6/10
"I don't know who you are Mister, but you're askin' for trouble."
4 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This is a fairly typical B Western for Eddie Dean, who often surprises with his pleasant singing voice and an unusual ability to mix it up with the bad guys when the situation calls for it. As was often the case, Eddie was backed up in this picture by sidekick Roscoe 'Soapy' Ates, along with Lee Bennett who appears in a dual role as their partner Waco Harper and a look alike who serves as a ranch hand for pretty Shirley Patterson's character, Terry Lawrence.

It really doesn't get any more complicated than that. The Lawrence spread is the target of cattle rustlers led by villain Ringo Evans (Jack O'Shea), who in turn employs a trio of henchmen, Knuckles (Kermit Maynard), Buggsy (Matty Roubert) and Two Horn (Carl Matthews). You have to give the writers some credit here for those bad guy nicknames, they were pretty colorful. Eddie engages Kermit Maynard in a brief but effective scuffle early in the picture, and had it gone longer it might have cracked my list of Best Western Movie Brawls posted elsewhere on this site.

Say, keep an eye on that scene when Eddie dives off the boulder into the pond making his getaway from the bad guys. I don't know how he managed it, but when Eddie came back up for air, he still had his cowboy hat on. How does that work? In real life I mean, as far as the story goes it just appears par for the course.

Along with the title song, Eddie teams up with The Sunshine Boys to offer up '1501 Miles of Heaven' (a reference to the size of Texas), and 'On the Sands of The Old Rio Grande'. They're all pleasant tunes and feature Dean's singing voice in fine form. Following his movie career, Dean recorded quite a few songs, mostly on lesser known recording labels, and he achieved additional financial success with tunes he penned for singers Jimmy Wakely (One Has My Name, The Other Has My Heart), and Tex Ritter (I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven). Well into his eighties, Eddie often made frequent appearances at Western film and nostalgia conventions.
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