PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Western Wednesday 10

I picked up the Cowboy Classics collection for a fiver. It's a Platinum Disc Corporation release that puts a Roy Rogers 2 disc set and a Gene Autrey 2 disc set in a special box. Both sets were released separately and both discs in each set were also released before as single discs. Repackaging is key at Platinum.

The collection has 18 movies but only three are ones I haven't seen before. I went through a huge pile of Westerns back 3 or 4 years ago and saw the other 15 movies then. There are a lot of public domain Westerns on the Internet Archive and YouTube. I saw a hell of a lot of them.

Roll On Texas Moon 1946 Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes head the cast in this oater. There are still bad feelings between the cattle sheep ranchers. Gabby finds a dead guy on his land and it ignites the trouble again.

Some local business crook wants to get the dead man's ranch but his plans are put on hold when the dead man's daughter, played by Dale, shows up to take over the ranch. Roy does his best, while singing a number of songs, to put an end to the problem.

There's also some romance between Roy and Dale. For those that don't know Roy and Dale would marry the year after the movie came out and stay together until Roy passed away in 1998. Roy made nearly 100 films in  his career and he had a top TV show in the early 1950s.

Under Nevada Skies 1946 It's Roy and Gabby and Dale again. This time Roy comes to his home town to find his old friend dead and Gabby the temporary sheriff. Roy offers to help Gabby find the killer.

Roy and Dale sing up bunch of songs. There's the usual gun shootin', horse ridin' and such. Like the previous movie, it's a good Western, maybe a bit above average as they go.

Oh, Susanna! 1936 Gene Autrey is another singing cowboy. I'm not quite a big fan but he's OK. Here Gene is tossed from a train and his identity stolen by a murderer. Gene's arrested but Smiley Burnette and Earle Hodgins help get him out of jail.

The trio of men team up to find the real killer and sing a few songs. It's OK but not quite as much fun as the Roy pictures.

I'm not quite as fond of the old Western posters as I am other movie posters of the period. They just aren't as well done as the ones for other genres, especially the horror and suspense pictures. The movies are still fun. 

Western Wednesday 9

Four more short ones from the Cowboys And Bandits 50 Movie Set. This is the 5th disc of a dozen. I think they are all public domain movies which usually show up on YouTube or the Internet Archive. Not having any luck with the films on this disc.

Six-Shootin' Sheriff 1938 Ken Maynard's framed for murder so he runs off and changes his name. He gets a sheriff job and kicks everyone's ass. Guys from his past complicate his life. There's the usual romance, six-shootin' and horse riding. I was never a big Ken Maynard fan but he's OK. He's got a big white hat and a horse named Tarzan.

The Brand Of Hate 1934 Bob Steele is a young rancher who has a thing for Lucile Brown, the daughter of another rancher William Farnum. William's evil brother, played by Gabby Hayes, and his two nephews arrive and take over the ranch. One of the brother's kill Bob's father when he catches the two of them cattle rustling. The sheriff suspects the brothers but he has no proof. When the brothers move in on Lucile that stirs Bob into action. Unlike Ken, I've been a big fan of Bob Steele ever since seeing him as Trooper Duffy on F-Troop back in the mid-60s. Imagine my surprise when I saw him as Lash Canino in the 1946 film The Big Sleep a few years later. Plenty of fightin' and horse ridin' along with a bit of romance.

Frontier Town 1938 Tex Rider is a rodeo rider who wins all the events at a rodeo. The promoter has been using the rodeo to pass his counterfeit money. He frames Tex for murder. Tex runs off and gets a job singing in a casino with his pals Stubby and Pee Wee. Eventually the frame is figured out and things are OK again. It was about average for the time. Tex does a lot of singing in the picture and I'm lukewarm on Tex's singing.

Westbound Stage 1939 More Tex and his singing. This time Tex is on a mission of vengeance. His brother was killed by the Greer Gang and Tex has them in the sights on his six-shooter. It was about average too. 

Western Wednesday 8

Four more movies from the Cowboys & Bandits 50 Movie Set. It's one of those 12 disc sets that Millcreek Entertainment puts out. Much of what they put out is in the public domain and they tend to pack a lot on a disc. Still, it's often the only place to find some these old films. The price is certainly right, usually I find these sets for under a tenner and that makes the movies under 20 cents each.

