Stuart Gilmore | Through the Shattered Lens

The frontier town of Pecos, Texas is without a marshal and Martin Conroy (Walter Reed) and his men are taking advantage of the situation by forcing people to sell their land for next to nothing. A railroad’s coming and Conroy is looking to make a killing. When landowner Bailey (John Hamilton) is targeted by Conroy, ranch hands Tim Holt (played by Tim Holt) and Rafferty (Richard Martin) are determined to stop him. Federal marshal Terry Moran is summoned to the town to enforce the law. Everyone is shocked when Moran’s daughter — also named Terry (Linda Douglas) — shows up and declares herself the new marshal. “We don’t need no petticoat marshal!” the townspeople cry.

This is a by-the-book B-western, one of many that Tim Holt and Richard Martin made over the years. In this one, neither Holt not Martin seems to be too invested in the familiar story. (Holt was maybe wondering how he went from The Magnificent Ambersons and Treasure of the Sierra Madre to this.) The only really interesting thing about this one is that the marshal is a woman but the movie doesn’t really do anything with the idea. Tim Holt was the star here and no petticoat marshal was going to upstage him.

The thing that I find interesting about these B-westerns is how often the villain was someone looking to get rich by selling ill-gotten land to the railroad companies. B-westerns always presented the railroads as being both the best and the worst thing about the west. The railroads bring and connect civilization but they also attract villains like Martin Conroy. In the American westerns, it was always made clear that the railroad company was as disgusted by men like Conroy as the townspeople. However, in the spaghetti westerns that would come out in the 60s, it was always clear that the railroad didn’t care how they got their land as long as they got it.

This was Tim Holt’s second-to-last movie as a B-western star. After his career ended in Hollywood, Holt relocated to Oklahoma and eventually became the manager of radio station. He died in 1973.

In this B-western programmer, Dave Collins (Ross Elliott) has just been released from prison. Because he knows how to operate a telegraph, outlaw Turk Thorne (John Dehner) tries to force Dave to get a job at a local telegraph office so that Turk can use his skills to rob a train.

Despite wanting to go straight, Dave also doesn’t want to get full of hot lead. He rides into town and gets a job at the ranch owned by Gail Martin (Joan Dixon). He is befriended by Gail’s two ranchhands, serious cowboy Tim Holt (played, believe it or not, by Tim Holt) and his comedy relief sidekick, Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin). Tim and Chito want revenge on Turk for killing one of their friends during a previous train robbery. Working with Dave, they set a trap for Turk and his gang. Meanwhile, Dave falls in love with Gail.

Hot Lead was one of the last of the 46 B-westerns that Tim Holt made for RKO Pictures. Holt started out playing the type of prototypical happy, go-lucky cowboys who were popular in the 1930s. At that time, he was unique as one of the few western stars to not play a continuing character who was named after him. While the studios promoted other western stars as essentially playing themselves, Tim Holt was promoted as being a serious actor. Holt’s films were popular with audiences but his career was put on hold while he served in World War II. Post-war, Holt played characters who were far more world-weary than his earlier cowboys and he also started to play characters who were specifically named “Tim Holt.”

Even though most of Holt’s later films were uneven in quality, Hot Lead is one of the better examples of the genre. Whether happy or serious, Tim Holt was always a convincing cowboy and he brings his natural gravitas to the role, playing his character as being the type of serious and no-nonsense cowboy that anyone would want in their corner. John Dehner was always a good villain and Ross Elliott is equally good as the man struggling not to go back to his old ways. The action scenes and the gunfights are well-directed and the story even carries an important message about giving people second chances. Not bad for a B-western!