http://www.ratinghq.comRatinghq Category Comments Feed for WesternRatingHQ (http://www.ratinghq.com)enA sequel to West of Dodge City (1947), this below-average Charles Starrett oater reveals that rather than drowning, nefarious Henry Hardison (Fred F. Sears) is still very much alive and engaged in blackmailing his brother, Judge Anthony Dillon (Luther Crockett). Enter the Durango Kid, alias Steve Ramsey (Starrett), who is in Bonanza Town looking for $30,000 stolen from a bank in Dodge City. Also present, needless to say, is bumbling Smiley Burnette, who once again perform a few of his own compositions.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-417/bonanza-town.html2008-05-19 00:32:42A murdered entomologist, an inscrutable Asian, and a sinister cowboy with rape on his mind are but a few of the many strange characters inhabiting this unusually well-made, Bob Steele Western. Steele plays Larry O'Day, who, along with sidekick Lucky Smith (Don Barclay), comes to the rescue of Barbara Hartnell (Harley Wood), whose entomologist uncle (Frank Ball) has been found murdered at his laboratory near the border to Mexico. If the murder wasn't enough, poor Barbara is in trouble with a strange neighbor, Obed Young (Karl Hackett), who raves about an ancient curse threatening her hacienda. After a mysterious intruder attempts to strangle Lucky, Larry catches German scientist Dr. von Kurtz (John Peters) stealing specimens from the dead entomologist's lab. Barbara, meanwhile, is arrested for the murder by the sheriff (Horace Murphy) but is freed by Jim Barton (Perry Murdock). The latter, a forbidding-looking cowboy, arranges with Chon Lee (Miki Morita) to have Barbara smuggled across the border as a "picture bride," but she is rescued in the nick of time by Larry, who now has proof of who killed Professor Hartnell.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-418/border-phantom.html2008-05-19 00:35:14The third of western hero James Warren's trio of RKO Radio vehicles, Code of the West was like its predecessors based on a story by Zane Grey. Warren plays Bob Wade, a settler on the Arizona Strip, circa 1880. Representing his fellow settlers, Wade stands up to gambling boss Carter (Raymond Burr), who knows that the railroad intends to extend through Arizona and plans to drive the homesteaders out of the territory. Likewise defying the crooked Carter is Wade's Mexican-Irish sidekick, Chito Rafferty (John Laurentz). Code of the West was previously filmed in 1925 and 1934 (the latter version, titled Home on the Range, starred Randolph Scott).http://www.ratinghq.com/5-419/code-of-the-west.html2008-05-19 00:37:32The Rough Riders--Buck Jones, Raymond Hatton and Rex Bell--endeavor to provide a wagon train safe passage through Indian country. With Jones heading the caravan and Bell and Hatton working undercover, the threesome discover that the "savages" planning to attack the settlers are actually renegade whites. The criminals' target is the shipment of railroad supplies being carried in one of the wagons. Normally, the third "Rough Rider" would have been played by Colonel Tim McCoy, but when McCoy was called to active duty in World War II, he was hastily replaced by old-time western star Rex Bell. Dawn on the Great Divide was the last film for Buck Jones, who was killed in the infamous Coconut Grove fire shortly before the film was released.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-420/dawn-on-the-great-divide.html2008-05-19 00:40:03This trite, low-budget western stars Victor Mature as Ben Lassiter, a former Confederate soldier who is traveling to the Western U.S. with his daughter Abbey (Reba Waters) just after the Civil War. Their journey is interrupted by a group of Union soldiers on patrol and the recent war casts its shadow over this encounter. Beth Drury (Elaine Stewart) is riding along with the group of Union soldiers and soon she and Lassiter become romantically entangled. Throw in her rabid, anti-Confederate sister and a few hostile Native Americans, and the story is complete with the usual characters and antagonisms.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-421/escort-west.html2008-05-19 00:42:29Directly after his successful screen teaming with Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Gary Cooper returned to Paramount's "Zane Grey" western series with Fighting Caravans. Cooper is cast as Clint Belmet, a hell-raisin' frontiersman facing a misdemeanor jail term. To avoid arrest, Clint talks French-born Felice (Lily Damita) into posing as his wife. Having successfully eluded the Law, Clint joins a wagon train heading to California, with Felice in tow. He callously tells her that he expects to exercise his "husbandly" prerogative in bed, but changes his tune when he genuinely falls in love with the girl. Eventually, Clint assumes some responsibility for the first time in his life by becoming the wagon train's sole trail guide, rescuing the other passengers from the villainous machinations of gun-runner Lee Murdock (Fred Kohler). Several stock shots and outtakes from Fighting Caravans (retitled Blazing Arrows for television) later showed up in another Zane Grey series entry, Wagon Wheels (1934).http://www.ratinghq.com/5-422/fighting-caravans.html2008-05-19 11:27:40Five convicted outlaws, sentenced to hang, are recruited by a Confederate Army officer on what could easily be a suicide mission -- they're each given a full pardon in exchange for a quick ride through hostile Indian territory to Dawn Springs, Kansas, where their job is to stop a stagecoach coming in from California. The coach is carrying Stephen Jethro, the head of intelligence for the Confederacy in California, who has sold out to the Union, and $30,000 in gold that Jethro was to use for espionage work on behalf of the south -- their job is to bring Jethro in alive if possible, but to stop him from reaching Union territory, and to bring the gold back to the Confederacy. But the temptation of that gold weighs on all of these men -- Hale Clinton (Touch Connors) and Govern Sturgess (John Lund) seem destined to fight it out to the death -- and the presence of Dorothy Malone at the Dawn Springs relief station doesn't help matters. Before it's over, there will be multiple double-crosses, one important partial redemption, and an ever growing list of casualties.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-423/five-guns-west.html2008-05-19 11:29:31The "Rough Riders"-Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton-are back in the saddle in Forbidden Trails. As was customary, the stars play three wildly diverse types who are apparently strangers to one another when the film begins. In this instance, Buck Roberts (Jones) is a dude gambler, Tim McCall (McCoy) is head driver for a stagecoach line, and Sandy Hopkins (Hatton) is a desert rat who's apparently in cahoots with a pair of escaped outlaws. By Reel Four, however, it is obvious that Buck, Tim and Sandy are secretly working together to thwart the villains. In the film's most exciting scene, Buck is trapped in a burning shack while a contingent of well-armed bandits block his escape. Future "Three Stooges" heroine Christine McIntyre is the leading lady on this occasion.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-424/forbidden-trails.html2008-05-19 11:31:15Frontier Scout was one of a handful of western vehicles for opera star George Houston, who adapted surprisingly well to his sagebrush surrounding. Singing nary a note during the film's 60 minutes, Houston is cast as Wild Bill Hickok, flowing hair and all. After nearly single-handedly winning the Civil War, Hickok takes on a gang of cattle rustlers, headed by crooked ranch foreman Bennett (Guy Chase). Our hero handles matters so well that he wins the hand of pretty Mary (Beth Marion), sister of ranch owner Steve (Dave O'Brien). Had he not decided to return to the stage, George Houston might have enjoyed a substantial film career.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-425/frontier-scout.html2008-05-19 11:32:43Opera singer-turned-cowboy hero George Houston stars in PRC's Lone Rider in Ghost Town. Houston is cast as Tom Cameron, who in the guise of the Lone Rider comes to the rescue of a group of gold prospectors. The villains are a band of big-city racketeers who've brought their strong-arm tactics to the Great Frontier, jumping the prospectors' claims and killing off all opposition. The climax takes place in a supposed ghost town which serves as the gangsters' hideout. Al "Fuzzy" St. John, PRC's house comic sidekick, is on hand for a few snickers, chuckles and guffaws.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-426/ghost-mine.html2008-05-19 11:34:32The old plot device of a western "ghost town" being used as a hideout for criminals is trotted out again in Monogram's Ghost Town Law. This time around, the heroes are The Rough Riders: namely, Buck Roberts (Buck Jones), Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton). Following their usual modus operandi, the three heroes pretend to be strangers to one another, and also pose as criminals themselves to lull the real villains into a false sense of security. The plot revolves around an old gold mine, jealously guarded by masked, well-armed desperadoes. For the sake of heroine Josie Hall (Virginia Carpenter), the Rough Riders rout the villains and return the mine to its rightful owners.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-427/ghost-town-law.html2008-05-19 11:36:03In this western, the Texas Rangers take on a shyster who is trying to bilk a family of their money after he learns that an oil company thinks their land may contain the black gold. The Rangers tell the family about the oil before the lawyer and his gang can take it from them.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-428/guns-of-the-law.html2008-05-19 11:37:28With its slight resemblance to Destry Rides Again (1939) -- probably not entirely coincidental -- this rousing Western from Republic Pictures remains a joy throughout. John Wayne plays Tom Craig, a mild-mannered druggist from Boston who opens a shop in wild and woolly Sacramento shortly before the Gold Rush. The town is "owned" by the Dawson brothers, Britt (Albert Dekker) and Joe (Dick Purcell), who poison Craig's tonic when saloon hostess Lacey Miller (Binnie Barnes) takes too much of an interest in the handsome newcomer. Town drunk Whitey (Emmett Lynn) has one drink too many, and all of Sacramento is soon in a lynching mood. The news of "gold in them thar hills" saves the druggist in the nick of time, but his business is destroyed. While everyone is heading for the gold fields, Craig prepares to leave town with snobbish debutante Ellen Sanford (Helen Parrish), whom he intends to marry. News of typhoid fever among the prospectors changes his mind, however, and the man once referred to as "a human hitchin' post instead of a two-legged man," risks his own life to save the suffering populace. The Dawson brothers, meanwhile, plan to hijack the medical supplies and sell them to the highest bidder, but when Britt Dawson learns that Lacey is helping the sick and may be stricken with the disease herself, he has a change of heart and eventually confesses to spiking Craig's medicine. Cast against type for most of the film, John Wayne fails to make his amiable druggist entirely believable but remains simply John Wayne throughout -- which is as it should be. Binnie Barnes is rowdy and fun whether leading a chorus of "California Joe" by Johnny Marvin and Fred Rose, or jealously interrupting a tête-à-tête between Wayne and 19-year-old Helen Parrish. Usually cast as glacial "other women" in Hollywood films, the British-born Barnes had actually begun her professional career touring Europe and South Africa with bucolic American headliner Tex McLeod, which was as good a preparation as any to play In Old California's saloon belle. Patsy Kelly, who shoots down her laundry with a Winchester, and Edgar Kennedy, as Wayne's tooth-ache plagued sidekick, add to the general fun.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-429/in-old-california.html2008-05-19 11:38:56The United States Air Force dropping bombs on decent, taxpaying ranchers is perhaps not your standard B-Western theme but that is exactly what happens in In Old Monterey. It's 1939 and war is breaking out in Europe. Fearing a possible invasion, the air force feels the urgent need to test its weaponry but the locals, lead by Gabby Whittaker (George "Gabby" Hayes), refuse to relocate and the government dispatches army attaché Gene Autry to contribute his special blend of musical persuasion. The patriotic populace is one thing, however, but Gene and sidekick Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) must also contend with greedy borax mining magnate Stevenson (Jonathan Hale) and his foreman Gilman (William Hall, who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are. In the end, the villains are willing to commit murder to keep the military from taking over. Gene, Smiley and a hayseed congregation calling itself The Hoosier Hot Shots perform "It Happened in Monterey", "Born to the Saddle", "Little Pardner", "My Buddy", "The Vacant Chair", "It Looks Like Rain" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" in this uneven music Western/propaganda film restored by Gene Autry Entertainment in 2001.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-430/in-old-monterey.html2008-05-19 11:40:39In 1939's Days of Jesse James, the title character was played by Don "Red" Barry, with official star Roy Rogers carrying the brunt of the plotline. Two years later, Rogers was cast as ol' Jesse himself in Republic's Jesse James at Bay. Since Jesse is herein depicted as a "good guy", whose train-robbery rampage is motivated by the chicanery of a crooked railroad executive, someone else would have to handle the film's villainy. That someone was also Roy Rogers, cast as Jesse's lookalike, a local outlaw named Clint Burns. Typical of the anachronisms festooning the script of Jesse James at Bay is the presence of not one but two female newspaper reporters, played by Gale Storm and Sally Payne.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-431/jesse-james-at-bay.html2008-05-19 11:41:55John Wayne stars in this Western as a law student seeking revenge on the ruthless land baron who killed his parents; after he is thwarted in the courts, he chooses to explore frontier justice instead.