Law Of The Rio Grande 1931 Bob Custer is an outlaw who decides to go straight. He hires onto a ranch and soon has trouble with an old outlaw pal of his. There's the usual cowboy stuff but the movie isn't much more than an average oater.

Ghost Patrol 1936 It's one of those more modern Western that have airplanes, cars and scientific gadgets. A professor invents a magical ray that causes airplane engines to stall out. Crooks have kidnapped the professor and they use his machine to down planes so they can rob them of valuables. Tim McCoy goes undercover to infiltrate the gang. Not too bad either. You can watch it and see if you like it.

Cavalier Of The West 1931 Harry Carey is a Lieutenant in the cavalry. He has to defend his brother in a murder trial. It's kind of melodramatic and there's a bit of a sad ending. Not bad but not better than average.

Stormy Trails 1936 Another one of those movies where the evil villain wants a poor saps land. He uses all the trick he can to get that land. Rex Bell is the poor sap and he fights back. It was better than the rest on the disc.

It might be because it was directed by Sam Newfield. He's a B-Movie director who's got an impressive list of stuff on the IMDb. He started directing shorts in 1926 and continued working until 1964. He worked in TV in the 1950s directing episodes of Ramar Of The Jungle, Captain Gallant Of The Foreign Legion and Hawkeye And The Last Of The Mohicans. The script was by Phil Dunham. His acting career ended in 1953 with 250 credits. It's not too surprising, he started in 1913. Phil also wrote, he started writing shorts in 1917, over 30 in the next dozen years, and between 1933 and 1940 he wrote a dozen films. The only one I've seen is Secret Agent K-7. I don't remember anything about it.

Not the best bunch of films but all watchable. I'll forget them soon but so that goes with most everything.

Western Wednesday 7

I'm watching the 2nd volume of Classic Western Round-Up today. It's got two Paramount films and two Universal films that came out in the 1930, 1940 and 1950. I like the spread of films and types of Westerns.

The Texans 1938 It's got a screenplay by William Wister Haines, Bertram Millhauser and Paul Sloane, who adapted the story North of '36 by Emerson Hough. The director is James P Hogan who also directed several Ellery Queen movies and some Bulldog Drummond. His last movie was The Mad Ghoul.

It's just after the civil war and Randolph Scott is looking for work. He meets up with Constance Bennett who is planning to use her herd of cattle to help fund Robert Cummings' continuing fight. Randolph wants to take the cattle Abilene to the new rail road and use the money to help her build up her ranch. The corrupt Texas government forces them to run off with the cattle to avoid a new dollar a  head tax. The farmers and ranchers in Texas are all poor because of the war and can't pay the tax. The government leaders are grabbing land when the farmers and ranchers default on their taxes. It's a pretty good story with some gun shootin' and horse ridin'. There's a bit of humor and some romance too. I liked the characters in the supporting roles.

California 1946 Ray Milland and Barbara Stanwyck in a movie about the start of the California gold rush. It's directed by John Farrow. He was married to Maureen O'Sullivan and one of their 7 children was Mia Farrow. It's got a screenplay by Frank Butler and Theodore Strauss.

Barbara is a gambler who gets caught cheating and run out of time. Barry Fitzgerald takes her into his wagon against the objections of Ray Milland, the wagon train's guide. She leaves the wagon train with another gambler and winds up in Pharaoh City where she has a saloon. When Ray runs into her there he wins the saloon in a card game with her. The town is in the hands of Pharaoh Coffin, a man who used to be a slave trader. Now he makes money selling 100 dollar shovels to the poor saps looking for gold. Speak out in his town and you could get arrested, if you're lucky. Barbara moves into Pharaoh's hacienda. Ray talks Barry into running for Statehood against Pharaoh. Barry wins but Pharaoh has him killed. Ray and Pharaoh go head to head and you know who's going to win that fight. Ray goes back to the army to stand trail and Barbara takes over Barry's vine yard where she says she'll be waiting when he returns. It's a good quickly paced story with something going on most of the time. Reminds you to keep an eye on those business men who are doing their best to cheat you.

The Cimarron Kid 1952 Audie Murphy is Bill Doolin, an outlaw from the Dalton Gang. It's got a script by Louis Stevens, who wrote the original story with Kay Lenard, and it's Budd Boetticher's first Western film. He would go onto direct a good numbers of Westerns including the one after this one.

