Outlaw Trail (1944)

In the penultimate "Trail Blazers" B-Western, the often difficult Ken Maynard found himself summarily replaced by Chief Thundercloud, a somewhat original casting concept for Monogram, a stolid poverty row company that rarely took chances. Thundercloud joined veteran "Trail Blazers" Hoot Gibson and Bob Steele and yet another newcomer, Rocky Camron (aka Gene Alsace), in pursuing nasty "Honest John" Travers (Cy Kendall), a banker who rules the Johnstown area with an iron fist. "Honest John's" supremacy is threatened by the arrival of beef packing company buyer Carl Beldon (George Eldredge), there to purchase cattle from the very same ranchers Travers is trying to freeze out. When Beldon mysteriously disappears and rancher Bob Thornton is mortally wounded by renegades, U.S. Marshals Gibson, Steele and Thundercloud are assigned to investigate. With the assistance of Thornton's pretty daughter Alice (Jennifer Holt) and Sheriff Rocky Camron), the three "Trail Blazers" manage to get the goods on "Honest John," proving that the banker's henchman, Chuck Walters (Charles King), killed both Thornton and Beldon. In no less than her fifteenth B-Western, leading lady Jennifer Holt, daughter of Jack and sister of Tim, suffered the indignity of having her first name misspelled "Jenifer" in the on-screen credits. She shared the humiliation with legendary Native-American athlete Jim Thorpe, whose name read "Thorp." Monogram was just that kind of company. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi