Arizona Legion (1939) User Reviews

Who is the Chief?

[hogwrassler · 7/10 · 6 November 2021]

I just watched Arizona Legion (1939) on TCM. It's an OK B-western made by RKO. A gang of masked riders is running roughshod over Arizona and it's up to Arizona Ranger Boone Yeager to put a stop to it. Boone goes undercover as a hell-raising cowboy. He infiltrates the gang by serving on a jury that acquits one of its obviously guilty members. He finds out that the leader of the gang is an unknown character known only as The Chief. Boone loses his girl Letty as she wants no part of an outlaw for a husband. Boone must learn the identity of the Chief and bring the cavalry and the rest of the Rangers in to round up the gang. But can he do it? And win back Letty?

George O'Brien is at his best here as Boone Yeager. Watch for the exciting climax when he appears to perform a dangerous stunt himself by jumping from his horse onto a moving stagecoach. It's very well done and worth waiting for. A very young Laraine Day is his desirable fiancé Letty. Chill Wills is on hand as Whopper. And that's Glenn Strange as George Kirby.

Watching Arizona Legion (1939) is a pleasant way to spend an early Saturday morning.

Sh! It's a Secret

[boblipton · 6/10 · 15 October 2010]

George O'Brien is recruited to head a secret Service for the State of Arizona by the Governor and to woo a very young Laraine Day in this middling episode of his long-running series for RKO.

It starts out well enough with a young Chill Wills as 'Whopper' telling a tall tale, before settling into more standard B mode. It is constricted a bit by the poor print that Turner Classic Movies has available. O'Brien is good, as always and the plot has its moments of excitement, as well as some good cinematography, including some nice stunt work and fighting atop a stage coach. But the short length of the film -- just under an hour -- and its abrupt ending emphasizes its B nature. While it's fine for what it is, you'd be better off starting your addiction to the series with another of O'Brien's westerns. Try the previous year's RENEGADE RANGER or PAINTED DESERT.

good B-western

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 20 January 2024]

Army lieutenant Bob Ives (Carlyle Moore Jr.) arrives in lawless Arizona. He finds his friend Boone Yeager (George O'Brien) had turned to the dark side. Boone loses both his sweetheart Letty Meade (Laraine Day) and his best friend Ives. Ives tries to take down a baddie, but fear corrupts the trial. Unbeknownst to them, Letty's father Judge Meade has been organizing the Arizona Rangers and sent Boone undercover to find the criminal mastermind.

This is a B-western from RKO. The story has a good spin which gives it a bit of freshness. There is plenty of horse riding and gun play although nothing too tricky. There is a little bit of good stunt work on a stagecoach, but that comes at the very end. I wouldn't mind more of that type of stunt work to spice things up.

Under cover...By George!

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 29 April 2018]

"Arizona Legion" is another of the George O'Brien westerns for RKO.

Boone Yeager (O'Brien) is engaged to the Judge's daughter and seems to have everything. However he suddenly becomes wild, shooting up the town and associating with the riff raff in the saloon. His fiancé, Letty Meade (Larraine (Day) Johnson) soon becomes unsure and breaks their engagement. An old friend Lt. Bob Ives (Carlyle Moore) arrives in town after the stagecoach he was riding in was robbed by a gang headed by Whiskey Joe (Harry Cording). He is willing to identify the assailant in court.

But Boone and Judge Meade (Edward LeSaint) have a secret. You see, Boone has been working undercover trying to infiltrate the gang to learn the identities of the gang leaders. The governor has formed a group of lawmen to be known as The Arizona Rangers to bring law and order to Arizona.

Remaining undercover, Boone gains the confidence of Whiskey Joe and his bosses Saloon owner Jim Dutton (William Royle) and Kirby the express agent (Glenn Strange). He learns that there is a higher up known simply as "The Chief". Whiskey Joe is brought to trial but is acquitted with Boone and his sidekick Whopper Hatch (Chill Wills) sitting on the jury.

This puts Boone in solid with the outlaws who give him an assignment to rob a gold shipment. Along the way Boone learns the identity of the Chief and a showdown in town ensues and.................................................

This entry in the series must have had a larger than normal budget as there are many, many extras portraying cavalry soldiers, outlaw gang members and the rangers. It's full of action and plenty of gunplay.

Also in the cast are Tom Chatterton as Commissioner Teagle, Bob Kortman as Sgt. Clarke and old timer Lafe McKee as the Sheriff.

And, oh yes, George gets his girl back.

