Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Below The Border (1942, directed by Howard Bretherton)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the fourth Rough Riders film, the boys head down to Mexico City to defend the Garcia Ranch from a gang of cattle rustlers who are also planning on stealing the Garcia Family Jewels.  (Would the Rough Riders have any legal jurisdiction in Mexico?)  This time, Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) assumes the identity of a well-known outlaw who deals in stolen goods, Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) pretends to be a cattle buyer, and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) gets a job sweeping up the local saloon.  As with almost all of the Rough Riders films, the owner of the saloon, Steve Slade (Charles King), is also the leader of the thieves.  Slade is blackmailing a reformed outlaw named Joe (Dennis Moore) into helping Slade and Scully (Roy Barcroft) steal the family jewels.  Joe is in love with Rosita Garcia (Linda Brent).

Below the Border has much in common with Forbidden Trails, the Rough Riders film that came before it, right down to a villainous saloon owner and a former outlaw being blackmailed to return to his old ways.  As usual, the outlaws try to humiliate Sandy Hopkins, just for Tim McCall to show up at the saloon and turn the tables.  Scully is a despicable bully and it feels good when McCall forces him to grab Hopkins’s mop and clean up the bar himself.

It’s not the strongest of the Rough Riders films. The plot is predictable, Linda Brent gives a terrible performance as Rosita, and even the action scenes are by-the-numbers.  The main appeal of Below the Border is to watch the three Rough Riders themselves.  Jones, McCoy, and Hatton all seem to have genuinely enjoyed working together and that comes through in their scenes together.  You never have any doubt that, even though they live in different parts of the country, all it would take is one telegram for them to get back together.  The highlight of each film is the final scene, where the Rough Riders tell each other what they’ve been up to between adventures.  This time, Buck invites everyone to visit him in Arizona but Tim has to get back to Wyoming and Sandy’s running a hotel in Texas.  They ride off separately but there’s little doubt they will reunite as soon as there’s a new rustler who needs to be brought to justice.

Previous Rough Rider Reviews:

  1. Arizona Bound
  2. The Gunman From Bodie
  3. Forbidden Trails

Forbidden Trails (1941, directed by Robert N. Bradbury)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Marshal Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) has finally retired after a long and a legendary career.  Two men who Buck arrested are not planning on allowing him to enjoy his retirement.  Having served their sentence for robbing a stagecoach, Fulton (Charles King) and Howard (Bud Osborne) are released from prison and head to Yucca City, Arizona.  They try to recruit their old partner, Jim Cramer (Dave O’Brien), into helping them get revenge on Buck but Cramer wants nothing to do with it.  He’s gone straight and is running his own general store with his fiancée, Mary (Christine McIntyre).  Cramer considers Buck to be a friend because Buck looked after Cramer’s children while Cramer was serving his sentence.

Fulton and Howard ambush Buck and nearly kill him.  With the help of his horse, Silver (of Lone Ranger fame), Buck is able to escape but he’s seriously injured.  His two fellow rough riders, Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) and Tim McCall (Tim McCoy), head down to Arizona to bring Fulton and Howard to justice.  (Sandy even rides away from his own wedding when he hears that Buck has been injured.)  While the Rough Riders search for Fulton and Howard, saloon owner Ed Nelson (Tris Coffin) works with the outlaws to steal a shipment of goods.

The third of the Rough Riders film, Forbidden Trails is memorable for acknowledging that the three Rough Riders were older than the most of the other contemporary western stars.  Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton were all veteran stars who began their careers during the silent era and who transitioned to B-movies in the sound era.  At a time when their contemporaries were retiring, they were still appearing before the camera and riding the range.  Like the actor playing him, Buck Howard has reached the age when most people retire but he cannot escape his past.  Neither can Jim Cramer, who can’t live the law-abiding life that he desires as long as Fulton and Howard are free.  While Cramer has to escape from his former friends, Buck is lucky to have friends like McCall and Hopkins.  The movie showcases their loyalty and their friendship together and leaves no doubt that will never change, no matter how old the Rough Riders get.  Along with showcasing the friendship of its three stars, the movie is full of chases and gunfights.  The scene where Buck is ambushed is exiting and there’s also a good saloon shootout.  Jones and McCoy are as authentically western as ever.

