Billy The Kid In Texas (1940, directed by Sam Newfield)

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Billy the Kid (Bob Steele) escapes from a Mexican prison (where he was being held on a trumped-up charge) and ends up in Corral City, Texas with his old friend, Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John). This version of Billy the Kid may be an outlaw but he’s a really nice outlaw. He holds up two men who had previously held up a express wagon but he turns over the loot after he and Fuzzy are appointed the new law in Corral City. The bad outlaws don’t want Billy the Kid or anyone else as their new sheriff so they bring in a notorious gunslinger (Carleton Young) to help them keep the town under their control but it turns out that Billy and the gunslinger have a past that no one knew about.

Bob Steele played Billy the Kid in a series of films, until Buster Crabbe took over the role in 1942. Steele was a convincing cowboy and a convincing gunman but he wasn’t a convincing kid. Of course, this version of Billy the Kid didn’t have much in common with the real Billy the Kid. The movie version of Billy the Kid got into a lot of trouble but it was usually due to a misunderstanding.

Billy the Kid In Texas is definitely a Poverty Row western. It looks cheap and it was cheap but it did feature a good fight scene between Bob Steele and Charles King and the relationship between Billy the Kid and Carleton Young’s gunslinger also added some extra dimension to the otherwise predictable story. This film is okay for western fans who aren’t sticklers for historical accuracy.

The Rough Tough West (1952, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Holden (Charles Starrett) is hired by an old friend, Jack Mahoney (played by Jock Mahoney), to serve as the sheriff of a frontier town. Steve soon discovers that his old friend has been corrupted by power and is plotting to cheat the locals out of their land and the gold that the land holds. Despite their friendship, Steve knows that Jack has to be stopped and made to see the errors of his way. It’s a good thing that Steve is secretly the Durango Kid and that his old sidekick, Smiley Burnette, is the town’s police chief. But even if Jack Mahoney does eventually see the error of his ways, will it be soon enough to stop his out-of-control henchmen?

This was one of the last of the Durango Kid films and it’s heavy on stock footage and Smiley Burnette musical numbers. It has all of the usual horse chases and gunfights but making the villain an old friend of the Durango Kid adds a little more emotional weight to this entry than some of the other Durango Kid films. As always, Charles Starrett is a strong western hero and Smiley Burnette’s antics are nowhere nearly as annoying as the antics of some of the other western sidekicks who were populating matinee movie screens in 1952. Western fans should enjoy this fast-paced and undemanding film.

This is not the first time that Jock Mahoney played a friend of the Durango Kid who is named Jack Mahoney, though I think the Jack Mahoney who appeared in Pecos River, Junction City, Smokey Canyon, The Hawk of Wild River, and The Kid From Broken Gun was meant to be a different character than the one who appeared in The Rough, Tough West. If Smiley Burnette could have a rotating cast of musicians who followed him from town-to-town, then the Durango Kid could very well have known multiple Jack Mahoneys.

Ghost Town Law (1942, directed by Howard Bretherton)

Posted on May 23, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

When two U.S. marshals are ambushed and killed while searching for a group of outlaws in a nearly deserted ghost town, Marshal Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) leaves his ranch in Wyoming to investigate the crime. He was friends with the two murdered men, making this case personal. Of course, McCall’s two fellow Rough Riders ride into town to help McCall out. Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) arrives separately and pretend to be prospectors. Their investigation leads to the outlaws (led, as usual, by Charles King), a corrupt member of the community, and a network of underground tunnels that might lead to a gold mine. As with all of the Rough Rider films, Ghost Town Law features a younger secondary protagonist who was there to appeal to audiences who didn’t remember Jones, McCoy, and Hatton from their silent and pre-code era heyday. Virginia Carpenter plays Josie Hall, who comes to the town to search for her grandmother and brother.

Starting with the two marshals getting gunned down in the line of duty, this is one of the more violent of the Rough Riders films. Since the Rough Riders are as interested in getting revenge as they are in getting justice, the Rough Riders themselves are quicker on the draw than usual. The identity of the main villain will not be a shock to anyone who has watched any of the other Rough Rider films but the use of the underground tunnels adds a new element of danger to the movie. For once, the outlaws and the Rough Riders seem evenly matched. The film also features the very lovely and likable Virginia Carpenter, making the last of her five film appearances.

As always, the main appeal is watching Jones, McCoy, and Hatton acting opposite each other. Due to the nature of the case, all three of them are more serious than usual in Ghost Town Law but it is still enjoyable to watch them discuss what’s been happening at their ranches since the last movie.

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