Director: WALLACE W. FOX. Screenplay: Adele Buffington. Photography: Harry Neumann. Film editor: John C. Fuller. Music director: Edward J. Kay. Settings: Vin Taylor. Set continuity: Helen McCaffrey. Assistant director: Harry O. Jones. Sound recording: John Kean. Western Electric Sound System. Supervisor: Eddie Davis. Copyright 19 February 1950 by Monogram Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: 19 February 1950. U.K. release through Associated British-Pathe: 7 July 1952 (sic). No Australian theatrical release. 57 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A scheming rancher, employer of a gang of thugs, rebels against the opening of the Wyoming territory to homesteaders.
COMMENT: Johnny Mack Brown may be getting on in years but he can still ride bareback at a gallop. Clever film editing also makes him seem to stop a team of runaway horses and lasso one of the villains from the back of his horse. The fights are realistically staged too and although the climax is somewhat abruptly terminated and tame, there is probably just enough action to satisfy the fans - though many are going to find the script more than a trifle garrulous especially with such word-chewing characters as Milburn Morante and Mary Gordon on hand.
Congratulations to all involved for finding yet another method to eke out a scene long beyond its normal running time. One of the players has to read a letter and has lost her specs, so she has to pause and squint before every word as she says it aloud. This scene was extended so long that the film editor has had the mercy to interpolate a cross-cut scene in the middle of it.
The heroine Gail Davis has a negligible part, limited to six or seven words, while ham players like Morante, Gordon and Stanley Andrews are allowed to chew up the scenery for miles around. The villains are led by those old stand-bys Myron Healey and Dennis Moore; and while Dennis and Johnny have a fair dust-up, the climax with Healey is very tame indeed. John Merton is on the right side of the law for once as the honest local sheriff, a role to which he brings no distinction whatever.
Speaking of lack of distinction - the same phrase might be used about the direction and all other production credits - they are competent but completely lacking in vitality and inventiveness - but with a script like that what could you expect? Production values are no more than fair.
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