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Reviews
Along the Navajo Trail (1945)
Roy goes unarmed
My major memory from having seen this little gem as a kid is that Roy never wore his guns. He had them packed in his gear, and even had a name for each pistol: "Annie" (for Oakley) and "Jane" (for "Calamity"). But mostly he let Gabby wear them. When Roy would leave for something dangerous, Gabby would give him one of them to stick in his belt: "Better take Jane along for company." The byplay between Roy and Dale, moving from antagonists to buddies (as they did in many of their early pictures), was also fun. Dale is the owner of a ranch where Roy, pretending to be an itinerant musician, is working undercover. When Dale fires a warning pistol shot at the place where he's camped, his response is to ask if she can think of a word that rhymes with Saskatoon. Fun stuff, in a more innocent age.
The Arizona Ranger (1948)
This was the first movie featuring a father and son playing a father and son
This movie was part of Tim Holt's post-World War II western series at RKO, and arguably one of the best. It featured his father, former silent star and later character actor Jack Holt, playing his father, a big rancher who believes in handling his own problems without the law's help. When his son (played by Tim) returns with two buddies from the Spanish-American War and helps form the Arizona Rangers instead of returning to the ranch, their conflict is inevitable -- especially when Tim falls for Nan Leslie as the abused wife of rustler Steve Brodie. Ironically, Tim must save Brodie from being lynched by Jack at one point. The movie is rich in characters: Richard Martin as Chito Rafferty, Tim's traditional sidekick in the series, becomes part of the team including Tim's two soldier buddies. Paul Hurst, a fine actor later to become Monte Hale's co-star at Republic, is Jack Holt's grumpy ranch foreman. Although this was a B-western, the script was "A" quality, and the finale when father and son reunite to fight the outlaws is always good for an audience cheer.
The Thing from Another World (1951)
An early sci-fi film that set the trend for many others
The question of who really directed this movie got settled in a conversation I had recently (summer of 1999) with its star, Kenneth Tobey, at a Charlotte, N.C., film festival: it was Howard Hawks, not Christian Nyby, despite what the credits say. Hawks came up with the "Citizen Kane"-like overlapping dialog, the ensemble cast, and everything else that made this movie good including never getting that good a look at the monster and letting your imagination work instead (F. Lee Bailey, now a prominent lawyer, ran home and locked himself in his room after seeing this movie as a child according to a biography by Les Whitten). Based on their recorded correspondence, SF writer Isaac Asimov hated this movie because some of the scientists were portrayed as not up to handling the situation, while the military did exactly the right thing, and because it diverged from the original story ("Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr.) in not having a shape-changing monster who could assume the guise of anyone. Campbell, on the other hand, found it a good movie even if it went its own way. John Carpenter's remake was more faithful to the original story, but certainly not to its ending. "The Thing" and "Destination Moon" came out close together at the start of the 1950s: the unfortunate lesson that Hollywood learned was that a "monster" science fiction movie did just as well at the box office as an expensive, scientifically-accurate SF movie, but few of the '50s successors to "The Thing" (except possibly "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") were as well executed.
The Arizona Ranger (1948)
This was the first movie featuring a father and son playing a father and son
This movie was part of Tim Holt's post-World War II western series at RKO, and arguably one of the best. It featured his father, former silent star and later character actor Jack Holt, playing his father, a big rancher who believes in handling his own problems without the law's help. When his son (played by Tim) returns with two buddies from the Spanish-American War and helps form the Arizona Rangers instead of returning to the ranch, their conflict is inevitable -- especially when Tim falls for Nan Leslie as the abused wife of rustler Steve Brodie. Ironically, Tim must save Brodie from being lynched by Jack at one point. The movie is rich in characters: Richard Martin as Chito Rafferty, Tim's traditional sidekick in the series, becomes part of the team including Tim's two soldier buddies. Paul Hurst, a fine actor later to become Monte Hale's co-star at Republic, is Jack Holt's grumpy ranch foreman. Although this was a B-western, the script was "A" quality, and the finale when father and son reunite to fight the outlaws is always good for an audience cheer.
Rodeo King and the Senorita (1951)
A feel-good story of a rodeo cowboy and a young girl who falls in love with his horse.
Frequently misidentified as a remake of the 1946 Roy Rogers movie, "My Pal, Trigger," this film has Rex Allen and his horse, Koko, joining a rodeo belonging to a young "senorita" whose father has been killed in a stunt horse jump. Only the audience knows that the father's partner (Tris Coffin) conspired with another rodeo star (Roy Barcroft, in one of his most vicious conniving henchmen roles) to arrange the "accident." The Barcroft character is jealous of Rex's stardom and causes an accident incapacitating Koko. Rex and sidekick Buddy Ebsen (future star of TV's "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Barnaby Jones") are contractually obligated to go with the show, so it falls to the young senorita and her governess (Mary Ellen Kay) to nurse Koko back to health - a process which bonds the horse and girl. When Rex gives his horse to her, Koko becomes the property of the crooked partner. The climax involves a race in which the stake is Rex winning back his horse, and trying to prove the murder conspiracy.
Sheriff of Wichita (1949)
An off-beat script centering on characterization puts this near the top of the "Rocky" Lane westerns.
A mystery element makes this one of the best of the 38 tightly-written little "Rocky" Lane B-westerns produced by Republic Pictures between 1947 and 1953. As the title lawman, Lane pursues an ex-cavalry officer (Clayton Moore, about to become TV's "Lone Ranger") who escaped from prison to an abandoned fort. The officer, convicted of helping to steal a $25,000 payroll, is trying to prove his innocence by finding his still-missing superior from whom he has gotten a cryptic letter. Similar letters bring other survivors from the ambushed patrol to the fort, as well as an outlaw gang (led by Roy Barcroft in one of his meatiest bad-guy roles) intent on finding the missing loot for themselves. Lane must not only discover who was actually behind that long-ago robbery and what happened to the missing major and the money, but also figure out how he and the small band trapped in the fort by the outlaws can escape.