Blazing Bullets (1951, directed by Wallace Fox)


Johnny Mack Brown rides across the old west until he reaches a seemingly abandoned ranch.  Someone takes a shot at him with a gold bullet.  It’s because the the ranch has a reputation for being haunted and everyone knows that the only way to take care of a ghost is to shoot at it with gold bullets.

(It’s common frontier knowledge!)

Johnny may says that he’s a simple cowhand who has been hired to look after the ranch but actually, he’s a government agent who has been sent to investigate the disappearance of rancher John Roberts (Forrest Taylor) and the theft of government gold.  Bill Grant (House Peters, Jr.) is the main suspect in the Roberts disappearance but Roberts’s daughter (Lois Hall) insists that he’s innocent.  Even though Roberts forbid Grant from seeing his daughter, Johnny Mack Brown suspects that Grant is being set up as well.  Brown doesn’t buy the idea of the ranch being haunted either.  If Fuzzy Knight was there, he’d probably see a ghost but Fuzzy takes this film off.  Time for Johnny Mack Brown to investigate.

Despite the exciting title, Blazing Bullets is only a so-so B-western.  Working without his usual sidekicks, Brown just goes through the motions and there’s not nearly enough action.  A movie called Blazing Bullets should have had more blazing bullets in it.  Today, it’s impossible to watch the film without expecting Harvey Korman to show up as Hedley Lamarr.

Knight of the Plains (1938, directed by Sam Newfield)


Clem Peterson (Richard Cramer) has a plot to force all of the ranchers in the valley to give up their land.  He gives a phony land claim to Carson (John Merton), who presents himself as being a Mexican nobleman.  In a situation like this, you need a singing cowboy and luckily, there’s one nearby.  Fred (Fred Scott) and Fuzzy (Al St. John) get involved after their cattle are stolen by Clem and his men.  Fred not only fights to save the ranchers but he also sings a song or two.

Singing cowboy films are always strange.  Cowboys who ride horses and pull guns and get into fistfights should not also be tenors.  Fred Scott looks convincing on a horse and he has one heck of a fistfight towards the end of the movie but he’ll also start singing at the drop of a hat and it just doesn’t feel right.  John Wayne did a few singing cowboy films early in his career and he could usually pull it off.  Fred Scott wasn’t much of an actor and had a forgettable screen presence.  He had a good voice, though.

This film was produced by Stan Laurel, of Laurel and Hardy fame.  Always read those credits.  You never know who you might find.