The reviewer "krorie" from Van Buren, Arkansas, goes to great length to point out how historically Return of the Badmen were, listing the dates the different real life outlaws, depicted in the film, were living and when they died. While your research is to be commended, you missed the whole point of the movie. It was made for entertainment not enlightenment. Most of the westerns made by Hollywood took liberties with the facts and were presented in a fashion that audiences could accept. The Return of the Badmen, like its predecessor "Badmen Territory" used the combined villainy of real life western outlaws to add appeal to the western. While both films were made in the late Forties, and television had not yet made an effect on the movie going public, the genre was slowly being burned out. Everything possible had been tried in order to boost box office appeal. Actually, the B western was already suffering from postwar production costs, and ticket prices in those years right before television. Many families, particularly those with small children, did not have the money for a babysitter and so spent the evenings at home listening to radio. The movie westerns did their best box office at the Saturday afternoon matinées when parents dropped off their children at the theater so they could go shopping. While Randolph Scott made many westerns, these two westerns, particularly Return of the Badmen, must have made an impression on producer Mel Brooks because he uses Randolph Scott's name as an in-joke in his 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles. The townspeople are reluctant to help their new sheriff, who happens to be black, combat the outlaw hoards which is coming to their town. One person speaks up in defense of the sheriff by saying "You would help Randolph Scott" whereupon the people reverently repeat Scott's name as they take off their hats and are bathed in a heavenly light which shines from above.
Review of Return of the Bad Men
