at PRC, the sultry black-clad LaRue with his ominous Lash, had tapped a late '40s Saturday afternoon audience that was ready for something a little different. Whip use --- only once by Lash and once by Fuzzy.

 VALLEY OF FIRE (1951 Columbia)
Uneven, unfulfilling Gene Autry about ballot boxes, mail order brides and gold. Mayor Autry arranges for a wagon train of brides for the townsfolk (Pat Buttram, Terry Frost etc.) but villains Harry Lauter, Riley Hill and Gregg Barton try to hijack the girls to sell them to some love-starved miners. The ladies include Gail Davis and Barbara Stanley. Christine Larson is Lauter's dance hall galpal and Russell Hayden is a gambler vying for Davis' affections along with Gene. Gene sings two songs including "On Top Of Old Smoky" with the Cass County Boys.

 SOUTH OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL (1947 Columbia)
The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) busts a pack of rustlers (Frank Sully, George Chesebro, Jack Ingram, Jim Diehl, Jock Mahoney). By this time, the Durangos had become quite standardized --- fast Durango action, Smiley's antics (this time he's a medicine show pitchman) and tunes by a popular music group ... in this one Hank Newman and the Georgia Crackers. The group (Hank, Slim and Bob) were all born in Cochran, GA, and were first known as the Newman Brothers. They migrated north and were based in Columbus, OH, for years recording for RCA in the late '40s. A bit unusual here, badman Sully figures out Starrett is the lone black-clad rider and confronts him. Of course, Sully winds up dead, so it's a moot point. Sully, who died at 67 in '75, was in over 1,000 films (as well as countless TVers) over a 50 year career, usually as a 'typical' average guy --- the kindly beat cop, the bartender, the hero's best friend and countless GI roles during WWII.

 BLOCKED TRAIL (1943 Republic)
When an eccentric, mysterious old prospector (Walter Sodering) who lives alone with a dwarf horse, Brilliant, is murdered by a mystery killer and a phony old Indian (strangely played by Earle Hodgins) gives Jimmy Dodd a map to a lost gold mine, it adds up to mystery, thrills and comedy for the 3 Mesquiteers (Dodd, Tom Tyler, Bob Steele). Only Brilliant knows the identity of the killer as the Mesquiteers help Helen Deverall find the mysterious murderer.

 PARDON MY GUN (1930 Pathe)
Pardon me --- but there isn't a pistol, gun or six-shooter anywhere in sight in this poor excuse in western garb for Abe Lyman's (non-western) swing band, a goofy tap dancer, a kid singer, a flapper, fancy ropers and other assorted vaudeville acts to go through their paces. At this stage, Tom Keene was still too deep in the "aw shucks, gee whiz" cowboy mold and was still known as George Duryea.

 ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY (1935 Paramount)
An old dark house mystery in old west trappings with murders, creaking doors, eerie wind, a shadowy stamp mill, a black-clad killer, a one million dollar inheritance and things that bump in the night. Young investigator Randolph Scott and bumbling old Sheriff Chic Sale roundup the usual suspects: invalid old man with a will (George Marion Sr.); his niece (Ann Sheridan); a plotting niece (Kathleen Burke); the nephew (Howard Wilson); the widow of the murdered partner (Miss Leslie Carter) and her son (James C. Eagles). An earlier silent version of this Zane Grey story was filmed as VANISHING PIONEER ('28) with Jack Holt. TV prints of the '35 version all call it FIGHTING WESTERNER. The unusual location is the Doble Mine and Stamp Mill on Gold Mountain in Big Bear, CA.

 SHADOWS OF DEATH (1945 PRC)
Meager plotline about an incoming railroad and a gambling joint set-up in the town where the railroad will be forces a bit too much milling around and Fuzzy's barbershop 'comedy' to make this totally satisfying. A trail of broken match sticks finally leads Buster Crabbe to killer Charlie King and his gunnies John Cason and Frank Ellis. (You gotta see Cason's most unusual phony black mustache.) Leading lady Donna Dax (in love with troublesome Edward Hall) had bit roles in major films such as CITIZEN KANE, SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, HARVEY GIRLS and JOLSON STORY before calling it quits after 6 years. Her only other western is IN OLD NEW MEXICO ('45) with Duncan Renaldo. Another lost lady.