Dave O’Brien and Christine McIntyre both appeared in the previous Rough Riders film but they’re playing different characters here.  Tris Coffin also played a similar crooked businessman in the first Rough Riders film, Arizona Bound.

Previous Rough Rider Reviews:

  1. Arizona Bound
  2. The Gunman From Bodie

The Gunman From Bodie (1941, directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The second of the Rough Riders films opens with Bob “Bodie” Bronson (played by Buck Jones) seeking shelter from a storm and coming upon a house.  Brodie enters the house, just to discover two dead bodies, a crying baby, and a note that says that the house was attacked by rustlers.  After the storm passes, Bodie takes the baby to a ranch owned by Alice Boden (Christine McIntyre) and her boyfriend, Joe (David O’Brien).  Alice and Joe agree to look after the baby while Bodie heads into town.

Anyone who has seen Arizona Bound or any of the Rough Riders films that  came out after The Gunman From Bodie will know that Boodie Bronson is actually Marshal Buck Roberts and that he’s working undercover.  His partner, Marshal Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton), is already working as a cook at the ranch.  Soon, the third rough rider, Marshal Tim McCall (Tim McCoy), shows up with a wanted poster for Bodie.  It’s all a plan, of course, to help Bodie ingratiate himself with the actual rustlers.

The Gunman From Bodie is considerably darker than Arizona Bound.  Because of the murder of the baby’s parents, the Rough Riders aren’t just looking to uphold the law.  They’re looking to avenge a terrible crime and to dispense some frontier justice.  Buck Jones and Tim McCoy both give grim and determined performances that leave you with no doubt that you don’t want to get on their bad side.  While Alice and Joe tug at the audience’s heartstrings by becoming parents to the orphaned child, the Rough Riders do what they have to do to prevent any more children from losing their parents.  I especially liked the scene where Marshal McCall graphically described what happens when someone is executed by hanging, describing each detail until the actual murderer freaks out and reveals himself.  The Gunman From Bodie is quick-moving western for adults that features Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton at their best.

Previous Rough Rider Reviews:

  1. Arizona Bound

Arizona Bound (1941, directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The town of Mesa City, Arizona has a problem.  A gang of thieves are holding up stagecoaches and shooting the drivers.  Stagecoach lines are removing Mesa City from their list of destinations and the town is having to depend on the services of corrupt businessman Steve Taggert (Tristram Coffin).  After the death of her father and the shooting of her boyfriend, Ruth Masters (Launa Walters) takes over her family’s stagecoach line and is determined to keep it running.  But who will drive her coaches?

Cattle salesman and former marshal Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) rides into town and volunteers to drive the next stagecoach.  Because the stagecoach is carrying a gold shipment, everyone suspects that it will probably be targeted by the thieves.  Volunteering to help Buck is another cattleman named Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) and the town’s newly arrived preacher, Parson McCall (Tim McCoy).  McCall has already run afoul Taggert because of his crusade to close down Taggert’s saloon.  What Taggert and the other citizens of Mesa City don’t know is that Buck, Hopkins, and McCall are the Rough Riders, undercover government agents who have a plan to both protect the gold and to reveal the identities of the culprits.

Arizona Bound was the first of seven films about the Rough Riders.  While the plots were never anything special, these films stood out because they paired Buck Jones and Tim McCoy, two B-western mainstays who had been active since the silent era and who both brought a good deal of authentic toughness to their performances.  In Arizona Bound, both Jones and McCoy don’t hesitate to show that they’re not going to put up with any nonsense from Taggert and his men.  There’s a great scene where McCoy proves that even a preacher can outdraw and intimidate an entire saloon full of roughnecks.  Jones, McCoy, and Hatton made a good team, though world events would come together to prevent the Rough Riders from having too many adventures.  After the U.S. entered World War II, McCoy volunteered for active duty.  Meanwhile, Jones died in a tragic night club fire.  Raymond Hatton continued to play Sandy Hopkins in other films but none with the original Rough Riders.

