Ted Wells Movies

The Sundown Riders was the first in a brief series of "experimental" westerns, designed for the then-burgeoning 16-millimeter home-movie and classroom market. RKO contractee Russell Wade teams with "Hopalong Cassidy" alumni Jay Kirby and Andy Clyde, portraying the "Sundown Riders". Their first mission: to thwart an outlaw gang, thereby making the west safe for progressive education. Filmed in Kodachrome color, Sundown Riders is as professional-looking as possible under the circumstances, thanks to the conviviality of the stars and the surehanded director of veteran Lambert Hillyer. Alas, the 16-millimeter market was not of sufficient size and scope in 1944 to warrant a full years' worth of "Sundown Riders" epics. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The town of Vinegaroon, TX, is the home to Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan), who calls himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos." Bean keeps a saloon, where he also conducts trials, using his office to get fat on fines and the seizure of property, and hanging most of those who get in his way, sometimes more than one a day. Cole Hardin (Gary Cooper) is a saddle-tramp brought in on a charge of stealing a horse belonging to Bean's chief stooge, Chickenfoot (Paul Hurst). Hardin's conviction by a jury made up of Bean's hangers-on (with the undertaker, played with low-key comic zeal by Charles Halton, waiting eagerly for the verdict and the hanging) seems certain, despite his contention that he bought the horse from another man, until Hardin recognizes the judge's obsession with the English actress Lily Langtry. Hardin feigns having seen, met, and known Miss Langtry intimately, and he cons the judge into delaying the death sentence until Hardin can send for a lock of the actress' hair that he supposedly has in El Paso -- that's long enough for the real horse thief (Tom Tyler) to show up and get killed.

By the time the dust settles, the judge, for all of his warped sense of justice and corrupt nature, finds himself genuinely liking Hardin as something of a kindred spirit, as bold and daring as he was in his youth, and feeling something like friendship for him. But Bean also tries to shoot Hardin when he decides to cast his lot with the homesteaders, led by Jane-Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport) and her father, Caliphet (Fred Stone), who have been fighting for survival against Bean and his cattle-rancher allies every step of the way. Hardin tries to appeal to the better nature within the judge, and also saves him from an attempted lynching, but when that fails, and a corn crop is burned and Mr. Mathews killed, he sees no choice but to take action. He gets an arrest warrant sworn out and is deputized by the county sheriff. Taking Bean in his saloon or anywhere in his town (renamed Langtry by the judge, in honor of the actress) is impossible, but then it's announced that Lily Langtry will be appearing in Texas, a long day's ride away from Bean's stronghold. The judge, dressed in his full Civil War regalia and with his men in tow, rides to see the performance while Hardin gets ready to try and arrest him. The kind of climactic shoot-out that follows has been done to death in the decades since, but it was something new and revelatory in a Western in 1940, and still plays beautifully on a dramatic level, capturing in full the complexity of the relationship between these two antagonists. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Independent producer Jack Irwin went to town with this early sound western, which came complete with two (badly dubbed) songs -- "Just a Song at Twilight" and "My Mother's Prayer," as well as a motley group of former silent screen personalities that included veteran villain Tom Santschi, former Universal cowboy Ted Wells, Reed Howes (the erstwhile "Arrow Collar Man"), comedians Billy Franey and Tom Murray, and, presumably to keep the costs down even further, Mrs. Ted Wells. All this "talent" amounted to very little in a trite triangle melodrama about a carnival pitchman who loses his wife to an even slicker operator. The story is set on a wagon train west, but this was no epic -- to put it mildly -- but merely a way for the producer to squeeze the last drop of box-office potential from actors who still enjoyed some support in rural theaters. The film was eventually dumped on an unsuspecting public by the dubious Weiss Bros. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Universal Western star Ted Wells played a Chicago millionaire working incognito as a cowhand in this average silent Western comedy. Wells rescues John Pearson (Byron Douglas) and his daughter Helen (Duane Thompson) from a gang of kidnappers. Helen's foppish fiancée, Clyde Montmorency Wilpenny (Leo White), invites the cowboy to a party at his lodge hoping to show him up as an uncouth hillbilly. Wells, of course, not only arrives in faultless evening dress but manages to foil a robbery along the way. If nothing else, Born to the Saddle featured a rare Western appearance by British music-hall veteran Leo White, known for his many roles as well-dressed French anarchists during Charles Chaplin's Essanay and Mutual periods. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

