Tag Archives: Budd Buster

Chip of the Flying U (1939, directed by Ralph Staub)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this B-western, Johnny Mack Brown plays Chip Bennett, the foreman of the Flying U Ranch.  The ranch is owned by J.G. Whitmore (Forrest Taylor) and his daughter (Doris Weston), who has just returned from college and who has eyes for Dusty (Bob Baker), a singing ranchhand.

Ed Duncan (Anthony Warde) and his gang are in the arms smuggling business.  To make their business a success, they need access to the ranch, which sits on the shore of a lake.  Knowing that Chip would never let them take over, Duncan tries to frame Chip for a bank robbery and murder.  Chip responds by kidnapping two of Duncan’s men, leading to a final and explosive shootout.

Chip of the Flying U is a western that doesn’t seem to know what era it’s supposed to be taking place in.  Chip, Duncan, and all of the other ranch hands dress like they’re in the late 1800s.  Doris Weston dresses like she’s just stepped out of a 1930s photoshoot.  Duncan is trying to smuggle hand grenades, which were invented in 1908 but not commonly used until World War I.  The movie’s time period is all over the place but that was frequently the case with the B-westerns of the 30s.  Shot on studio backlots and for a very low budget, these films were not concerned with historical accuracy.  Instead, they were about shootouts and a few songs.  Chip of the Flying U offers up both, along with Fuzzy Knight as the comedic sidekick who turns out to be very good with a rifle.

With lots of horse chases and bloodless shoot-outs and not too much romance, this movie may seem creaky by today’s standards but probably thrilled the kids who caught while spending an afternoon at the movies in 1939.  Today, the appeal of movies like this is that the good guys are unquestionably good and the bad guys are unquestionably bad.  They remind us of a simpler time that may have never existed but we all hope it did.

Texas Panhandle (1945, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Secret Service agent Steve Buckner (Charles Starrett) is told by his boss that his activities as the Durango Kid have led some in the Agency to suspect that Steve is himself an outlaw.  Even after Steve explains that he only takes on the Durango Kid identity when he needs to step outside of the law to protect innocent people, Steve is still suspended pending an investigation.

With nothing better to do, Steve rides off to the Texas panhandle, where he learns that outlaws have been robbing settlers and stealing government gold.  Working as the Durango Kid, Steve discovers that it’s not just outlaws that are targeting the new arrivals but it’s also the corrupt head of the local land office, Ace Gatlin (Forest Taylor).  Helping out Steve are settler Tex Harding and Cannonball (Dub Taylor), who works at the saloon and sings a few songs.

This is a standard Durango Kid film.  It has all the usual gunfights and horse chases but it doesn’t have Smiley Burnette.  Dub Taylor takes Smiley’s place as the comedic sidekick and, while Taylor isn’t bad, he’s still no Smiley Burnette.  Dub Taylor’s characters were usually more buffoonish than the clever helpers played by Smiley Burnette and, as a result, the Durango Kid movies with Taylor feel more juvenile than the ones with Smiley.  That’s the case here.

This installment is interesting because it reveals that Steve’s superiors knew about his Durango Kid side hustle and were as a confused about why he needed it as everyone else was.  Steve reveals he would rather lose his job than give up being Durango.  Luckily, at the end of the movie, he gets a telegram telling him that the investigation is over and he’s been reinstated with the Secret Service.  All’s well that ends well.

Six-Gun Law (1948, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Norris (Charles Starrett) has moved to a new frontier town and is making a good living as a cattle rancher.  The sheriff (Ethan Laidlaw) takes a dislike to Steve and even accuses him of being a cattle rustler.  Steve is so angered that he plays right into the hands of Decker (Hugh Prosser), a corrupt businessman who secretly puts blanks into Steve’s gun and then tricks Steve into thinking that he has shot and killed the sheriff.

Decker appoints Steve as the new sheriff but demands that Steve do exactly what Decker orders him to do.  If Steve actually enforced the law, Decker will turn him in as the first sheriff’s murderer.  Steve may not be able to do anything about Decker’s crimes but his alter ego, The Durango Kid, can!  As always, working with Steve is his loyal sidekick, Smiley Burnette.

The stand-out set piece of this Durango Kid film is an exciting stagecoach chase, which features the Durango Kid (in the form of legendary stuntman Jock Mahoney) making some thrilling moves.  The scene was so exciting and popular that it was used in a dozen other Durango Kid films.  These movies were never shy about reusing good scenes, effective stunts, and plot twists.  (It’s easy to lose track of how many times Steve has been appointed as sheriff of a town.)  This was also neither the first nor the last time that Hugh Prosser and Robert Wilke would play bad guys in a Durango Kid movie.  However, this is the only Durango Kid film to feature the Rodeo Rangers providing musical accompaniment  to Smiley Burnette’s songs.

Six-Gun Law will be best appreciated by fans of the western genre.  Charles Starrett is as tough and authentic a cowboy as always and the storyline has some nice twists and turns.  For once, with Steve being blackmailed by Decker, it makes sense that Steve would put on his disguise and solve his problems as the Durango Kid.