On the frontier, a stagecoach has been overturned and both the passenger and the driver have been killed by outlaws.  The passenger was Hinkley, an archeologist.  Who would want to kill a harmless archeologist?  That’s what Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) set out to discover.  While Nevada Jack asks questions in the nearby town, Sandy disguises himself as a medicine man.

It all links back to an old Indian site that is said to be full of gold relics.  Jane (Jennifer Holt), the daughter of Hinkley’s partner, reveals that the only other person who knows the location of the site is an old Indian named Shag (Dimas Sotello).  Jack and Sandy have to try to track down Shag before he’s found the gang that killed Hinkley.

Yes, it’s another Johnny Mack Brown western.  Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the television series that featured James Arness and Amanda Blake.  Gun Smoke is still a solid western, featuring a determined performance from Johnny Mack Brown and some memorable villains from the usual poverty row western stock company.  Once again, Frank Ellis shows up as a henchman, though the identity of the main villain is actually a little more interesting than was typical for these films.  Johnny Mack Brown is a little more serious than usual, throwing punches with authority.  For fans of B-westerns, Gun Smoke is an above average entry in Johnny Mack Brown’s seemingly endless filmography.