Tag Archives: Hugh Prosser

Boss of Hangtown Mesa (1942, directed by Joseph H. Lewis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The telegraph company has come to the frontier town of Hangtown Mesa and soon, the citizens will be connected to the rest of the world.  The wealthy men who run the town don’t want that to happen because then people might discover how corrupt they are.  They hire a gunman known as the Utah Kid (Hugh Prosser, not looking much like a kid) to come to town and kill the owner of the telegraph line, John Wilkins (Henry Hall).  The Utah Kid steals the clothes of engineer Steve Collins (Johnny Mack Brown) and frames him for Wilkins’s murder.  With the help Betty Wilkins (Helen Deverell) and traveling medicine man Dr. J. Willington Dingle (Fuzzy Knight), Steve sets out to clear his name.

This is a pretty good Johnny Mack Brown western.  The plot isn’t half-bad as far as Poverty Row westerns are concerned and director Joseph H. Lewis keeps things lively.  Lewis not only gets good performances from his cast but he also makes Hangtown Mesa seem like an actual, growing frontier town.  Lewis even manages to create some suspense as The Utah Kid and Steve Collins switch identities.  Comparing Lewis’s westerns to the ones directed by Sam Newfield shows how much difference a good director can make, even within the confines of a poverty row production.  Even Fuzzy Knight is used well!

Boss of Hangtown Mesa is one of the better Johnny Mack Brown westerns, featuring a good story and an interesting idea behind it as it shows how far the bad guys will go to keep their own private fiefdom from connecting with the rest of the world.  Brown is convincing, whether he’s riding a horse or holding a gun.  He’s playing an educated man here, an engineer, but Brown is still a cowboy through-and-through.

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.

Trail to Laredo (1948, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On the frontier, everyone has gold fever.  People are trying to find gold and steal gold and it falls to brave Treasury agents like Steve Ellison (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnette (played by Smiley Burnette) to keep things safe.  When Steve needs to find out who is trying steal gold, he puts on his mask and assumes the identity of The Durango Kid.

Near Laredo, a shipment of government gold has been stolen.  Dan Parks (Jim Bannon) is arrested after the gold is found in his wagon but Steve knows that the Durango Kid earlier warned Dan about traveling with gold.  Durango and Smiley set out to prove that Dan was set up by his business partner, Fenton (Hugh Prosser).

This yet another Durango Kid movie where Steve gets a job working for the bad guy while Durango works to thwart his plans.  (Remarkably, no one ever puts two and two together and notices that Steve, Smiley, and Durango always seem to show up in town at the same time.)  Fenton is just one of a long line of corrupt businessmen and land barons that Durango has had to deal with.  Fenton is not above threatening Dan’s young son (Tommy Ivo) to get Dan to do what he wants.  Given that Dan is just trying to make a good life for his family in a rough world, it’s satisfying when Fenton gets his comeuppance.

Almost every Durango Kid film featured at least one good fight scene.  In Trail to Laredo, the big fight takes place in a saloon and it’s pretty exciting.  Not only does the saloon get trashed but there’s a moment where one of the bad guys actually seem to fly through the air.  Even Virginia Maxey, playing Classy the saloon singer, gets in on it.

Both Virginia Maxey and Smiley Burnette get to sing a few songs.  As always, there enough gunfights and horse chases to keep fans of the genre happy.  Charles Starrett was a great cowboy.

Montana Incident (1952, directed by Lewis D. Collins)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Whip Wilson (played, in a fortunate coincidence, by Whip Wilson) and his partner, Dave Conners (Rand Brooks) work for the railroad company as surveyors in the old west.  They’ve come to the town of Martinville to convince the citizens that the town would benefit from having a train station.  Mostly, they just want to go to the saloon, have a beer, and flirt with the local gals.

Albert Hawkins (WIlliam Fawcett) is the leader of the local homesteaders and he’s all for bringing the railroad to town.  Land baron Max Martin (Hugh Prosser) disagrees.  Martin is not really a bad person but his daughter, Clara (Peggy Stewart), is a greedy fanatic who doesn’t want to lose the water rights to the land.  With her boyfriend, outlaw Arnold Benson (Bruce Edwards), Clara rules the town with an iron fist.  Whip and Dave must defeat Arnold and Clara so that progress can come to the frontier.

Montana Incident is a standard western programmer but it is distinguished by having an evil female land baron instead of the usual male land baron.  Stewart tears into the world, proving that she can be just as dangerous as any man.  Fans of the old Adventures of Superman TV show will immediately recognize Noel Neill, playing the role of Clara’s much nicer sister.

If you’re a fan of B-westerns, Montana Incident is watchable enough.  Wilson and Brooks are bland heroes but Peggy Stewart is so good at being evil that she makes the movie worth watching.