The Shamrock Kid (James Ellison), Lucky (Russell Hayden), and the Colonel (Raymond Hatton) ride into the town of Cattle Junction. They are on the trail of a group of outlaws who have been causing trouble but everyone in town mistakes them for being outlaws themselves. Feisty ranch owner Anne Hayden (Julie Adams, beautiful as always) even locks them in a basement to keep them from causing trouble! Far more serious, though, is Jim Morgan (Stephen Carr), who tries to hire the men to force the ranchers off of their property.
This is a typical homesteader vs ranchers film. The story behind the making of the film is more interesting than the film itself. It was one of six films that the director and the cast shot concurrently over the course of a handful of days. Each day, the cast and crew would set up at a different location and shoot scenes for all six films. The other interesting thing about this film is that Elllison and Hayden were better known for playing Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekicks than for being leading men. Like Fuzzy Knight (who appears in this film), Ellison and Hayden were born sidekicks. They were likeable but not particularly convincing as being tough lawmen.
This film has all of the familiar faces who usually appeared in these films, actor like Fuzzy Knight, George Cheseboro, Tom Tyler, and Bud Osborne. Fans of the B-western genre will be happy to see them but the overall film is memorable only for Julie Adams. I wonder if this movie was a hit in Colorado.
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.
Tioga City has a problem. A masked outlaw known as El Azote keeps holding up James Kerrigan’s (Jack Holt) bank. Because El Azote carries a bullwhip, the case is assigned to Marshal Lash LaRue (Humphrey Bogart lookalike Lash La Rue) and his loyal sidekick, Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John). Lash also always carries a bullwhip and because no one in town knows that Lash is actually a marshal, they all assume that he must be El Azote. Shady bar owner Benson (Tom Neal) offers to make a deal with Lash and Fuzzy but then he betrays them the first chance that he gets.
This is one of Lash La Rue’s better movies, which may sound like faint praise when you consider the quality of the typical La Rue film but this is actually a fairly engrossing production. Running under an hour, this Poverty Row western tells its story quickly and it ends with a genuinely exciting bullwhip battle. La Rue may not have been the best actor amongst the B-western stars of the era but he knew how to whip it and to whip it good.
The main attraction here is Tom Neal, playing another shady character. Tom Neal was a tough character both off-screen and on and he brings an authentic edginess to his character, one that was missing from most Poverty Row westerns. Tom Neal is best-known for starring in Detour. A former amateur boxer who hung out with gangsters and dated their girlfriends, Neal was an up-and-coming star until one day in 1951, when he beat up actor Franchot Tone so severely that Tone spent weeks in the hospital with a concussion. Neal’s career never recovered from the notoriety and he quit acting to become a landscaper. In 1965, he was back in the headlines after he was charged with murdering his wife. Convicted of involuntary manslaughter, he served six years in prison and died shortly after he was paroled. He was 58 years old.
Finally, King of the Bullwhip was directed by Ron Ormond, who will always be best known for films such as Mesa Of Lost Women and the infamous If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? It takes all types to make a B-western.
Singing Ranger Eddie Dean (played by the same-named Eddie Dean) and his sidekick, Soapy Jones (Roscoe Ates), are sent to track down the Tioga Kid, an outlaw who happens to look just like Eddie. Soapy suggests that The Tioga Kid could be a long lost twin brother. Eddie isn’t sure because his parents were killed in an Indian ambush when he was just a baby. This seemed to be the backstory for many of Poverty Row’s favorite western heroes.
Dean plays both Eddie and the Tioga Kid. You can tell them apart because the Tioga Kid doesn’t sing and always dresses in black while Eddie dresses in white and won’t stop singing. Twin rivals were another big thing when it came to B-westerns. Thanks to then revolutionary split-screen technology, matinee audiences could enjoy the sight of their favorite heroes shooting at themselves. Eddie Dean was usually cast as a mild-mannered hero so he really seems to enjoy the chance to be bad as the Tioga Kid.
The Tioga Kid is a film that will be appreciated by those who are already fans of B-westerns. The Tioga Kid was made late in the B-western cycle and there are a lot signs that it was made in a hurry. There’s a scene involving a stunt man where he’s not even wearing the same shirt as the person he’s standing in for. Matinee audiences probably didn’t mind. They were too busy watching Eddie Dean shoot at himself and cheering him on during the movie’s big fist fight scene. Eddie Dean may not have been a great actor but he could throw a punch with the best of them.
Jack Mason (Jack Randall) has the most important job on the frontier. He delivers the mail. After he’s chased by the members of the local Indian tribe, he learns that an uprising is imminent because a young brave has been murdered and the tribe blames the citizens of a nearby town. Of course, the murder was actually committed by a gang of counterfeiters led by saloon owner Pollini (Tristram Coffin). Pollini is not only a counterfeiter but he also lies to sweet Mary Martin (Jean Joyce), telling her that he’s hiring her to be a waitress when he’s actually looking for a dance hall girl. Jack has to bring Pollini to justice before a full scale war breaks out.
This is not a bad B-western. It’s short and quick but the story is slightly better than the average Monogram oater and Jack Randall and co-star Dennis Moore are both believable as cowboys and gunslingers. Fans of the genre will be happy to see Glenn Strange as the sheriff and Iron Eyes Cody as the chief of the tribe. I’ve always liked westerns where the heroes were just trying to keep the peace so that they could deliver the mail. We take mail for granted nowadays but in the 1800s, delivering mail was almost as dangerous as delivering money. If you’re not into westerns, Overland Mail won’t change your mind but, if you’re already a fan of the genre, Overland Mail makes for an entertaining 50 minutes.
Heldorado, Arizona is a frontier town with a problem. The Tullivers, led by Mike (Tom Tyler), keep robbing the bank and running off anyone who agrees to be the town’s marshal.
The Colonel (Raymond Hatton) and the Mayor (Fuzzy Knight) are at their wits end until a bison hunter named Lucky (Russell Hayden) comes riding into town in search of work. They hire Lucky to be their new marshal, paying him $200 a week and allowing him three free drinks a day.
They also give Lucky a cabin to stay in but when Shamrock Ellison (James Ellison), a dandy from up north, rides into town on a donkey, Lucky decides to rent him the cabin. When Ellison arrives at the cabin, he finds two Tulliver brothers looking for the stolen money that they hid in the fireplace. The brothers try to shoot Ellison but accidentally end up shooting themselves instead.
When Ellison says that he wants to keep a low profile, Lucky takes credit for killing the two Tullivers. When Mike shows up looking for revenge, Lucky has a change of heart and gives all the credit for Ellison. Lucky makes Ellison his deputy but what he doesn’t know is that Ellison is actually a government agent who has been sent to Heldorado to clean the town up.
This B-western does a good job of mixing comedy with action. It was one of many films that Ellison and Hayden made together and Hayden’s bluster plays off well against Ellison’s more serious performance. Much of the humor comes from Ellison having to keep the other townspeople from realizing that he’s a crack shot who knows how ride a horse as well as anyone in town. As well, Fuzzy Knight has his moments as the always drinking mayor. The action scenes are well-choreographed and there’s even a suspenseful scene where Ellison gets a shave from a barber who is actually a relative of the Tullivers. As always, the beautiful Julia Adams is a welcome addition to the cast as the Colonel’s daughter, who falls for Ellison. For fans of the genre, there’s plenty of entertainment to be found in this brisk, 50-minute western.
When last we checked in with Kharis the Mummy, he was running into a swamp in Massachusetts, carrying the reincarnation of Princess Ananka with him. Chasing after him were the standard towns people with torches and guns. It’s not a Universal horror film without angry villagers, even if the movie itself is taking place in Mapleton, Massachusetts.
Upon entering the swamp, both Kharis and Ananka sunk under the water, traumatizing Ananka’s boyfriend but apparently bringing Kharis’s reign of terror to an end.
Well, not so fast!
The 1944 film, The Mummy’s Curse, opens with the townspeople talking about how Kharis continues to haunt the old swamp, so much so that most of the locals refuse to work in the swamp. Oddly enough, though, the townspeople are suddenly a mix of Cajuns and gypsies. (The film even opens with a gypsy woman singing a song in a bar.) The swamp has now become a bayou. We are repeatedly told that the film is taking place in the same location as the previous Mummy films but suddenly, that location has changed from Massachusetts to Louisiana.
As for the plot of The Mummy’s Curse, it all centers around the swamp. The Southern Engineering Company (and that really doesn’t sound like a Massachusetts company) is draining the swamp. The locals are worried that draining the swamp will bring back the curse of the mummy. Two representatives from the Scripps Museum show up and announce that they want to search the drained swamp for the remains of the mummies. Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore) is typical of the archeologists who tend to show up in these Mummy films. Meanwhile, his associate is Dr. Ilzor Zandeeb (Peter Coe) who — surprise! — is that latest Egyptian high priest to come to America to try to recover the bodies of Kharis and Princess Ananka.
Ananka (Virginia Christie) is the first to emerge from the swamp, though she has no memory of who she is. When she is discovered on the side of the road by Prof. Halsey and his love interest, Betty (Kay Harding), they allow her to stay at their camp on the edge of the swamp. Everyone is really impressed by the fact that this amnesiac knows so much about ancient Egypt. Eventually, Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr., again tightly wrapped in bandages) eventually emerges from the swamp as well, determined to protect Ananka.
The Mummy’s Curse was the final film to feature Lon Chaney, Jr. as Kharis. Unfortunately, it’s pretty forgettable and certainly not a satisfying conclusion to the story of one of Universal’s original monsters. A good deal of the film’s 60-minute running time is taking up with flashbacks to previous Mummy films and it seems like it takes forever for Kharis to actually get around to spreading the usual mummy mayhem. Though it may be too much to ask for too much continuity from these films, the sudden switch from Massachusetts to Lousiana is distracting for those of us who have actually invested the time to watch the previous Mummy films. One gets the feeling that, by the time this film went into production, no one involved really cared that much about poor Kharis and his never-ending mission to protect his princess.
In a frontier town, a gang of rustlers are stealing cattle as a part of a plot to force cash-strapped ranchers to take out exorbitant mortgages on their ranches. Ma Turner (Sarah Padden) summons her old friend, Marshal Buck Roberts (Buck Jones), to come to town and take on the rustlers. When the town’s corrupt banker is murdered and Ma Turner’s son, Steve (Dennis Moore), is framed for the crime, Roberts calls in his fellow Rough Riders, Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton), to help him take down the gang.
In many ways, this is a familiar Rough Riders film, right down to the main bad guy being the owner of the town’s saloon and Charles King showing up as a member of the gang. What sets it apart from the film that came before it is that, this time, Tim pretends to be an outlaw while Buck sets himself up as the new law in town. Tim takes on the identity of Tim Steele, a sarsaparilla-drinking ne’er do well who has just gotten out of prison. Jones and McCoy both seem to enjoy getting to switch their typical roles. As for Sandy Hopkins, he goes undercover as a peddler of snake oil and provides the comic relief. Riders of the West is a typical B-western but the chemistry between the three leads continues to shine through.
In the fourth Rough Riders film, the boys head down to Mexico City to defend the Garcia Ranch from a gang of cattle rustlers who are also planning on stealing the Garcia Family Jewels. (Would the Rough Riders have any legal jurisdiction in Mexico?) This time, Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) assumes the identity of a well-known outlaw who deals in stolen goods, Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) pretends to be a cattle buyer, and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) gets a job sweeping up the local saloon. As with almost all of the Rough Riders films, the owner of the saloon, Steve Slade (Charles King), is also the leader of the thieves. Slade is blackmailing a reformed outlaw named Joe (Dennis Moore) into helping Slade and Scully (Roy Barcroft) steal the family jewels. Joe is in love with Rosita Garcia (Linda Brent).
Below the Border has much in common with Forbidden Trails, the Rough Riders film that came before it, right down to a villainous saloon owner and a former outlaw being blackmailed to return to his old ways. As usual, the outlaws try to humiliate Sandy Hopkins, just for Tim McCall to show up at the saloon and turn the tables. Scully is a despicable bully and it feels good when McCall forces him to grab Hopkins’s mop and clean up the bar himself.
It’s not the strongest of the Rough Riders films. The plot is predictable, Linda Brent gives a terrible performance as Rosita, and even the action scenes are by-the-numbers. The main appeal of Below the Border is to watch the three Rough Riders themselves. Jones, McCoy, and Hatton all seem to have genuinely enjoyed working together and that comes through in their scenes together. You never have any doubt that, even though they live in different parts of the country, all it would take is one telegram for them to get back together. The highlight of each film is the final scene, where the Rough Riders tell each other what they’ve been up to between adventures. This time, Buck invites everyone to visit him in Arizona but Tim has to get back to Wyoming and Sandy’s running a hotel in Texas. They ride off separately but there’s little doubt they will reunite as soon as there’s a new rustler who needs to be brought to justice.
In the old west, a group of outlaws attack a wagon train, killing a husband and wife but sparing their two children. One child is taken by the outlaws, who tell him that they have saved him from an Indian attack. He grows up to be The Kansas Kid (Dennis Moore), a wagon master who still works for Gordon (Bob Card), the outlaw who raised him. The other child is adopted by a Native tribe and grows up to be known as Cherokee (Jack Randall). Cherokee has been hired to protect a gold shipment that Kansas and Gordon are determined to steal. How long until the brothers come into conflict?
Across The Plains is a pretty good programmer. Dennis Moore and Jack Randall are convincing as two men on opposite sides of the law who don’t realize that they’re brothers and director Spencer Gordon Bennett captures the scenery of the old west. This is a western where the frontier really feels and looks like an untouched frontier! The gunfights are effectively choreographed and directed and the family aspect is a good spin on a simple story. For fans of westerns, Across The Plains is an enjoyable example of the genre.
Dennis Moore and Jack Randall were both B-western mainstays. Moore occasionally played a hero but was usually cast as a villain. Across The Plans gives him a chance to play a more complex role than usual and he takes full advantage of the opportunity. The Kansas Kid may be an outlaw but he’s not so much bad as just misguided. Jack Randall was one of the many stage names used by actor Addison Randall. He started out as a singing cowboy before playing more traditional heroes, like in this film. In Across The Plans, Randall was as tough and convincing a western hero as he always was. Tragically, he died six years after making this film when he fell off a horse while filming a Universal serial called The Royal Mounted Ride Again. He was only 39 years old.
The Shamrock Kid (James Ellison), Lucky (Russell Hayden), and the Colonel (Raymond Hatton) ride into the town of Cattle Junction. They are on the trail of a group of outlaws who have been causing trouble but everyone in town mistakes them for being outlaws themselves. Feisty ranch owner Anne Hayden (Julie Adams, beautiful as always) even locks them in a basement to keep them from causing trouble! Far more serious, though, is Jim Morgan (Stephen Carr), who tries to hire the men to force the ranchers off of their property.
Through the Shattered Lens 