Marshal Tom Nightlander (Douglass Dumbrille) shows up in a lawless frontier town, tasked with bringing peace.  He could sure use the help of Dr. John Poole (Johnny Mack Brown), a former gunslinger who has set his weapons aside and now works as the town doctor.  Dr. Poole has sworn off guns but with corrupt businessman Wilson (Harry Woods) and his gang determined to keep their town lawless, Poole is soon forced to reconsider.

This B-western from Monogram is better than many of the other low-budget, poverty row westerns of the era.  While the plot is another example of a corrupt businessman and his gang making life difficult for peaceful settlers, the characters in Flame of the West are a little more complex than usual.  Brown stands out playing a character who, for once, doesn’t want to fight and believes that it’s better to talk than to shoot.  Of course, this being a B-western, he soon sees the error of his ways.  Dumbrille was usually cast as a villain so this film is a chance to see him in a likable and heroic role and he’s very convincing as a Wyatt Earp-style marshal.

Of course, even a serious B-western is still a B-western so songs and entertainment are provided by the gorgeous Joan Woodbury and Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys.  (Don’t worry, I had never heard of them before, either.)  Joan Woodbury plays a saloon owner who wants to bring a higher class of entertainment to the frontier and she provides the film with enough sex appeal that 1945 audiences probably didn’t mind having to sit through the musical numbers before getting to the inevitable showdown between Johnny Mack Brown and Harry Woods.

Flame of the West is a good B-western that shows what dependable actors like Johnny Mack Brown and Douglass Dumbrille were capable of when given the opportunity.