Montie Montana Movies

Producer A.C. Lyles managed to do quite well for himself in the 1960s by making low-budget westerns crammed full of familiar faces whose stock in the film industry had slipped a bit. Starring in Arizona Bushwackers were such celebrities of yesteryear as Howard Keel, Yvonne De Carlo, John Ireland, Marilyn Maxwell, Scott Brady, Brian Donlevy, Barton MacLane and James Craig. Keel is cast as a Confederate POW who is pardoned when he agrees to patrol the West on behalf of the Union. Assigned to a wide-open Arizona town, he stands up to such disreputable types as a crooked sheriff (MacLane) and saloon-owner Ireland. When legal means fail, the ex-POW resorts to six-guns and fists to keep the peace. Yvonne De Carlo's part was to have been played by Betty Hutton, but the latter actress could not adapt to A.C. Lyles' "get it right on the first take" approach. Arizona Bushwackers may be cheaply made, but it is consummately acted by its strong ensemble cast and sturdily directed by Leslie Selander. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 91-minute Republic "special" stars Michael O'Shea as Matt Braddock, an aggressive Henry Kaiser-like shipbuilder operating in 1880s California Though his business innovations are brilliant, Braddock's pugnacious attitude loses him the support of the locals when he plans to build a big new shipyard in a small coastal community. Eventually he perseveres, bringing the story to a rousing conclusion. Along the way, however, there's a bit too much emphasis on the hot-and-cold romance between Braddock and the lovely Diana Kennedy (Anne Shirley). Tommy Bond, the former Butch in the "Our Gang" comedies, registers well in a sympathetic supporting role (Bond later noted that this was one of his favorite films). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gun Smoke was the second of a brace of "B"-westerns starring the now-forgotten Buck Coburn. The plot is as standard as standard can be: Rancher George Culverson (Henry Hall) and daughter Jean (Marion Shilling) are menaced by villains Sneed (Philo McCullough) and McGee (Bud Osborne). Hero Steve Branning (Coburn), riding out of nowhere, comes to the Culverson's rescue. The desperate baddies kidnap the heroine, but Steve brings her back home safe and sound after making with the fists and six-guns. Benny Corbett, vilified by many western fans as the least funniest "comedy relief" in film history, actually garners a few laughs. Like the first Buck Coburn starrer, Circle of Death, Gun Smoke was produced by actor-stuntman Montie Montana. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former footballer Reb Russell stars in this very low-budget oater as Muley Benson, a young cowpoke unfairly accused of cattle rustling. After splitting the ear of his accuser, Flash Purdue (Kenneth MacDonald), Muley leaves the area only to be summoned five years later by lovely Sally Griswold (Mary Jane Carey). The Griswolds are being terrorized by a mystery man who, it turns out, is none other than Purdue seeking vengeance for the loss of his auricle. Filmed in 1934, Border Vengeance was produced by Willis Kent, an independent operator better known as a purveyor of cheap exploitation melodramas. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide