Brothers in the Saddle (1949) User Reviews

A Different Kind of Tim Holt western

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 22 September 2011]

If you've read my review I've considered Tim Holt's westerns at RKO to be a cut above the usual B westerns. Brothers In The Saddle is a cut above them and could easily have been done on an A budget by some major league stars.

Tim has a brother in this one played by Steve Brodie and while Tim is a straight arrow, Brodie is no good. He's a degenerate gambler and not very good at it. He borrows money from his bride to be Virginia Cox who Tim would have liked to wed on false pretenses.

One night he catches the guys who've been cheating him all along and drills one of them in a fair fight. But he's arrested for murder anyway and Tim Holt and Richard Martin do a most un-Holt thing and spring him from jail while they look for a missing witness.

In the meantime Brodie decides he likes the outlaw life and goes on a crime spree of his own. In the end Holt and Martin can't go to the well for him once again.

Two other westerns dealing with good and bad brothers come to mind, Winchester 73 and Saddle The Wind. Both had the major star power of James Stewart and Robert Taylor respectively and the class A production values that Universal and MGM could provide.

RKO was quite daring in this film as things happen to both Tim and Richard Martin's character of the happy go lucky Chito Jose Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty that never happened in any other of their films I've seen. The studio must have got a lot of angry mail from fans wanting to know why the norm was deviated from in this Tim Holt western.

But seen today Brothers In The Saddle holds up very well as Holt and Brodie give standout performances as rival siblings.

A different kind of B-Western

[CarrJL · 7/10 · 1 September 2001]

Steve Taylor, a lousy gambler, kills another player (in self defense) when he discovers he's being cheated. His brother Tim saves him from the noose and pursues the one person who can clear Steve. Pretty typical, right? Then in an odd twist, Steve can no longer wait for Tim to return, robs a stage and kills one of the men who testified against him. When Tim arrives with the witness, he discovers Steve is now a cold blooded killer. This Cain and Abel story is not particularly well-acted but deserves credit for being something other than a formula western.

Not The Usual Tim Holt B-Western

[hogwrassler · 7/10 · 14 November 2021]

I watched this movie this morning on TCM. Brothers in the Saddle (1949) is different than most Tim Holt/Richard Martin B-westerns made during this time period. It's a lot more violent for one thing. For another, Tim plays Tim Taylor, not himself, Tim Holt, as he usually did. Maybe that's because he has a selfish, brutal brother in this one and he didn't want to besmirch the Holt name.

Tim is the foreman of a ranch owned by pretty Nancy Austin (Virginia Cox). His worthless brother, Steve (Steve Brodie) is engaged to Nancy and has been bleeding her for money to cover his gambling losses. Tim covers up Steve's bad side for Nancy. But when Steve kills a crooked gambler in self defense, but is accused of murder. Nancy has to find out. Saloon girl Flora (Carol Forman) can clear Steve, but she ran off to Mexico. To save Steve from a lynch mob, Tim and Chico break him out of jail. Then Tim and Chito head for Mexico to bring Flora back. But while they are gone, Steve robs a stagecoach and murders in cold blood one of the framing gamblers. Tim and Chito bring Flora back, but learn that the stagecoach was held up and they know it had to be Steve who did it. Now Tim and Steve are headed for a final showdown. It's an unusually prolonged and violent one.

Carol Forman plays Flora. She is best known for her role as the chief villainess in the 1947 RKO serial, The Black Widow. Steve Brodie plays Steve. He was in quite a few Tim Holt/Richard Martin B-westerns. Virginia Cox is Nancy. This is her one and only film credit. It's really a mystery how she got the role and what happened to her afterward. RKO had Martha Hyer and Lois Andrews (Mrs. Steve Brodie) under contract at the time and this is the type of role that either could have handled well. Both appeared in several B-westerns. Why it was given to Virginia and why she never appeared in any other movie or TV show doesn't appear to be known. She just dropped out of sight.

Check out Brothers of the Saddle (1949) but be prepared to see a different type of B-Western from Tim and Richard.

More Dramatic Than Usual for a Matinée

[dougdoepke · 31 January 2017]

More dramatic entry than usual. Most of the action involves Tim's wayward brother Steve (Brodie) who seems caught in a vortex of crime that he either can't or won't get out of. Good thing both Brodie and Holt had feature film experience because their roles here require solid acting. And both come through in compelling fashion. Then too, Chito is Chito, often amusing but never in a clownish way.

There's plenty of flying fists, and enough broken furniture to stock a hotel. Not much hard riding, though Tim's clever mount Lightning gets him out of a tight jam—(was Lightning vying for Roy Rogers' Trigger for top Palomino). There's some fast shooting but not much—note that Tim actually aims his shot at movie's end, something matinée shootouts seldom bothered with. Note also that Tim puffs on a pipe at one point—the first time I think I've seen a matinée hero actually smoke. Anyway, some good LA-area scenery and a good story add up to a better than average Holt-Martin 60-minutes.

An "8" on the Matinée Scale.