Branded (1931, directed by D. Ross Lederman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Tom Dale (Buck Jones) and his employee, Swede (John Oscar), come across a stage coach robbery.  Though the robber gets away, Tom and Swede recover a stolen mailbag.  Tom finds a letter to himself and it is revealed that his real name is Cuthbert Chauncey Dale.  After explaining that he goes by Tom because that was his uncle’s name, Tom says that he’ll shoot anyone who calls him Cuthbert and he’s the movie’s hero!

When the local posse comes upon Tom and Swede, they accuse them of having robbed the stagecoach.  Tom and Swede manage to escape from jail during the dead of night and ride to a neighboring town, where Tom has inherited his uncle’s ranch.  Tom and Swede work on the ranch, building fences and branding cattle.  Tom starts to fall for Lou Preston (Ethel Kenyon), earing him the enmity of Joe Moore (Albert J. Smith), who is also in love with Lou.  Joe frames Tom and Swede for cattle rustling.  Tom and Swede attempt to clear their names with the help of their new friend, the same man (Wallace MacDonald) who previously robbed the stage coach!

This short but complicated B-western has its share of gunfights and chases on horseback but it still has some slow spots.  There are a lot of scenes of Tom and Swede working around the ranch.  When you’re ready for another gunfight, Tom and Swede have to go work on the fence.  Still, fans of early westerns will probably enjoy Branded.  Wallace MacDonald is a likable rouge as the Stagecoach Robber and the movie ends on a little more of a serious note than the typical poverty row western.  Buck Jones was an authentic cowboy before he went into the movies and he’s believable whenever he’s riding a horse, shooting a gun, or just walking around his ranch.  Just don’t call him Cuthbert!

Western Cyclone (1943, directed by Sam Newfield)

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Feeling that the old west has become a dangerous place, law-abiding gunslinger Billy the Kid (Buster Crabbe) fakes a stagecoach robbery and pretends to kidnap the governor’s daughter, all to show him that the west needs more law enforcers.  The governor is so impressed by Billy’s ruse that he agrees to stand tough on crime.  This upsets Dirk Randall (Glenn Strange, who also played Frankenstein’s monster is some of the later Universal horror films), a businessman who has been funding the criminals in order to make the governor look weak so that Randall could defeat him in the next election.

Randall orders one of his men to pull a gun on Billy while Billy is leaving the local saloon.  Billy pulls and fires his own gun in self-defense but it’s Randall who actually kills the man by shooting him in the back and then running off in the confusion.  Because the man was shot in the back, Billy is accused of murder, arrested, and sentenced to death in record time.  With Billy in jail, it falls to his comic relief sidekick, Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John), to prove that Billy didn’t actually fire the shot that killed the man.

By most accounts, Billy the Kid was a nasty piece of work who would kill anyone who look at him in the wrong way but, in the 30s, the character was the hero of a series of 42 Westerns that all featured him as a hero and a valued member of the community.  (Originally, Bob Steele played Billy.  Buster Crabbe took over the role with the seventh film.)  Western Cyclone was the 17th Billy the Kid film and, as long as you’re not a stickler for historical accuracy, it’s an entertaining B-western.  The plot is formulaic but Crabbe was a good hero, Strange was a diabolical villain, and, for once, Al St. John got to play an important role in resolving the film’s story.  Fuzzy Jones did some impressive detective work.  The real Billy the Kid probably could have used someone like Fuzzy in his corner.