Always specify "David" when you say "Howard"!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 20 February 2018]

Director: DAVID HOWARD. Screenplay: Oliver Drake. Story: Bernard McConville. Photography: Harry J. Wild. Film editor: Frederic Knudtson. Music director: Roy Webb. RCA Sound System. Producer: Bert Gilroy.

Copyright 20 January 1939 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 20 January 1939. No recorded New York opening. Australian release: 15 June 1939. 6 reels, 58 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Bandits take over a town.

NOTES: McConville's original story was called "The Stagecoach Stops at Pinyon Gulch". Lorraine Johnson is better known as Laraine Day.

COMMENT: Director David Howard gets plenty of pace and action into this one, even though the story is pretty routine. O'Brien himself daringly stunts on the speeding stagecoach during the routing-the-heavies finale. The young Miss Day makes a most agreeable heroine. All told, a very entertaining minor league western, on a par with "The Renegade Ranger".

Arizona Legion

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 20 March 2024]

Wills Whiskey Joe , leader of the ruthless Dutton gang, is the most feared man in Arizona, robbing stagecoaches and killing anyone in his way. When the county court fails to bring him to justice, it's up to Boone Yeager and his 'Arizona Rangers', an undercover group appointed by the Governor, to rid the land of this menace....

George O' Brien plays Boone Yeager, who is cleverly introduced as a hell-raiser and a lawbreaker, but later on we realise he's a Ranger, out to corral a bunch of robbers and learn who the secret leader is. The latter part lacks the intrigue needed, the focus is on a fast-paced plot and some lively spurts of action. It's a passable enough shoot em up.

Trial by jury on a corrupt court.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 10 July 2022]

The chief in this case in this old B George O'Brien western is not native, but head of a gang of organized criminals which O'Brien has infiltrated in hopes of getting the evidence on them and find out who "the chief" is. That causes distress for his fiance, Laraine Day (pre-Dr. Kildare), daughter of judge Edward Le Saint. But what she doesn't know is that O'Brien and her father are in cahoots, and this leads to him in legal trouble due to suspicion of him being involved in a stagecoach robbery.

Typical action-packed Western with lots of chases and gun shooting (always in the air as they ride, making me wonder where these bullets land), with Carlyle Moore Jr., Chill Wills and future Frankenstein monster Glenn Strange. Not really all that exciting, with poor sound recording quite evident in the photography. The film does get more intense when the head of this gang discovers the truth about what O'Briens doing. Blessedly short but unmemorable.

Third collaboration for O'Brien & Day

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 28 September 2023]

George O'Brien appeared in a series of B westerns at RKO during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Some hold up better than others, and they all stick to a fairly routine formula. O'Brien is always on the right side of the law, he's always romancing some beautiful girl (this time played by Laraine Day, billed as Laraine Johnson), and there's always plenty of outdoor action and scenery. These elements were a soothing balm for moviegoers still dealing with lingering effects of the Great Depression who needed an hour of quick escapism.

ARIZONA LEGION upends the usual formula a bit. O'Brien is still playing a good guy, but during the film's first twenty minutes, you wouldn't exactly know that. He's first glimpsed coming into town with pal Chill Wills, rough and wild, shooting up the place. Miss Day's father is a judge, and he seems to take amusement in O'Brien's behavior, not the reaction expected from a court official. We gradually find out that O'Brien is undercover, acting like a lawless cowboy, to get close to a gang of outlaws and unmask their leader, a guy known simply as The Chief.

The judge is in on the secret with O'Brien. During a private meeting, the judge tells O'Brien he just received word from the governor of Arizona that O'Brien and some other men are to be sworn in as Rangers. They will work to bring down the outlaw gang and deliver them to justice. But before law and order can be properly restored, there are several stagecoach robberies, naturally, with O'Brien getting closer to the truth about the identity of The Chief.

Complicating matters in the relationship that O'Brien has with Day is the arrival of an Army lieutenant (Carlyle Moore, in a role that would probably have been taken by Tim Holt if this was made a year later). Because of O'Brien's wild antics, Day has decided to call off her engagement with him, not knowing his behavior is all a ruse. She then starts to get close to the lieutenant.

The lieutenant is man from these parts who had been east for awhile. He comes across a lot more polished than O'Brien. Realistically, Moore is closer in age to Day, and he actually seems better suited to her than O'Brien...but because O'Brien's the star of this picture and the main he-man, of course, Day will have to end back up in his arms before the final fadeout.