Bill Doolin gets let out of prison and he plans to go straight but he's framed for being involved in a train robbery by the Dalton gang. He gets tossed into jail and escapes. He joins the gang and they rob places. Bill tries to keep the killing down but it's a gang of thugs and some of them are pretty trigger happy. It ends with a vaguely happy ending instead of Bill getting gunned down like in real life or the original script. Not too bad a story but less interesting than some of the movies on the disc.

The Man From The Alamo 1953 Glenn Ford is the guy who left the Alamo. Budd Boetticher is the director again and the script writers are Steve Fisher and DD Beauchamp.

The men at the Alamo chose lots to see who's going to leave to warn their families of the arrival of Santa Anna's Army. Glenn Ford goes and finds that a gang of white men, lead by Victor Jory, have killed off the locals. All that's left is a young Mexican boy that Glenn takes with him. While he's gone the Alamo falls. People think he's a deserter and they nearly hang him. He escapes and joins up with Victor and his gang. He upsets their plan to rob a wagon train and kills Victor. A pretty good story and a well made movie.

A nice collection of Westerns, all worth seeing and watching again.

Western Wednesday 6

Here's another batch of old Westerns from the Mill Creek 50 movie set Cowboys And Bandits. I watched the 3rd disc of a dozen and it has 4 movies on it. They're all pretty much ordinary oaters, nothing much special in the lot. I do like the old posters for these movies. Three are posted on YouTube so you can watch them if you want. I've put a link in the title. As long as it's still on YouTube you can watch it.

The Last Of The Clintons 1935 Harry Carey is working for the law and he's after a gang of cattle rustlers operating out of a ranch. The man in charge of the gang is a bit more ambitious than his abilities and he comes to a sticky end that was his own fault. I laughed at a dead man. In an ironic way.

The Feud Of The Trail 1937 Tom Tyler is the good guy in this one. He takes the part of a dead villain to help out the man's father and daughter. There's the usual baddie after the family's ranch.

The Trusted Outlaw 1937 Bob Steele helps out some folks against some bad guys. There's plenty of gun shooting and horse riding. Sometimes I speed up the horses so they can get to the next part of the movie quicker.

Raiders Of Old California 1957 Country singer Faron Young plays Marshal Faron Young. He helps put a stop to a forced land grab by Jim Davis. Plenty of gun play and, like most Westerns of the time, a bit of romance. Marty Robbins has a part in the movie as does Lee Van Cleef.

Western Wednesday 5

Three films this week, two with Hoot Gibson, one with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

The Hard Hombre is a 1931 film with Hoot Gibson.It's screenplay by Jack Natteford and directed by Otto Brower.

Hoot takes the job on a ranch with a young woman, played by Lina Basquette, in charge. He doesn't wear a gun, smoke or drink. The baddies think he's the Hard Hombre and try to kill him. Lucky for Hoot they aren't very good at their jobs. There's a good bit of comedy, in Hoot being mistakes for the Hard Hombre, than the typical western plot. There's bit of romance and some ridin' but not much killin'. The movie was one of the first films to be shot at Vasquez Rocks. Lina Basquette was supposedly Hitler's favorite actress and her bio page on the IMDb is really interesting to read.

Lucky Terror is a 1936 Hoot Gibson film. It's the second feature on the same DVD as the movie above. Roger Allman wrote the script and Alan James is the director. Hoot is riding in the mountains when he gets into the middle of some fleeing bank robbers. One of the men jacks Hoot's horse but the horse spooks and takes the robber over a cliff to their deaths. Hoot finds gold in the saddle bags, buries it and takes a job with a traveling side show. Things get complicated and Hoot winds up in court. It all settles out fine and Hoot gets the gal. There were a few laughs in the movie and I had a giggle or two watching.

4 For Texas is a 1963 movie with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ursula Andress and Anita Ekberg. It's got a script by Teddi Sherman and director Robert Aldrich. The other cast includes Charles Bronson, Mike Mazurki, The Three Stooges, Arthur Godfrey, Richard Jaeckel, Ellen Corby, Jack Elam and Victor Buono. Dean and Frank meet up defending a stage coach from robber Charles Bronson and then Dean robs Frank of $100,000. Turns out Franks not much short of being a robber as he uses his sheriff's office for extorting the local business men. Later they're rivals in opening up a waterfront casino in Galveston. Ursula and Anita are the romantic action for Dean and Frank. It was alright but it's very much a 60s comedy before it's a western. Dean's Rio Bravo is a much better western.

Western Wednesday 4

I'm getting back to watching a batch of Western movies today. I found this 4 pack of Universal Westerns in the used DVD section of a local shop this morning. There are 2 movies per disc and the quality is pretty good. There seems to be a number of these Universal 4 movie collections on Amazon, most in the 5 buck price range. Many of the films had single releases. I just put several 4 pack film sets, including one with Jimmy Stewart, on my wish list to order soon. I got this set locally and it's in fine shape. With the 20% sale that was going on at the Electric Fetus this set was just over 3 bucks.

Albuquerque is a 1948 Randolph Scott movie. He's traveling by stagecoach when it's held up by some baddies and a woman, played by Catherine Craig, is robbed of $10,000. Randolph is the nephew of the town's rich guy and when he finds out that his Uncle is a crook he goes off and joins up with Catherine who was robbed and her brother. The rich Uncle, a typically terrible greedy prick, uses all sorts of dirty tricks and henchmen to try to put them out of business. After Randolph foils one of his tricks Uncle blows up a mine and frames his nephew for it. Nothing but money and power in his life. Randolph and Catherine get some romance going and that's tested when she thinks Randolph was guilty but that's all settled by end of the movie. Gaby Hayes plays Randolph's new friend and comic relief. Lon Chaney Jr plays the rich Uncle's main henchman. It's a typical type of story but well told and well acted.

Whispering Smith is a 1949 Alan Ladd movie. Alan is a railroad detective called Luke Smith. His nickname is Whispering, named after his low voice when he gets the drop on a fellow. He's chasing the Barton Brothers and they lead him to a town where is old friend Murray, played by Robert Preston, and his wife Marion, played by Brenda Marshall live. Marion and Whispering Smith had something in the past. Murray is a bit crooked and he's going to have to pay for that before the movie. Even more crooked is his neighbor rancher played by Donald Crisp. He'll die from a gut shot and I cheered. It's a pretty good story and  I liked the characters. William Demarest, Donald Crisp and Frank Faylen are in the cast.

The movie is based on a novel by Frank H Spearman and it was filmed as a silent movie in 1906 and 1926. It was Alan Ladd's first color movie and first Western. There was a Whispering Smith TV show with Audie Murphy based on the book and movie. The big back lot town and railroad station set for the movie would be later used for other western TV shows including Bonanza.

The Duel Of Silver Creek is a 1952 Audie Murphy film. The Wikipedia says it was the first time that Audie played a guy who was good through out the movie.  This movie is directed by Don Siegel and written by Gerald Drayson Adams and Joseph Hoffman. Don was the uncredited director of the montage in Casablanca. He would go on directing for 40 more years and create some entertaining movies including The Killers 1964 and Dirty Harry 1971.

Audie and his father have a gold mine. Claim jumpers kill the father while Audie is in town. Audie gets deputized by a marshal who wants to get the claim jumpers. He goes after the claim jumpers and you can imagine what happens to them. Faith Domergue plays a really bad woman and Susan Cabot plays a much nicer woman. Stephen McNally plays the marshal, Gerald Mohr plays one of the baddies and Lee Marvin play a gambler. It's a pretty good story and I enjoyed it. I'm not much of an Audie Murphy fan but he's OK here.

War Arrow is a 1953 Jeff Chandler movie. Jeff is Major Howell Brady and he's sent to Indian Territory to help the army fight rampaging Kiowas. He wants to recruit the peaceful, relocated Seminoles who live near the fort to fight the Kiowas. Maureen O'Hara, John McIntire, Suzan Ball, Charles Drake, Dennis Weaver, Jay Silverheels and Noah Beery Jr are in the cast. Jeff succeeds in getting the Seminoles to help by promising money and land. Of course the local fort commander is a knob and that complicates the story. Jeff and Maureen have a bit of romance. It gets complicated when her dead husband turns out to be alive and a bit of a scum sucker. It will end happily with his death. Not a bad story but not quite up to the others in the set. I still enjoyed it but I have to agree with Maureen regarding Jeff. He's just not that good an actor. I never found him to have much screen presence.

A nice group of films that I was glad to watch and will want to watch again sometime in the future.

Western Wednesday 3

I'm seeing a bit better quality of Western today. Recently I had picked up Volume 2 of Classic Western Round-Up used at a local shop. I found Volume 1 at Amazon for only $4.49. I ordered it and it came Sunday. I watched it through the day today. Both the Classic Western Round-Up sets have 4 movies. Each set has one movie from the 1930s, one from the 1940s, and two from the 1950s. The 1930s movie is in Black & White and the rest are all color. The movies are longer than the public domain movies on the Mill Creek 50 Movie Pack that I'd been watching for the first 2 blog posts of Western Wednesday. They're usually about an hour. In this set 2 films are just over 80 minutes and the other 2 are over 90 minutes. Most of the public domain films I had been watching are in pretty sad shape. They're watchable but grainy and noisy. These Universal movies are so much better in all ways, picture and sound quality, bigger budgets and stars, great locations.

The Texas Rangers is a 1936 film from director King Vidor. It's based on a story by Walter Prescott Webb. Vidor wrote his version with Elizabeth Hill and Louis Stevens turned that into a screenplay. Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie are a couple of stage robbers who join the Texas Rangers when things get too hot for them. They plan to use the info on gold shipments and feed it to their pal Lloyd Nolan. He'll do the robbing and give them a split. Slowly Fred and Jack go straight from being in the Rangers and that causes a rift with Lloyd. There's a bit of a romance between Fred and Jean Parker but that takes a long time to develop. It's a good solid western and better than most.

Canyon Passage is a 1946 film directed by Jacques Tourneur of Cat People fame. It's based on a novel that Ernest Haycox wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. Ernest Pascal wrote the screenplay. Dana Andrews plays an Oregon businessman who has a store and runs cargo wagons from town to town. He gets into one bit of a pickle after another. Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, Lloyd Bridges, and Ward Bond are in the cast. Hoagy Carmiachel wrote some songs for the movie and he has a fair size role in the film. It's a rather brutal film with women and children killed by the local Indians. This was after Ward Bond had raped one of the Indian women. It's a good looking film, with interesting scenery and color. Worth seeing.

Kansas Raiders is a 1950 film about Jesse James and Quantrill's Raiders. It's written by Robert L Richards and directed by Ray Enright. Audie Murphy plays Jesse. He's got a hatred of the Yankies for killing his parents and burning their farm. Brian Donlevy plays William Quantrill and he's way too old. Quantrill was 27 when he died. He was pretty much a piece of shit and Jesse doesn't care much for the man's ways but he stays with him up to the end. Jesse and his gang would go on to be bank robbers and scum. Tony Curtis, Marguerite Chapman, Richard Arlen, Richard Long, James Best and Dewey Martin are in the cast. Good movie but not much of anyone to root for. I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch it.

The Lawless Breed is a 1953 film about John Wesley Hardin with Rock Hudson in the title role. It's got a script by Bernard Gordon and Raoul Walsh is the director. They make Hardin out to be a mixed up guy who killed those guys in self defense, honest. Julie Adams, John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian, Dennis Weaver, Lee Van Cleef and Glenn Strange are the ones I knew in the cast list. Even with that cast it's the least interesting movie in the lot. I'm not sure what they were thinking to white wash Hardin like that but there you go. Hollywood bio pics are dicks. Not really recommended.

I'll probably wind up watching the first two films again someday but I'll be less likely to watch the last two films again. What's the point.

Western Wednesday 2

I forgot last week to watch some westerns until it was too late to get started. That might happen again. I'm watching disc 2 of Cowboys & Bandits Multi Movie Pack. It's got 4 movies, 2 of which I saw in the past.

Silver Spurs is a 1943 Roy Rogers film. Roy's the foreman at a ranch. Smiley Burnette is Roy's pal and the comic relief. John Carradine is the local baddie. Jerome Cowan is Roy's boss, he just inherited a big ranch from his father. John wants to buy the ranch but Jerome can't sell it because of the stipulations in the will.

Jerome gets a mail order bride and then is murdered. Roy is framed for the killing. How's he going to get out of that. You can find out by watching the movie. Click the link in the title. I had seen it before and enjoyed it the second time through. Roy sings a song and there's plenty of gun play and some horse riding. John drives a car so you know it's a modern western.

Texas Trouble Shooters is a 1942 Crash Corrigan film. It's another adventure with the Range Busters. John 'Dusty' King and Max Terhune are the other two in the trio. Max has a ventriloquist dummy named Elmer. I'm not as big a Crash fan as I am a fan of Roy Rogers but he's alright. This movie was first broadcast on TV on June 14 1945. Wow, huh.

This time the ranch is wanted by the baddie, a lawyer called Denby played by Glenn Strange, because it's got some oil. And of course he'll get down and dirty to get what he wants. The Range Busters go into action to put a stop to his evil plans. It's pretty typical, there's a couple of songs by Dusty, and entertaining. I haven't seen more than a couple of the Range Busters films and they are about the same.

Branded Men is a 1931 comedy western with Ken Maynard and his horse Tarzan. Ken plays Rod, and his pals are Ramrod, played by Irving Bacon, and Half-A-Rod, played by Billy Bletcher. They get their horses stolen and then get jobs as the sheriff and deputies. There's the usual western activity and the baddies get theirs. Not quite as entertaining as the first two but still fun.

Drum Taps is a 1933 western with Harry Carey. He joins a gang of rustlers to investigate the rustling problem in the area. Like many of the western films of the time, there's a bit of romance but usually the guys leave at the end of the picture. This picture also features the Los Angeles Boy Scout Troop No. 107, playing Boy Scouts. Ken Maynard's brother Kermit plays one of the henchmen. It was OK but not quite as good as the first two. Like most of the western films of the time they usually run just over and hour. That's a perfect time for watching a batch of them.

 

Western Wednesday 1

When I was young the Western was King, both in the cinema and on TV. There were all sorts of western TV shows on during the 1950s and 1960s. I know I watched most of them at one time or another. By the 1970s the Western was fading and I was one of those with fading interest. Every now and again there would be an interesting, and often new, take on the Western. Unforgiven, stuff like that. The Italians made a lot of Westerns, for some reason they loved the genre, and many of them were very interesting. You might have seen Django. Some few years ago I discovered that there were plenty of Westerns on the Internet Archive and I watched a lot of the old films from the 1930s and 1940s. I enjoyed them. More recently I've picked up a stack of Western DVDs and looking for an excuse to work my way through the stack I decided to devote Wednesdays to the Western. Here's the ones I watched today. The Hoot Gibson movie was a stand alone DVD and the other four are on the first disc in the Cowboys And Bandits 50 Movie Pack. Most of these movies are available online for free. You can see a lot of Westerns at the Internet Archive and on YouTube. I'll put in a link to the movie in the title if I find one.

The Local Bad Man is a 1932 film with Hoot Gibson as a cattleman. He's a bit of a trouble maker around town and the local bankers frame him for a train robbery so they can make money on the insurance.

Of course Hoot has to work to get out of that pickle. There's all the elements of the genre, crooked businessmen, double dealin' horse ridin', train robbin', gun shootin' and a bit of humor. It's worth a look but sadly the quality of these old movies is not the best. The Alpha House Entertainment copy I have has some hiss and the picture suffers. The YouTube video is from another source and has different problems. The poor picture and sound aren't bad enough to make me give up on them.

Homesteaders Of Paradise Valley is a 1947 Red Ryder film with Allan "Rocky" Lane. His sidekick Little Beaver is played by a really young Robert Blake. It's based on the Red Ryder comic strip. Red is blamed for Paradise Valley's loss of their water rights after a dam was built. Of course he's not the bad guy but ranchers and farmers are ignorant people and easily fooled. The nice thing about a lot of these Westerns is that they are under an hour. This is 53 minutes and there isn't much wasted on anything but moving that story.

Dawn On The Great Divide is a 1942 Rough Riders film with Buck Jones. A wagon train is attacked by Indian raiders. Turns out that the Indians are white men stirring up trouble. The leader runs a gambling saloon, he doesn't want the railroad to come through and bring law and order. The Rough Riders are on the case and looking for the baddies. It's an OK film but only about average.

This was the last picture for Buck Jones. He died in the November 28 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire along with nearly 500 other people.

Raiders Of Red Gap is a 1943 movie with Bob Livingstone and Al (Fuzzy) St John. Bob is billed as The Lone Rider in this and a few other films with the same character. A gunslinger switches clothes with Fuzzy so he can disguise himself. A greedy businessman is driving the settlers off their land so he can control it all. The guys will soon put a stop to that. It was fun, the story has a bit more comedy than a lot of westerns.

 

Valley Of Terror is a 1937 film with Kermit Maynard. He gets locked up for cattle rustling that he didn't do. His pal breaks him out and they go looking for the real rustlers. A creep is trying to cheat a local gal out of her ranch. There's some rootin' and tootin' and everything works out well in the end.

That's one of the reasons I like Westerns, simple stories and happy endings. I've got a whole bunch of movies waiting for the future.