Not a Bad Western

[nammage · 7/10 · 3 February 2017]

...not great but not too bad. A bit dark, actually. I mean, I've seen quite a few B-film Westerns and none of them were like this, especially as a serial. It does have the usual cliché devices as seen in most films of this accord but this film seemed more serious and darker in subject matter.

I wouldn't go as far as comparing it to "Cain and Abel" as one reviewer did because with that story it wasn't that Cain necessarily was born bad he was just envious over his brother. Of course when your god favors one over the other (like a parent) then that's not equality of love and the one getting less love from the "parent" will feel some form of hatred. Personally, I think the hatred in the case of Cain and Abel was misplaced. Cain should have hated Biblegod not his brother since his brother had no control over who loved or didn't love him. But that's why in this film the Taylor brothers are not the same as Cain and Abel. I say this because Cain, at one time, probably actually loved his brother where as Steve only loves himself, if that. Based on what Tim says of their childhood a couple of times in the movie, sounds to me Steve was always about Steve and he just used others to his advantage.

The funny thing is in comparing Tim to Abel would have been nonsensical because I don't think Abel would have broken any of Biblegod's laws to help protect Cain. Not because I think Abel didn't love Cain but (of course) he loved Biblegod more. So Abel wouldn't have broken Biblegod's law, hid and helped Cain escape if he did the same (to someone else) as Steve did.

Of course Steve didn't get a fair shake. The judge, who seemed to be competent, passed sentence on Steve without hearing all the witnesses. Didn't even care to wait for the witness who saw everything and would verify Steve defended himself to testify because apparently the judge had other things to do than wait around for such a trivial thing. I mean, it wasn't like anyone's life was on the line...no...wait...

So Tim goes off to find the witness and does but Steve was restless so he robs a stagecoach and kills the man who helped in seeing him hang for a murder he didn't commit. And this is where the good (but not so good because he broke the law several times to help his brother escape) brother fights against the bad brother. At the end of the fight Steve believes he killed his brother but this film is part of a serial and of course he didn't. But he did mess him up a lot.

There is another showdown between the brothers at the end of the film which takes an even darker turn but I actually didn't care for the ending because Tim got shot a lot, and I thought he should have died, too but it's a serial so it just shows his arm and hand bandaged and that's it. Him and his partner ride off to the next serial.

Pretty good, overall.

Enough drama and conflict to keep you watching

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 16 April 2023]

Bad boy Steve Taylor is pulled out of a saloon by his brother Tim after Steve kills cheating poker player Hoyt Parker in self defense. Steve, who's been financing his gambling addiction with money from his fiancée, is convinced by Tim to give himself up for trial. Found guilty without crucial testimony of his innocence by saloon girl Flora Trigby, who has fled to Mexico, the two brothers make their getaway to a secret hideout, where Tim heads out to find Flora. Tim's enthusiasm for protecting his brother lessens when he returns with Flora and learns someone matching Steve's description has held up the stage and killed passenger Nash Prescott, Parker's co-partner and Steve's chief accuser at the trial.

A different kind of Tim Holt and Chito Rafferty western with Chito taking a slight backseat. It's similar to Saddle the Wind, a brother gone bad story - the bad brother here is Steve Brodie and Holt plays his brother. At first, Brodie's first killing is in self-defence, the second one not so. There's some good conflict, and a few vigorous fistfight. A neat scene where lightning the horse helps Tim. He grabs the stirrup and he pulls him out of the dust. The film ends inevitably with Brodie getting his just deserts. A nice intense shootout.

will brothers stick by each other ?

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 15 June 2022]

Tim holt plays.... cowboy tim holt, with his usual sidekick chito (richard martin). When his brother steve (brodie) gets into trouble, tim is willing to help out, until he hears that steve is up to no good. Will the brothers look out for each other no matter what? Flora (carol forman) the one witness that can save steve has run off so she doesn't have to testify. Fistfights. Horse chases. Some scenes filmed at garner ranch, near idyllwild, up in the mountains of southern cal. The film is pretty good. Your basic good versus evil, western cowboy justice. Can the truth be told before they come after steve? Directed by les selander, king of the westerns. And tv series, including lassie. Story by norm houston. They made a ton of films together. Tim holt died pretty young of cancer, at 54.

not my favorite Holt/Martin movie

[KDWms · 3/10 · 25 April 2003]

It was like watching two professional wrestlers, as brothers Tim and Steve bash on each other. Ain't that just what brothers do? C'm on; not at THIS age. And what's a Holt movie without Richard Martin? - one of more than thirty times as sidekick Chito. Initially Steve kills a fellow card-player, who draws first, as seen by Flora. But, to convict Steve, the dead man's partner coerces her to vamoose to Mexico, from where Tim and Chito return her. While he's waiting for them to bring her back, Steve robs a stagecoach, a passenger on which is the gambling partner, who Steve murders. Hearing this, Tim can no longer tolerate Steve's behavior, and the sibling rivalry goes into high gear. I should also mention the character, Nancy, from whom Steve mooches much lucre to support his gaming habit, even though he's engaged to her. She owns the ranch on which the three guys work. There are other Holt/Martin collaborations which I've enjoyed more.