 SHERIFF OF REDWOOD VALLEY (1946 Republic)
Red Ryder (Bill Elliott) and Little Beaver (Bobby Blake) help clear the supposedly notorious Reno Kid (Bob Steele) of trumped up robbery charges. The real culprits are crooked lawyer Arthur Loft and prominent citizen James Craven who are bent on bringing the railroad to Indian Gap and obtaining a huge profit by selling illegally gotten land rights to the railroad company. (Have we seen this before?) Nevertheless, it's all well done by the experts at Republic --- editors, directors, stuntmen, cameramen, music scoring --- the whole production crew. Bob Steele gets special billing in this Red Ryder entry, shown riding side-by-side with Little Beaver (Bobby Blake) in the opening credits, unlike the opening to any other film in the series. Now, here's a puzzle I've tried to solve for years. Alice Fleming (who began her career about 1941) plays Red's aunt, the Duchess, who is carrying the character name Martha Wentworth. Oddly, there was an actress named Martha Wentworth (who began her career circa 1940) and took over the role of Auntie Duchess when Allan Lane became Red Ryder in 1946. Was Republic aware of this actress in 1944 when they named the Duchess 'Martha Wentworth'? Was it a coincidence? How did Wentworth later come to the role herself?

 RIDIN' THRU (1934 Reliable)
Tom Tyler and tag-a-long Ben Corbett bring down rustlers Philo McCullough and Lew Meehan using a wild white horse to steal stock from kindly old Lafe McKee's dude ranch while Tom romances his niece Ruth Hiatt. The first of 18 films Tom did for Reliable is pretty weak with no resolution to the 'wild white horse' idea and an off-screen retribution for McCullough.

 THREE IN THE SADDLE (1945 PRC)
In the next to the last of the Texas Rangers series, and a weak entry, Rangers Dave O'Brien and Guy Wilkerson are assigned to investigate the land grabbers giving Tex Ritter, Lorraine Miller and other ranchers so much trouble. After a bit of quarreling among themselves, Dave and Tex uncover the plot by trading post owner Ed Cassidy and his men --- lanky Edward Howard and bumbling Charlie King. After a pretty dull 55 minutes when Tex says, "This is the showdown we've been waiting for", he didn't realize the truth in his words. Finally, some excitement! Midway through you'll think you walked into a Durango Kid western as Dave O'Brien dons a costume that's nearly a dead ringer for Charles Starrett's Durango save for two white shirt-pocket stripes. Tex's songs in this PRC series tended to be county-oriented rather than western, such as "Try Me One More Time" written by Ernest Tubb which is sung in this film.

 UNDER ARIZONA SKIES (1946 Monogram)
Hired by Frank LaRue to keep his hotheaded son, Riley Hill, in tow, Johnny Mack Brown teams up with old timer Raymond Hatton to bring gun totin' rustlers (Tristram Coffin, Steve Clark, Bud Geary, Ted Adams, Reed Howes) to justice. Frequent Brown co-star Reno Blair (Browne) is Hill's girl. Stuntman Ted Mapes and former star Kermit Maynard have good roles as two of LaRue's ranch hands. Nothing new here, but under veteran director Lambert Hillyer's sure hand, there's no wasted movement. Former big band singer and minor B-western star Smith Ballew sings three songs including Don Swander and June Hershey's rousing "Livin' Western Style".