In one of his final silent Westerns for Universal, also-ran cowboy star Ted Wells played Ted Wayne, a smiling daredevil cowboy rescuing lovely Mabel Johnson (Derelys Perdue) and her prospector father (Clark Comstock) from a raging bull. Despite Ted's warnings, old man Johnson buys a supposedly worthless mine from unscrupulous Hank Sims (Al Ferguson). Naturally, the mine proves to contain a hidden ore and suddenly Ted is forced to protect the new owner from the old. Assembly-line filmmaking typical of Universal in the 1920s, The Smiling Terror was directed by one of studio owner Carl Laemmle's many relatives, Joseph Levigard. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Directed by a very young William Wyler, this fanciful Ted Wells Western from the assembly-lines at Universal reads like a Hoot Gibson reject. Wells plays Jack Duncan, a ranch hand planning to give his new, female employer Betty Barton (Charlotte Stevens), a welcoming reception she won't soon forget. Arriving from the East with her aunt (Julia Griffith), the girl is delighted to be greeted with a mock Indian attack arranged by Jack and ranch foreman Lon Seeright (William J. Dyer). Jack plans to give Betty yet another chance to experience the wild and woolly West by staging a "kidnapping" during a masked ball. Unfortunately, crooked gambler Lem Dawson (William A. Steele) gets in the way by abducting the pretty girl for real. Wyler, a distant relative of Universal's benign founder Carl Laemmle, began his long, celebrated directorial career helming B-Westerns starring contract cowboys such as Wells and Fred Humes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Filmed in some small Southern California hamlet, this extremely low-budget silent Western should have been called "Across the San Fernando Valley" instead of Across the Plains. Handsome Pawnee Bill, Jr. (aka Ted Wells) starred as Jim Blake, an inveterate gambler and rabble-rouser who determines to reform after falling in love with Helen Williams (Ione Reed), the new waitress in White Sage. But Jim is soon forced to kill crooked Joe Stewart (Jack Richardson) in self-defense and Helen gives him the cold shoulder. Joe's equally crooked pal, Walla Walla Slim (Boris Bullock) demands satisfaction and Jim is forced to flee. Along the way, he encounters Helen's mortally wounded sister and baby niece, the victims of a stage hold-up committed by Walla Walla's henchmen. Jim promises the dying woman to bring the baby to Helen, but Walla Walla Slim, who wants Helen for himself, rudely interrupts the touching reunion. Happily, the posse arrives in the nick of time and Jim and Helen can embrace for a happy ending -- the dead sister in the desert apparently already forgotten. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A confusing Universal silent Western, this film starred one of the studio's lesser cowboy heroes, Ted Wells, as a U.S. Marshal falsely accused of being a notorious outlaw. The real bandit, known only as The Hawk (and weren't they all?), is actual a tough hombre masquerading as rancher Steve Banning (Henry Hebert). About to be unmasked, the desperado kidnaps Jane Brooks (Peggy O'Day), a pretty detective disguised as a bespectacled professor, but Wells and his men manage to rescue the girl before she suffers the ubiquitous fate worse than death. The film's editor, Ben Pivar, presumably remembered the name "Steve Banning" when he later produced The Mummy's Hand (1940), whose hero (played by Dick Foran) sported the same name. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Straight Shootin' is a rubber stamp Universal western vehicle for second-string cowboy hero Ted Wells. The villains kidnap a grizzled old prospector, threatening to starve him to death unless he reveals the whereabouts of his gold mine. The old man's far-from-loyal partner locates the mine on behalf of the crooks, hoping to get a piece of the action himself. Crosses and double-crosses abound until Wells shows up to settle matters. Were it not for the fact that future Oscar-winner William Wyler was the director, Straight Shootin' would be completely forgotten today. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

German-born William Wyler began his long, eventful directorial career helming Fred Gilman Western 2-reelers at Universal. Graduating to feature Westerns, Wyler directed both Fred Humes and Ted Wells. Desert Dust was the second of three Wells Westerns for Wyler, a breezy oater about a reform-school kid who must prove his real worth in order to win the heart a state senator's lovely daughter (Lotus Thompson). Wyler considered it a move upwards when he left the Wells unit in favor of Fred Humes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi