Billy the Kid in Texas (1940) User Reviews

Brother in a jackpot

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 21 May 2012]

Bob Steele takes on the role of Billy The Kid in Billy The Kid In Texas. With his short frame Steele was far more like the real William Bonney than most who played him on the screen. He was quite a bit older and in fact his name isn't even Bonney in this film. He's a Clark.

Whether it was Bob Steele or Buster Crabbe later on, we never see Billy doing any of the outlaw acts that made him an outlaw legend. He and whatever sidekicks he has are always doing good deeds when we see them.

In this episode after he robs a gang who just robbed a payroll and later stands up to the same gang in a saloon, Steele is made sheriff, but later finds his brother involved in the same gang. How to bring them to justice and extricate his brother from the jackpot is the issue Steele faces.

Lots of action cover some plot deficiencies, but fans of the smoking six guns won't mind at all.

Fair to middling...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 20 October 2013]

I have no idea why Hollywood was so fascinated by a no-good jerk-face like Billy the Kid. However, despite his being a nasty villain, again and again, films were made depicting him as a hero. Buster Crabbe made about a dozen films as Billy, Bob Steele about a half a dozen and actors such as Robert Taylor and Roy Rogers also played the guy like he was pretty decent and not a dumb thug. In other words, the real Billy the Kid was nothing like the ridiculous image these films portrayed him to be.

In the previous Billy the Kid film I saw with Bob Steele ("Billy the Kid in Santa Fe"), Billy was an innocent guy who was set up by evil doers--making him look like a bandit when he really was an angel. And, much of the film consisted of Billy cleaning up a lawless town and catching the baddies. Well, this is EXACTLY the plot of "Billy the Kid in Texas"...except, of course, he's in Texas--a state the real Billy probably never visited (most of his adult life he lived in Indiana, Arizona and New Mexico). Historically speaking, it's all hogwash. But, the film is mildly enjoyable as is Fuzzy St. John's antics. Watchable but a history teacher's nightmare!

average Western, good cast

[Cristi_Ciopron · 6/10 · 29 March 2015]

This is the one with Billy as sheriff of Corral City (elected after he crops the benefits of a holdup and confronts the gang), with a funny deputy (comedy contributed by Al St. John, as 'Fuzzy'), a reliable brother, played by Carlton Young, and a generous idea for rescuing the job of an Express employee, by securing the arrival of the payroll.

It has both assets of the low budget Westerns: a good plot (most of them have nice plots, the whiners complain about story lines) and a lot of genuinely enjoyable action, plus much humorous relief, brought by Al St. John, and a very nice actress, Terry Walker (whom I had already seen in 'Invisible Ghost', in a supporting role, and wished to see more of her movies); what it lacks is a final shootout (other than the generic handling of the robbers). The leading actor looked actually like an imposing and no-nonsense gunman, whose sharp features and lucid look showed a certain dignity.

Cut Rate Steele Oater!

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 9 October 2020]

"Billy the Kid in Texas" was another of those low budget westerns from Poverty Row studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). This one has the advantage of having the veteran Bob Steele in the lead and bad guys John Merton and Charlie King in the cast. Steele who looks as much like Billy the Kid as I do still adds to the character even though it has no relationship to the real Billy the Kid.

Having said all of that, Steele arrives on his way to the dusty Texas town of Corral City in time to foil an attempted hold up by the Lazy A gang of an express shipment. The Kid keeps the loot until he can find out to whom it belongs. In town the Kid meets up with his old pal Fuzzy (Al St. John) who informs him that young Mary Barton (Terry Walker) the express agent is responsible for the loot. He also learns that his brother Gil Cooper (Carleton Young is involved with the gang.

The Kid meets up with the gang in the saloon and finds that it is headed up by Flash (John Merton) and Dave (Charles King). The Kid gets into a fight with Dave which he wins handily. Townsman Jim Morgan (Frank Larue) appoints the Kid as Sheriff unaware of hi s identity. The kid adopted the moniker of Sheriff Clark with Fuzzy as his Deputy. The gang attempts to retrieve the loot but are thwarted at every turn. Morgan learns the identity of the sheriff but learns that the Kid is on the up and up. Finally the Kid and Fuzzy in a bar room brawl capture the outlaws. The Kid's brother Cooper is made sheriff, gets the girl in time to watch The Kid and Fuzzy ride out of town.

PRC always cut costs wherever and when ever they could. Notice that they use a buckboard (driven by old timer Slim Whitaker) to carry the loot rather than a stagecoach. And where was the Lazy A Ranch. We never see it. The boys are either on the trail or in the saloon. And, if I'm not mistaken, there's no jail either. Still and all, in spite of the miniscule budget, it's a good if not better than many of the "B' westerns of the period.

Action Packed Poverty Row Western

[FightingWesterner · 8/10 · 5 August 2009]

Billy The Kid In Texas, the second of six Billy The Kid movies starring Bob Steele, is a truly action packed P.R.C. programmer that I recommend to fans of the genre.

In this Billy wasn't a murderer at all but a framed man running from the law and doing good deeds much like The Fugitive decades later. The plot has Billy and his sidekick Fuzzy teaming up with Billy's brother to stop a group of bullying stickup men from robbing coaches.

Steele plays Billy with a macho demeanor and without much emotion in contrast to the squeaky clean Roy Rodgers, Gene Autry, and Tex Ritter, probably the only anti-hero of the nineteen-forties!

There's lots of blazing six-guns and rowdy fights along with a lightning fast pace that make this more entertaining than the average poverty row production.

Hard riding, shooting and brawling

[frank4122 · 10/10 · 14 June 2020]

Steele rides head on Flash's (John Merton) Lazy A Ranch gang with a stagecoach robbery and then in town with a bar room brawl for the ages. The express local agent Mary Barton (Terry Walker) had several robberies and to make matters worse Billy the Kid may be the sheriff. Is hired hand Carleton Young also in with the gang? Wonderful movie with Bob Steele's great acting chops, legendary director Sam Newfield, Keystone Kops 'Fuzzy' St. John and the best heavy ever, Charles King.