Guns of the Law (1944, directed by Elmer Clifton)

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Three Texas Rangers — Tex Wyatt (Dave O’Brien), Jim Steele (James Newill), and Panhandle Perkins (Guy Wilkerson) — ride into a small town. They each arrive separately and they all sing while sitting on their horses. They’re in town to help out Jed Wilkins, who was Panhandle’s superior officer during the Civil War. Jed is having a nervous breakdown because a crooked surveyor (Jack Ingram) and shifty lawyer (Charles King) are trying to cheat him out of his land. Jed thinks that he’s serving in the war again so Panhandle has to wear his old Confederate uniform to keep Jed from losing it any further.

The Texas Rangers starred in a series of B-westerns. This one is mostly amiable, though I think modern viewers will probably have a more difficult time with the Confederate uniform than viewers did in 1944. Having watched enough of these movies, I’ve lost track of the number of crooked lawyers that Charles King played over the years. He was one of the great B-movie villains, that’s for sure.

I don’t really know what to make of the singing cowboy genre. Why are they singing while riding through the wilderness and trying not to get shot? Do all of the Texas Rangers sing or is it just these three? This movie raises so many questions. What’s odd is that the songs in this movie are actually really catchy. I can still remember the tunes, if not all of the lyrics. Don’t break the law, the Rangers sang as they rode out of town at the end of the movie. Don’t break the law.

Gun Packer (1938, directed by Wallace Fox)

Posted on January 11, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Someone is holding up stages and making off with a fortune of gold bullion. The government decides to send in a gun packer. Jack Denton (Jack Randall), the son of a legendary lawman, is sent to investigate, along with his sidekick Pinkie (Ray Turner) and Rusty the Wonder Horse. Jack goes undercover, telling an elderly ex-con (Barlowe Borland) that he’s a former partner of his, which leads Jack to the leader of the robbers, Chance Moore (Charles King).

There are a lot of familiar faces in this western. Not only does Charles King play yet another villain but Glenn Strange shows up in his customary role as the town sheriff. Lloyd Ingraham, Forrest Taylor, Victor Adamson, George Hazel, Dave O’Brien, and Tex Palmer all have roles. It’s interesting that the same actors showed up in these movies and almost always seemed to be playing the same roles. The only thing that changed was the hero. In this case, it’s Jack Randall, who may not have been a great actor but who was a believable western hero. His sidekick here is Ray Turner, a black actor who began his career during the silent era and who had a long career in the westerns. While Turner plays a subordinate character, the role still avoids a lot (though not all) of the demeaning racial stereotypes that were very common in most films from the 1930s. Jack treats Pinky with respect and they’re clearly friends outside of work. That may not sound like a lot but it was a big deal for a 1938 Poverty Row western.

The real hero here is Rusty the Wonder Horse. Rusty’s best scene? Jack, needing to climb a mountain, calls for Rusty to drop his lariat. Jack grabs the rope and Rusty pulls him up. Rusty truly earns the right to be called a wonder horse.

Man’s Country (1938, directed by Robert F. Hill)

Posted on January 10, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

When his innocent son, Ted (David Sharpe), is accused of committing a murder, Lex Crane (Walter Long) turns him over to Texas Ranger Jack Haile (Jack Randall) because he knows that Jack will make sure that Ted gets a fair trial. Lex says that he and his men are accused of every crime that happens in the area, even though they’re always innocent. Jack understand and respects Lex as a man and a father. But when someone shoots and kills Ted, Lex and his men set out for revenge. The twist? Lex has a twin brother named Buck (also played by Walter Long) and the two brothers hate each other.

Most poverty row westerns blend into each other but Man’s Country stands out as an intelligent and well-acted western. Even though the twin twist is undoubtedly an overdone one, Man’s Country does a good job with it and Walter Long gives such a good performance that both Lex and Buck emerge as individual, identifiable characters. Jack Randall may not have been the greatest of the old western actors but he’s believable as the tough but fair Texas Ranger. There’s enough western action for fans of the genre but, for once, the plot is interesting enough that it might hold the attention of other watchers as well.

Of course, this is a Poverty Row western so Charles King does appear as one of the bad guys. He gets into a fist fight, like he almost always did. I wonder how many onscreen punches Charles King actually threw over the course of his career in the westerns. It had to have been a lot.

Bonus Horror On The Lens: The Devil Bat (dir by Jean Yarborough)

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Because today would have been Bela Lugosi’s birthday, it seems appropriate to showcase him in a bonus horror on the lens!

In the 1940 film, The Devil Bat, the owners of a company in the small town of Heathville are super-excited because they’re going to be given their head chemist, Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi), a bonus check of $5,000. However, since Carruthers’s inventions have made millions for the company, he is offended by the small check and decides that the best way to handle this would be to sue in court and demand fair compensation …. just kidding! Instead, Dr. Carruthers sends his army of giant bats to kill the families of his employers.

The Devil Bat was produced by Production Releasing Corporation, a poverty row studio that specialized in shooting quickly and cheaply. Going from Universal to PRC was technically a step down for Lugosi but The Devil Bat is actually an excellent showcase for Lugosi and he gives one of his better non-Dracula performances as the embittered Dr. Carruthers. Indeed, one can imagine that Lugosi, who played such a big role in putting Universal on the map, could relate to Carruthers and his bitterness over not being fairly rewarded for the work he did to make others wealthy.

Enjoy The Devil Bat, starring the great Bela Lugosi!

Billy The Kid’s Smoking Guns (1942, directed by Sam Newfield)

Posted on June 3, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

It’s a tale as old as time. During the days when the west was wild, the U.S. Army is planning on setting up a new outpost near a town so the bad guys want to run all the ranchers off of their land so that they can be the ones to sell it. Sheriff Carson (Ted Adams) is corrupt and working for the bad guys so the ranchers have to turn to Billy the Kid (Buster Crabbe) and his sidekicks, Jeff (Dave O’Brien) and Fuzzy (Al St. John) for help. When Jeff is wounded in a fight, Fuzzy takes him to Doc Hagen (Milton Kibbee), little suspecting the doctor is actually the leader of the bad guys and using his medical practice to kill anyone who won’t give up their land!

Coming to us straight from Poverty Row, this B-western is interesting in that it seems to take a very cynical view of law enforcement. Sheriff Carson is corrupt and Billy and his friends are running from the law themselves. Buster Crabbe’s Billy the Kid films always kept it unclear why Billy was in trouble with the authorities. Crabbe’s Billy the Kid always seemed to be the nicest guy in the west. (Of course, Crabbe was also 33 and no longer seemed like he should have been known as “the Kid.”) Eventually, the series was retconned and Buster Crabbe was no longer playing Billy the Kid but instead he was playing an upstanding citizen named Billy Carson.

Crabbe may not be a convincing outlaw but he is a convincing hero, which is all these films really required. Billy the Kid’s Smoking Guns is a little bit interesting because of the character of Doc Hagen, whose occupation makes him a little more memorable than typical B-western bad guy. The film is also interesting in that, for once, there’s no love interest. Instead, it’s just men in hats shooting at each other. That probably made the film’s youthful target audience happy.

The real-life Billy The Kid was killed when he was only 21 and after he had been an outlaw for only three years. Buster Crabbe would g0 on to play Billy (or o some variation of Billy) until he was closing in on 40.

Dead Or Alive (1944, directed by Elmer Cifton)

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In this Poverty Row western, the Texas Rangers, a trio of western do-gooders who appeared in a handful of films, are sent to a small town to stop the Yackey Gang, led by the town’s saloon keeper (Ray Bennett).

The Texas Rangers are led by Tex Haines (Tex Ritter), who is known as the Idaho Kid despite apparently being from Texas. Tex goes undercover as a lawyer and tries to rally the community to stand up the Yackey Gang. Tex also sings some songs because he’s a singing cowboy along with being a cowboy who can hold his own in bar brawl. Maybe if he didn’t sing so much, there wouldn’t be as many brawls. Dave Wyatt (Dave O’Brien) is the younger Ranger who goes undercover and joins that Yackey Gang. Panhandle Perkins (Guy Wilkinson) is the comic relief, who loses a lot of money at Yackey’s casino but only to help Dave maintain his cover. The film was an obvious rush job and the plot is far more difficult to follow than any 54-minute film should be. The kids at the matinee probably enjoyed it, though. It delivers exactly what fans of the old B-westerns expect, including Charles King as yet another villain.

Tex Ritter, who appeared in a lot of these films, was also the father of actor John Ritter. In 1970, long after the days of the poverty row westerns, Tex Ritter ran for the Senate in Tennessee but he lost the primary. If he had won, he would have been the Republican candidate against Al Gore’s father. That would have been a battle for the ages.

Horror On The Lens: The Devil Bat (dir by Jean Yarborough)

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Enjoy The Devil Bat, starring the great Bela Lugosi!

Down Texas Way (1942, directed by Howard Bretherton)

Posted on May 24, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

The sixth entry in the Rough Riders series finds Marshal Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) traveling from Wyoming to Texas so that he can help Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) celebrate his birthday. When he arrives, he discovers that the birthday celebration is on hold because Sandy has been accused of murdering his best friend, John Dodge (Jack Daley). Dodge was the richest man in town and the townspeople think that Sandy murdered him as a result of a disagreement over a card game. What they don’t know is that Sandy and Dodge were only pretending to be mad at each other as a practical joke.

Dodge was really murdered by Bert Logan (Harry Woods), an outlaw who has hired an actress named Stella (Lois Austin) to pretend to be Dodge’s long-lost wife. When all of Dodge’s property is given to Stella, Stella will then give it all to Dodge. While Tim tries to keep the sheriff (Glenn Strange) from prosecuting Sandy, Marshal Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) goes undercover and infiltrates Logan’s gang.

After five previous films that just featured the Rough Riders talking about what their lives were like when they weren’t chasing outlaws, Down Texas Way shows us Sandy Hopkins’s life in Texas. It’s about what you would expect. Sandy likes to spend his time playing cards and hanging out in the lobby of his hotel. It seems like an nice life, at least until Bert Logan tries to frame him for murder. Luckily, the other Rough Riders are always there to have his back. Down Texas Way is not one of the better Rough Riders films because Bert’s scheme never makes much sense but Hatton is relaxed and engaging and McCoy and Jones are their usual tough selves. As with the previous film, the appeal of this Rough Riders film is the Rough Riders themselves and the way that they always stick together and have each other’s back. That’s especially true in Down Texas Way, in which both Tim and Buck show that they’ll travel across several states if it means helping out a friend in a jam.

One final note, the town’s sheriff is named Trump, though I assume he’s no relation. Glenn Strange, who played Sheriff Trump, would later play Frankenstein’s Monster in the last of the Universal horror movies.

Previous Rough Rider Reviews:

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

Posted on May 17, 2023 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:

Diamond Among the Coal: Bela Lugosi in BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (Monogram 1942)

Posted on January 17, 2019 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I’ve written about Bela Lugosi’s infamous ‘Monogram 9’ before, those ultra-cheap spectacles produced by the equally ultra-cheap Sam Katzman for low-budget Monogram Pictures. These films are all Grade Z schlock, redeemed only by Lugosi’s presence, giving his all no matter how ludicrous the scripts or cardboard the sets. BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT is a cut above; still schlock, but the pulpy premise is different from the rest, and Bela gives what’s probably his best performance out of the whole trashy bunch.

Lugosi plays kindly Karl Wagner, a benevolent soul who runs the Friendly Mission down on the Bowery. But wait – it’s all a front for recruiting down-on-their-luck criminals into Wagner’s gang of thieves. And when he’s done with them, he bumps them off and gives the corpses to ‘Doc’, a dope fiend ex-medico who uses the bodies for his own nefarious purposes!