The Lucky Texan (1934, directed by Robert N. Bradbury)

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After graduating from college, Jerry (John Wayne) travels down to the ranch owned by his uncle, Grandy (George “Gabby” Hayes).  Jerry wants to look after the cattle but it turns out that Grandy doesn’t have any more cattle.  They’ve all been stolen by rustlers.  What Grandy does have is a dog, some horses, and a granddaughter named Betty (Barbara Sheldon) who Jerry is eager to marry even though the two of them are related.  Things start to look up when Grandy and Jerry discover gold in a nearby creek.  When a crooked assayer named Mr. Harris (Lloyd Whitlock) and a rustler named Joe Cole (Yakima Canutt) find out about the creek, they scheme to steal both it and the ranch from Grandy.  It’s up to Jerry to save the ranch and to expose the bad guys, even after they attempt to frame him for murder.  Fortunately, both Jerry and Grandy have a few tricks up their sleeves.

This was one of the many B-westerns that John Wayne did for the poverty row studios in the years before Stagecoach made him a star.  (Though the film is a western with its ranches and its search for gold, the climax features Gabby Hayes driving a car so it’s hard to say for sure when it’s supposed to be taking place.)  Though he seems too old to be playing a recent college graduate (John Wayne was 27 when he starred in The Lucky Texan but he looked closer to 40), Wayne gives a relaxed and likable performance as Jerry.  Watching him in this film, it’s possible to see hints of the screen presence that led to John Ford casting him as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach.  As always, Yakima Canutt is on hand to do some impressive stuntwork during the film’s many chase scenes and Gabby Hayes provides the comic relief.  Like most of the poverty row productions, the film can seem more than a little creaky by today’s standards but fans of John Wayne will not be disappointed with either his performance or the film’s action.

Blue Steel (1990, directed by Kathryn Bigelow)

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On her first night on the job, rookie cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) blows away a robber (Tom Sizemore) who was holding up a convenience store.  The robber was holding a gun when he was shot but, right after his body hits the ground, the gun is stolen by a stockbroker named Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver).  Somehow, no one notices Eugene grabbing the gun from the floor and he improbably gets away from the crime scene without any of the investigating officers noticing that he’s concealing a gun in his suit.

Because Eugene stole the gun, Megan is accused of shooting an unarmed man and she is suspended from the force.  Meanwhile, Eugene becomes obsessed with the gun, hears voices, and starts to shoot random people.  He even carves Megan’s name on one of the bullets.  When the bullet is found in the body of one of Eugene’s targets, Megan becomes the number one suspect even though it wouldn’t make any sense for a murderer to carve their name on the evidence.  This isn’t The Wire.  None of the dead are going to be found with a note in their hand that says, “Tater Killed Me.”  It should be obvious to everyone that Megan is being set up but instead, everyone just assumes Megan is a stupid murderer who doesn’t know how to cover her tracks.  Eugene also starts to date Megan but when Megan rejects him after he confesses to being the murderer, Eugene starts to stalk her and her friends.  Not even Megan’s new boyfriend (Clancy Brown) can keep her safe from a stockbroker with a grudge.

Blue Steel benefits from Kathryn Bigelow’s stylish direction and Jamie Lee Curtis’s dedicated performance but it suffers because Eugene is so obviously crazy from the get go that it never makes sense that he would be able to get away with his crimes for as long as he does.  Even after Megan realizes that Eugene is crazy, she can’t get anyone to believe her even though everything about Eugene suggests that he’s the murderer.  Not even confessing to the crime is enough to keep Eugene in prison.  Somehow, Eugene is able to commit multiple murders and attempted murders right in front of Megan and then escape before Megan or anyone else can even react.  Megan’s been trained at the Police Academy while Eugene has no criminal training whatsoever but he’s still always able to outthink and outrun her.  It makes it seem as if Megan just isn’t a very good cop.  Luckily, Bigelow, Curtis, Silver, and Clancy Brown would all be involved with better movies in the future.

Kill and Kill Again (1981, directed by Ivan Hall)

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Martial artist Steve Hunt (James Ryan) is back!

When last we saw Steve, he was defeating a Nazi war criminal in Kill or Be Killed.  In this sequel, James is recruited by Kandy Kane (Anneline Kristel) to rescue Dr. Horatio Kane (John Ramsbottom) from the evil Marduk (Michael Mayer).  Marduk has forced Dr. Kane to develop a drug that allows him to control the minds of anyone who is injected with it.  Marduk wants to put the drug into the world’s water supply but, for now, he is content to control the isolated town of Irontown.

Before Steve can rescue Dr. Kane, he has to put together a crew.  Steve recruits four of his fellow fighters, Hot Dog (Bill Flynn), Gorilla (Ken Gampu), Gypsy Bill (Norman Robinson), and The Fly (Stan Schmidt).  Along with Kandy Kane, the team infiltrates Irontown and faces off against Marduk’s champion fighter, Optimus (Edie Dorie).

If Kill or Be Killed owed a lot to Enter the Dragon, Kill and Kill Again is more of a martial arts-themed take on Mission: Impossible.  Marduk, with his fake beard and his name that makes him sound like a cartoon dog, is never an intimidating villain and it turns out that it is laughably easy to defeat him.  Instead, the movie’s emphasis is on Steve putting together his team and everyone playing their part to free the people of Irontown.  Kill or be Killed‘s Olga is nowhere to be seen as Steve falls for Kandy Kane.

Unfortunately, the fights are pretty boring this time around and James Ryan doesn’t really have the screen presence to be a believable James Bond or Ethan Hunt-style secret agent.  Especially when compared to the relatively serious Kill Or Be Killed, there is a good deal of broad comedy in Kill and Kill Again, which makes it difficult to any of Marduk’s plans seriously.  The best action films convince you that only the hero has what it takes to defeat the villain but Marduk is such a weak bad guy that anyone could defeat him.  Even if Steve and the crew hadn’t shown up at Iron Town, Marduk probably would have defeated himself in just a few more months.

Originally, there was supposed to be a third film about the adventures of Steve Hunt but Film Ventures, the company behind Kill and Kill Again, went bankrupt before filming could being.  Steve Hunt’s adventures came to an end but the first two Kill films will live forever.

Kill or Be Killed (1977, directed by Ivan Hall)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Martial artist Steve Hunt (James Ryan) is offered a spot in a martial arts tournament that is to be held at a castle in the desert.  Steve accepts but, once he reaches the castle, he thinks that something is off about the tournament’s sponsor, the German Baron von Rudloff (Norman Coombes).  Could it be because the Baron wears a swastika armband, travels in a limousine the flies a Nazi flag, and spends his spare time talking about how much he misses Hitler?

Braon von Rudloff is a former Nazi general who is still bitter that his marital arts team was defeated by Japan’s team at the 1936 Summer Olympics. The tournament was just a ruse to recruit a new martial arts team that will take part in a do-over competition against the team led by Rudloff’s rival, Miyagi (Raymond Ho-Tong).  Steve doesn’t want any part of that so, with the help of a former circus dwarf named Cico (Dani DuPlessis), Steven escape from the castle with his girlfriend, Olga (Charlotte Michelle).  They return to Steve’s home in South Africa.  The Baron sends his main henchman, Ruell (Ed Kannemeyer), to bring Olga back to him.  After Olga is kidnapped, Steve joins Miyagi’s team and returns to the castle.

The best thing about this South African film is that there is rarely a moment when a fight is not breaking out.  Steve and Ruell will fight at the drop of a hat.  My favorite part of the movie is when Steve is trying to find a loophole in a contract that the Baron made him sign and Ruell grabs a torch and sets the contract on fire.  Steve grabs another torch and the two of them spend several minutes swinging torches at each other.  Later, Ruell and his friends turn on Chico for some reason and it turns out that Chico is just as good a fighter as anyone else in the movie.  The plot is just an excuse for one fight after another but the fight choreography is pretty exciting and always entertaining to watch.  Almost everyone in the cast was a real-life martial artist and it shows.  The story is nothing special and it’s hard to have sympathy for Miyagi after it’s revealed that the Baron isn’t lying about Miyagi bribing the judges in 1936 but fight scenes make up for all of that.

Kill or Be Killed was a surprise success when it was shown in the United States.  It was followed by a sequel, Kill and Kill Again, which I’ll review tomorrow.