 GUNFIRE (1950 Lippert)
Revisionist history has outlaw Don Barry, a dead ringer for now retired Frank James, staging a series of robberies, laying the blame on the real Frank. Finally, Frank (Barry in a dual role) has to come out of self imposed retirement and track down his dopelganger. The hysterical historical inaccuracies continue with Marshal John Kelly (Robert Lowery) of Creed, CO, killing Bob Ford in a duel over Pamela Blake!?! The story comes to a dead halt twice when Wally Vernon comes on to pad the running time with faded vaudeville material and a drunk act. Vernon is an acquired taste. Like poison. Written/produced by William Berke (1903-1958) who broke into pictures during the silent era as assistant cameraman, cameraman, and writer. In the mid '30s he worked under the pseudonym of Lester Williams while producing and directing Fred Kohler Jr. and Jack Perrin B's at Commodore and Atlantic. He made scores at Columbia with Starrett and Hayden before landing at Republic as a producer. Following that were several Jungle Jim films at Columbia and an association with Lippert. Notable as Tommy Farrell's first western. He became Whip Wilson's last sidekick.

 LONE RIDER IN CHEYENNE (1942 PRC)
Dennis 'Smoky' Moore catches the mayor and head of the cattlemen's association (Roy Barcroft, Lynton Brent) robbing the bank. However, they turn the tables and accuse him. Rescued from jail by his pals, the Lone Rider (George Houston) and Fuzzy St. John, the trio returns weeks later and begin a campaign to smash the crooked city administration. The title is a complete misnomer as all the action takes place in Pecos City. When Moore returns to town weeks later, its totally implausible that Sheriff Jack Holmes doesn't recognize him, after all, he's a boy he raised! At one point Houston and Moore are at odds with one another-part of the screenwriting 'Oliver Drake formula' of pitting the two heroes against one another before joining forces in the end. (See BEYOND THE PECOS.) This is an excellent head-badman role for pre-Republic Roy Barcroft. Fuzzy trying to thread a needle produces a genuine belly laff. Although leading lady Ella Neal had been doing small parts since 1940, this is her only western. She left the screen this same year.

 FIGHTING PARSON (1933 Allied)
Innocently impersonating a real parson (Robert Frazer), slightly crooked Hoot Gibson (and his pal Skeeter Bill Robbins) are drawn deeper and deeper into a real preacher's problems (Christenings, marriages, revivals) until Hoot 'vouches' for and is made responsible for an old pal, gambler Stanley Blystone, who then, with his pal Charlie King, holds up the express office. Probably intended to emulate Hoot's silent comic-westerns, this droll affair misses the mark. Another minor, one time silent star (and old pard of Hoot's), Fred Gilman has a bit in this one.

 SAGEBRUSH TROUBADOUR (1935 Republic)
Gene Autry's third B-western is notable because it includes his first screen kiss. Barbara Pepper, a Jean Harlow type who made the journey to Hollywood with her friend Lucille Ball, impetuously grabs Gene and kisses him in the final fadeout, in gratitude for his having saved her gold mine from opportunistic relatives and friends. Although she initiates the clinch, it is the first sequence of its kind in an Autry western. Earlier in the film, Gene seems to enjoy spanking Pepper. A broken guitar string (used to strangle a half blind rancher) and a swayback horse hold the answer to an intriguing murder mystery. The suspects for the real killer are uncle Frank Glendon, lawyer Hooper Atchley, flirtatious Dennis Moore (still using Meadows for his last name) and livery man Fred Kelsey. Joe Kane's direction keeps things moving save for the barn dance masquerade ball which stalls the film badly, especially when Smiley Burnette ties to find the 'lost chord'. One of the stranger moments in all of Gene's films occurs when a nearly inaudible singing tyke (Tommy Gene Fairey) sings about a Hurdy Gurdy man.

 SENOR JIM (1936 Beaumont)
Conway Tearle was a most unlikely cowboy star, although he'd toplined THE GREAT DIVIDE in '25 and SMOKE BELLEW in '29, the English born matinee idol was better known in silents as a lover in such films as THE RUSTLE OF SILK, VIRTUOUS WIVES, ALTARS OF DESIRE and THE SPORTING LOVER. Blessed with a fine trained voice from his earlier years on the stage, he made the sound transition easily but was often relegated to independent productions because of reported arrogance towards big shot Hollywood producers. After co-starring with John Wayne in Mascot's HURRICANE EXPRESS serial ('32) and working in other poverty row productions at Chesterfield, Invincible and Mayfair, at 56, he signed with producer Mitchell Leichter's upstart Beaumont Pictures for several 'westerns'. Unfortunately, they all had shoddy production values (as did Leichter's other oaters GUNNERS AND GUNS and RIDDLE RANCH) and Beaumont and Tearle were gone within the year. Tearle died a short time later on October 1, 1938, at age 60. SENOR JIM is a hybrid 'western' set in Louisiana and it's wearisome plot of divorce, adoption, blackmail and murder all ends in a hobo jungle kangaroo court. Not worth an hour of your time.

 HALF BREED (1952 RKO)
One of the pro-Indian westerns made in the wake of BROKEN ARROW ('50) tells a good story but is hamstrung by its lack of action and uneven acting. Robert Young is quite effective, Jack Beutel is wooden, Janis Carter is stylized and Sammy White (as Carter's manager) is annoying. Reed Hadley, Porter Hall, Damian O'Flynn and Tom Monroe are capable stalwarts. Watchable simply for the gorgeous Sedona, AZ, scenery in color.

 HELLFIRE AUSTIN (1932 Tiffany)
With horses on the brain, Ken Maynard is an ex-cavalry man who ends up on a chain gang (with his pal Nat Pendleton) but is hired by crooked Alan Roscoe (and his henchman Jack Perrin) to ride in a big race but finds out Roscoe plans to cheat leading lady Ivy Merton and her uncle (Lafe McKee). Need we say, Ken eventually rides Tarzan in the wildly exciting race and wins. During its decade of existence (1922-1932) Tiffany went through several production set-ups but did not turn to westerns (Bob Steele, Rex Lease and Ken Maynard) for their livelihood until 1930. The studio was known as the Cadillac of the independents. Director Forrest Sheldon worked throughout the '20s and '30s on several Maynard westerns as well as those with Bob Custer, Kermit Maynard and Bob Steele, but is little remembered today. Filmed around picturesque Lone Pine.

 EL PASO STAMPEDE (1953 Republic)
During the Spanish American War, ranchers shipping cattle to feed our fighting forces were faced with a grave problem-rustlers, to whom the nation's welfare meant little. It takes Army investigator Allan 'Rocky' Lane (with the help of feed store owner Eddy Waller and his daughter Phyllis Coates) to curtail the underhanded tactics of dentist Stephen Chase who is getting information from Waller's handy man, faint hearted Edward Clark. As befitting Rocky's last B-western over a six year period, his main nemesis, Roy Barcroft, is Chase's right hand man. D'ja ever notice? Unlike any other western hero you can name from Jones and Maynard to Hale and Allen, from Hoot and Bob to Sunset and Elliott, scripters never interested Rocky in the girl, and the girl was never interested in him. If romance was a part of a Rocky Lane film, it came from a younger male.

 NIGHT TIME IN NEVADA (1948 Republic)
Years ago, unscrupulous miner Grant Withers murdered his partner (Jim Nolan) in a mine explosion. When the deceased's grown up daughter (Adele Mara) and her wacky gum chewing friend (Marie Harmon) come west to claim her inheritance, supposedly in the care of local lawyer George Carleton, the former partner and the banker plot to rustle Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers' cattle in a mysterious 'ghost train' robbery so they can have money to replenish the daughter's depleted trust. Greed takes over and they decide to kill Adele and Marie and keep all the money. From the harder-edged Rogers period, it's another top notch Sloan Nibley screenplay well directed by William Witney. Seldom has there been a more despicable villain in any B-western to equal Grant Withers in this one. Watch for former (and minor) stars Rex Lease (sheriff) and Bob Reeves (deputy) in small roles. Andy Devine's along as Roy's sidekick. Originally in Trucolor, but none seem to have survived.

 NEATH CANADIAN SKIES (1947 Screen Guild)
Not a frame or minute wasted in this fast paced northwoods adventure as undercover Mountie Russell Hayden helps pretty Inez Cooper fight off claim jumpers Douglas Fowley, I. Stanford Jolley, Kermit Maynard and Dick Alexander. This is one of a brief Mountie 'streamliner' series starring Hayden and directed by old pro B. Reeves 'Breezy' Eason that all run only 40-45 minutes apiece.

 PHANTOM OF THE DESERT (1930 Syndicate)
Sorta like a drawn out Bud 'n' Ben short as Jack Perrin and Ben Corbett hire on as Colonel Josef Swickard's top hands to corral a phantom white horse (Jack's steed Starlight) supposedly running off with Swickard's herds. The real horse thieves turn out to have two legs instead of four. (Edward Earle, Robert Walker and former silent star Pete Morrison) The girl in this static early soundie is Eva Novak, no stranger to a saddle as she'd made 10 silent westerns with Tom Mix and two with William S. Hart among others. Having begun in 1917, she continued to work until 1965, a fabulous nearly 50 year career. She died in 1988 at 90. To take advantage of early sound techniques, a lackluster music group moans "Roll On Little Dogies". Actually, under Harry Webb's boring direction, this 'feature' would have been better edited down to two-reeler length.

 CAHILL, UNITED STATES MARSHAL (1973 Warner Bros.)
Despite a good script by Harry Julian Fink, who penned some of the best episodes of GUNSMOKE, TATE, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, etc. for TV), CAHILL remains a minor John Wayne film. The Duke is the marshal who has neglected his two sons, Gary Grimes and Clay O'Brien, making them turn to outlaw George Kennedy as a father figure --- and a much regretted later bank robbery. Kennedy is malevolently marvelous in his villainy. Usually bad, Neville Brand turns in a good performance as a half-breed tracker friend of Wayne's. Along for the ride in minor roles are Wayne regulars Harry Carey Jr., Marie Windsor, Paul Fix, Denver Pyle and Hank Worden. Directed by Andy McLaglen. O'Brien, now a respected rodeo rider, had been in Wayne's THE COWBOYS the previous year.

 WESTERN JAMBOREE (1938 Republic)
Forgettable songs, nondescript villainy, undefined romantic elements and the hackneyed overused plotlines of Eastern daughter (Jean Rouverol) who believes her father (Frank Darien) owns a dude ranch when he does not but Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, vaudeville comedian Joe Frisco and the boys help him pull off the farce; also Bentley Hewlett, Ray Teal, Jack Ingram and Jack Perrin are after helium located somewhere on the ranch to sell to a foreign power. Under Ralph Staub's direction (better known later for his SCREEN SNAPSHOTS shorts at Columbia) the whole mess never jells. Staub only directed one other Autry, PRAIRIE MOON, before Republic realized he wasn't the man for the job and stuck with George Sherman, Breezy Eason, Joe Kane and Frank MacDonald. The film is notable for being Eddie Dean's initial screen appearance as one of Gene's ranch hands, as is Kermit Maynard.

 OKLAHOMA TERRITORY (1959 Premium/U.A.)
The big sixguns of the '50s and '60s were Randy, Audie, Joel, George and Rory. Bill Williams was one of the also rans of the era who managed to star in four westerns for independent producers like Robert Kent here. He fared much better on TV as KIT CARSON ('51-'55). Williams plays two-gun district attorney Temple Houston (Sam's real life son) at first prosecuting then defending Indian Chief Ted DeCorsia who's accused of murdering a white man. Evil railway agent Grant Williams (and his henchie John Cliff) are really responsible for the death because they'd been trying to start an Indian war to clear land for Williams' railroad. Gloria Talbott plays another of her Indian girl roles, a part she could surely sleepwalk through by the mid '60s. A short-lived TV series based on the life of Temple Houston was made in '63-'64 starring Jeffrey Hunter. X Brands, who plays DeCorsia's son, became Pahoo, Jock Mahoney's silent Indian friend on TV's YANCY DERRINGER ('58-'59).