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-432/king-of-the-pecos.html2008-05-19 11:43:44The most unlikely cowboy hero of them all, whip-wielding, black-garbed "Lash" La Rue made his starring debut in this moderately entertaining B-Western from low-budget PRC. "Lash" La Rue plays the Cheyenne Kid, a prospector saving pretty shopkeeper Jane Hilton (former Fox starlet Mary Scott) from being harrassed by uncouth stage robber Lefty (Lee Roberts in a fine multi-layered performance). The latter follows Jane and her father (John Elliott) on an errand to Cheyenne's camp but is disarmed by the black-clad stranger's whip. Going slowly "loco" from being cooped up in a cabin for days with Cheyenne's uncommunicative sidekick Fuzzy (Al St. John) and the incessant ticking of a clock as sole company, Lefty is finally released by a seemingly magnanimous Cheyenne. Naturally, the henchman leads Cheyenne and Fuzzy straight to his boss, Decker (Jack O'Shea). In the climactic shootout, Cheyenne not only reveals himself to be a U.S. marshal in disguise, but that "Decker" is in reality the notorious wanted criminal "Dude" Bracken. Slightly better than its rather tawdry reputation, the La Rue Cheyenne Kid series was ostensibly launched because a jaded post-war audience liked the idea of a cowboy hero resembling Humphrey Bogart rather than Gene Autry. An equally valid reason for the series' modest success, however, was the enduring appeal of St. John's Fuzzy Q. Jones character, a hold-over from PRC's late Buster Crabbe/Billy the Kid Westerns.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-433/law-of-the-lash.html2008-05-19 11:45:56A remake of the 1927 Western, this film follows the adventures of a would-be gold miner who is mistaken for a murderer and nearly hanged. He nabs the real murderer and falls in love with the dead man's daughter. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guidehttp://www.ratinghq.com/5-434/nevada.html2008-05-19 11:47:10Paroled-to Die was one of Bob Steele's best starring westerns for producer A. W. Hackel. Wasting precious little time with plot or dialogue, the film gets down to business with a two-fisted opening action sequence. Thereafter, the thrills never let up, as hero Doug Redfern (Steele) tries to clear himself of a murder rap, orchestrated by crooked politico Harvey Meline (Karl Hackett). Offering aid and comfort to our hero are government agent Lucky Gosden (Horace Murphy) and heroine Joan Blackman (Kathleen Elliot). Originally slated for released through Hackel's own Spectrum pictures, Paroled-to Die was eventually distributed by Republic.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-435/paroled-to-die.html2008-05-19 11:48:29Cowboy star Ken Maynard goes the "Lone Ranger" route in Phantom Rancher. Upon inheriting his uncle's ranch, Ken Mitchell (Maynard) finds himself in the middle of a range war. Crooked real estate agent Collins (Ted Adams) is not averse to using strongarm methods to "persuade" the local ranchers to vacate the premises. When all else fails, hero Mitchell dons a domino mask and the new identity of "The Phantom Rancher", working outside the Law to protect the rights of his fellow ranchers and to bring Collins to justice. With Phantom Rancher, Ken Maynard brought his brief series for low-budget Colony Pictures to a close; it would be nearly two years before he'd return to moviemaking.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-436/phantom-rancher.html2008-05-19 11:49:44The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-437/riders-of-death-valley-serial-.html2008-05-19 11:51:44The creative team of producer Harry Joe Brown and star Randolph Scott turned out some of the best westerns of the 1950s, and Santa Fe is no exception. Set in the years following the Civil War, the film casts Scott as Britt Canfield, one of four ex-Confederate brothers who head West to carve out a new life. While his three siblings (Jerome Courtland, Peter Thompson and John Archer) cast their lot on the wrong side of the law, Britt accepts a job with the Santa Fe Railroad. Inevitably, Britt is obliged to bring his wayward brothers to justice, though he knows full well that the person responsible for their downfall is "untouchable" gambling boss Cole Sanders (Roy Roberts). In a well-staged climax, Britt squares accounts with the evil Sanders and his hulking henchman Crake (Jock O'Mahoney). Curiously, many TV prints of Santa Fe were processed with the soundtrack slightly out of sync with the action.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-439/santa-fe.html2008-05-19 11:55:49In this western, the residents of a town are terrorized by the presence of a mysterious ghost. The Texas Rangers investigate and discover the true culprits behind the hauntings.http://www.ratinghq.com/5-441/spook-town.html2008-05-19 12:01:29Cattle baron George Washington McLintock is living the single life on his ranch. He is estranged from his wife Katherine who left him two years before, suspecting him of adultery. McLintock hires beautiful widow Louise Warren as his cook and welcomes both her and her two children into his home. Sparks begin to fly as an unexpected turn of events results in brawls, gunfire, an Indian attack...and the return of Mrs. McLintock, who wants custody over their daughter Becky (who returns from college only a few days after her mother's arrival) and a divorce!http://www.ratinghq.com/5-805/mclintock-1963.html2008-08-06 08:15:46