 OUTLAWS OF THE PRAIRIE (1937 Columbia)
This Charles Starrett film contains the most bloodthirsty, brutal scene in B-western (if not also A-western) history. Excruciating to watch, it's amazing the scene made it past the censors. Two outlaws (Lambert Rogers, Dick Alexander) shoot and kill Starrett's father (Frank Shannon) while he watches as a young boy (Delmar Watson). He wings one of them in the arm with his rifle, then Rogers viciously cuts two fingers off the boy's right hand with a hunting knife while the boy screams in pain. Rogers literally adds insult to injury and kicks the devastated boy, writhing in pain. The vermin then proceed to torch the wagon and leave young Starrett crying and screaming in pain and over the murder of his father, his only relative in the world. Full grown, now a Texas Ranger, Starrett has been searching the West for the killer and eventually finds him in the person of nastily snarling Norman Willis (playing Lambert Rogers at an older age), the crooked town banker of Oro Grande, who (with right hand man Dick Curtis) is raiding local miners' shipments, especially those of Edward Le Saint and his pretty daughter Iris Meredith. Retribution and revenge follow. "Blue Prairie" and "Song of the Bandit" are sung by Dick Grayson and the Sons of the Pioneers while Earle Hodgins does his excellent, fun to watch medicine show spiel. Directed by Sam Nelson.

 BORDER PATROL (1943 United Artists)
Texas Rangers Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), Andy Clyde and Jay Kirby stretch hands across the border to help Claudia Drake (in a fiery performance) and Mexican ruales commandant Duncan Renaldo locate all the men of the area (including Claudia's betrothed, George Reeves) who have been spirited away to work slave labor in dictator Russell Simpson's Silver Bullet Mine. Francis Nevins, in his book THE FILMS OF HOPALONG CASSIDY, aptly describes Simpson's character as "half comic buffoon and half frontier Hitler, clearly modeled on Walter Brennan's performance as Judge Roy Bean in THE WESTERNER". Problem is, Simpson isn't the caliber actor of Brennan and the script isn't up to par. Sure, there's a big action finish and the Kernville locale helps, but the buildup --- Hoppy and the boys mistaken for killers, a slow Kangaroo Court trial, jail time-is all too leisurely paced to save this one from being just average.

 FOURTH HORSEMAN (1932 Universal)
Beginning with a skillfully filmed nighttime train robbery sequence and a spooky ghost town, this is one of the better of the nine talkies Mix made for Universal, which tended to be hit and miss. Discovering water is coming to the valley, outlaw cheat Fred Kohler Sr. plans to buy the whole town for back taxes, gyping feisty Margaret Lindsay out of her rightful inheritance. Director Hamilton MacFadden also helmed George O'Brien's RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE ('31) and Gene Autry's SHOOTING HIGH ('40) but no other westerns. It's a pity, because he was good. Apparently, his tastes lay with mysteries as he did many of those at Fox including six Charlie Chans and four Michael Shaynes. Watch for an as yet undiscovered Walter Brennan as a drunk.

 NIGHT RAIDERS (1952 Monogram)
Marshals Whip Wilson and his partner Tommy Farrell come to aid of old pal Fuzzy Knight who works for rancher Steve Clark and his gorgeous daughter Lois Hall. Whip must figure out who is ransacking the property of local ranchers during nightly raids without stealing anything. Eventually, Whip discovers the answer lies with town sheriff Marshall Reed who is searching for $15,000 in loot he's hidden from a train robbery five years ago in which his partner, and now saloon keeper Terry Frost, took the rap. Whip had started his series in 1949 with his sidekick being Andy Clyde who was replaced after 12 films by Fuzzy Knight and Jim Bannon to form a sort of trio. Bannon only lasted through five, then Lee Roberts, Tommy Farrell and Rand Brooks each did one with Fuzzy and Whip before Fuzzy also departed as budgetary restrictions became tighter and tighter. This late in the series, the films had become pretty cut and dried. Whip use in this one - 3.

 WALKING HILLS (1949 Columbia)
In noted director John Sturges' first film, it's apparent he hadn't quite found his way yet as to characterization and motivation, especially in Randolph Scott's character. Simple modern west story has nine men and one woman searching for lost gold in the desert. Emotions and tensions run high with the heat, greed and frustration which all explode amidst a desert sand storm. Scott is supported by William Bishop, John Ireland, Arthur Kennedy, Edgar Buchanan, Ella Raines, Russell Collins, Jerome Courtland, Charles Stevens and out of place black blues singer Josh White. You're better off to watch TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE again.

 LONE TEXAS RANGER (1929 Fox)
Excellent George O'Brien remake of a Zane Grey story previously made by both William Farnum ('19) and Tom Mix ('23) although the story is really LAST OF THE DUANES. With great locations, including Monument Valley, this western came at a time when sound was just coming in. Nearly all the dialogue is on cards as in silent days, but there are miscellaneous voices, horses, sound effects and song. Leading lady Sue Carol was a popular star between 1927-1934. Leaving the screen, she became a high powered Hollywood agent, discovered Alan Ladd on radio, married him and was the guiding light behind his career. She'd earlier been married to Nick Stuart, the handsome bandleader/actor. All of Fox's O'Brien westerns were top caliber productions budgeted at up to $200,000 with 4-6 weeks allotted for production of each film. They truly surpassed in quality those being made by Jones, Maynard, McCoy and William Boyd. Grey stories alternated with non-Grey yarns. All the typical O'Brien touches are here and, yes, he gets a chance to show off his barrel chest in a scene where he rides naked to the waist.

 BLACK HILLS AMBUSH (1952 Republic)
A strong '50s juvenile delinquency theme highlights this hard action Allan 'Rocky' Lane B. Marshal Lane, on his way to see old pard Nugget Clark (Eddy Waller) comes across teenager Michael Hall who has been involved with the Black Hills gang (Roy Barcroft, John Cason and boss John Vosper) responsible for raiding Nugget's freight wagons then shipping out the stolen goods on Nugget's own wagons. Young Hall was part of the ensemble cast of THIS IS THE LIFE ('52-'56), a long running religious TV series that starred B-western vet Forrest Taylor as the family patriarch. From the '30s to the '50s, Ed Cassidy (1893-1968), was still playing his eleventy-seventh sheriff. Produced and directed by Harry Keller who went on to direct several Audie Murphy westerns at Universal.

 RED RIVER RANGE (1938 Republic)
Director George Sherman got continuous action out of this one as modern day truck rustlers use a dude ranch to disguise their thieving activities until the 3 Mesquiteers (John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune) intervene on behalf of Lorna Gray (later Adrian Booth), her father (Burr Caruth) and the Cattleman's Association. Buck-toothed comedienne Polly Moran gets big billing but she's here strictly for comic relief. Kirby Grant made his debut in this western, even getting to warble a few notes. In his next film, THREE SONS, he's billed as Robert Stanton and was said to be making his film debut as a winner in Jesse Lasky's 'Gateway to Hollywood' contest. He later starred in his own series (as Kirby Grant) at Universal, then as a Mountie for Monogram and finally reached immortality as TV's SKY KING.

 ROAMIN' WILD (1936 Reliable)
Lawman Tom Tyler brings two fisted justice to an owlhoot band (Al Ferguson, George Chesebro, Sherry Tansey) who have replaced Tom's lawman brother (Wally West) with a phony Marshal (Slim Whitaker) to help con unsuspecting miners. Carol Wyndham is the girl in her only western. She was in and out of the business with only four credited films in two years. Average Tyler, no better, no worse then his other Reliables with a fair amount of action. In his first year in the business, the assistant director is R. G. 'Buddy' Springsteen who later became an excellent director at Republic, particularly on Elliott, Lane and Hale westerns.

 APACHE DRUMS (1951 Universal-International)
On the surface APACHE DRUMS sounds like a routine Indian fighting melodrama, but as directed by Hugo Fregonese (husband of leading lady Faith Domergue) and produced by Val Lewton (LEOPARD MAN, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, CAT PEOPLE), it emerges as a compelling mixture of western action and horror in the dark. Truly frightening is the sight of 200 marauding Mescalero Apaches coming through the high windows of the closed-in stone church. It's a tight 75 minute thriller acted with force by Stephen McNally, Coleen Gray, Willard Parker, James Best and Arthur Shields. Watch for a young Sherry Jackson (just prior to her hit Danny Thomas TV series, MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY '53-'58) and Sheb Wooley, later trail scout Pete Nolan on RAWHIDE.

 RENEGADES OF THE RIO GRANDE (1945 Universal)
Pursued by two Texas Rangers (Eddie Dew, Fuzzy Knight) after he helped rob the Vista Grande bank, young John James makes a map to where the loot is buried and before he dies, gives it to his brother Rod Cameron who is now chased by Glenn Strange and his renegades (Ed Cobb, Dick Alexander). Much of the money in the bank belonged to the Salazar family of which Jennifer Holt is now mistress of the Rio Linda Rancho after her father was killed in the bank raid. Ray Whitley (with his Six-Bar Cowboys) is Jennifer's foreman and provides a couple of Fleming Allan songs. Thankfully, Fuzzy Knight only sings once. Pretty much non-stop excitement and action.

 CRASHING THRU (1939 Monogram)
This is one of three Renfrew pictures Criterion had produced for release through Grand National when G. N. bit the dust after releasing only two films. When Criterion made a six picture Renfrew deal with Monogram later in the year, CRASHING THRU was presumably the third unreleased film. Phil Krasne took over the production reins from Al Herman. Serial like plot with three factions after a stolen gold shipment. Jean Carmen and her pilot brother Dave O'Brien (aided by Stanley Blystone), knowing Milburn Stone and his men (Roy Barcroft, Iron Eyes Cody) have cheated their father out of his mine, plan to rob a gold shipment from a steamship but are doublecrossed by Earl Douglas, Ted Adams and Walter Byron. Mountie James Newill (as Renfrew) and his pal Corp. Kelly, here played by Warren Hull, just happen to be aboard the ship. Corp. Kelly was played in later Renfrew pictures by Dave O'Brien who, of course, is Carmen's brother here.

 FIGHTING VIGILANTES (1947 PRC)
After mistakenly helping town crook George Chesebro in getting Jennifer Holt's vigilante-leader father Steve Clark killed by crooked Sheriff Lee Morgan, Lash LaRue and Fuzzy St. John get wised up and come to the aid of the vigilantes to clean out the gang. Russell Arms, later of TV's YOUR HIT PARADE, is one of the outlaws. Lash exercises his whip hand 4 times (once with multiple use).

 TOO MUCH BEEF (1936 Colony)
Too much plot and intrigue and way too little action and excitement. We won't even try to explain the convoluted story and motivations, suffice it to say Cattlemen's Association agent Rex Bell investigates a rancher (Forrest Taylor) who turns up with too much beef framed by other crooked ranchers so they can sell some land to the railroad. No Bell-ringer here.

 LIGHTNING CARSON RIDES AGAIN (1938 Victory)
Tim McCoy affects another of his deplorable Mexican disguises to clear his brother (Bob Terry) of a murder and bank shipment robbery charge, a crime really committed by outlaws Ted Adams, Reed Howes, Ben Corbett, Sherry Tansey and Forrest Taylor under orders from Slim Whitaker and ... we won't reveal who it is, because it's the only real surprise in this mundane film. Infiltrating the gang, the plot labors on as McCoy flashes and rolls his eyes and chews up the scenery until the too long awaited and mostly uneventful ending finally arrives. Oddly, all the settings seem very 'old west', but at one point Tim says he'll "catch a plane to Los Angeles". Only in the movies --- Joan Barclay (his niece) and Jane Keckley (his sister) don't recognize 'Uncle Bill' (Tim) in his Mexican disguise and speech, until he drops the accent for a brief second then it's --- "Oh, Uncle Bill!"