John Elliott Movies

Billy the Kid is played by Bob Steele in this PRC sagebrusher, while his "fighting pals" are Al "Fuzzy" St. John and Carleton Young. Billy and his buddies arrive in the town of Paradise, which fails to live up to its name. The villain is a local banker (Edward Peil Sr.), who of course is also the secret mastermind behind all criminal activities. Billy sizes up the situation and settles matters with a combination of fists and shootin' irons. Before emerging on screen as Billy the Kid's Fighting Pals, the film was briefly titled Billy the Kid Trails West, then Trigger Pals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Buster Crabbe is Billy Carson and Al St. John is Fuzzy Q. Jones in this formula PRC western. Riding into a wide-open town, Billy, Fuzzy and their saddle pal Jeff (Carleton Young) befriend crusading newspaper editor Dan (John Elliott). The villains have run out of methods to intimidate Dan into silence, so they resort to the old reliable ploy of kidnapping the editor's pretty daughter Betty (Joan Barclay). It must then follow that Billy, Fuzzy and Jeff all gallop to Betty's rescue. With Glenn Strange and Charles King in the cast, there's absolutely no mystery concerning the identity of the "bad guys". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tim McCoy is the Texas Marshal in this better than usual PRC western. McCoy is forced to take on a hooded vigilante group called the League of Patriots. He suspects in this case that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and he's right: The League is actually a front for a gang of gold thieves. The leader of the gang is the ineluctable Charles King, who once again ends up seriously dead after coming up against the granite-jawed hero. Music is provided by Art Davis and His Rhythm Riders, while Kay Leslie is the antiseptic heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A remake of the 1933 RKO western of the same name, Come on, Danger! stars Tim Holt in the role originally essayed by Tom Keene. Holt goes after a gang of rustlers, commandeered by an attractive young woman (Julie Haydon in the original, Frances Neal in the remake). The girl has been accused of murder, but the actual culprit is the miscreant who drove the girl into a life of crime in the first place. Leading lady Frances Neal displayed an embryonic star quality in this film, but she retired shortly afterward to marry Van Heflin. Come on Danger was a bit longer than the 1933 version, principally because of the three songs warbled by supporting actor Ray Whitley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Apparently hoping to break out of the series' formula rut, the producers of the "Range Riders" western Tumbledown Ranch in Arizona employ a clever and amusing framing device. At the beginning of the picture, the son of Range Rider John "Dusty" King (played by King) meets the son of Dusty's old pal Ray "Crash" Corrigan (played by Corrigan) in college. After the boys exchange a few reminiscences of their dads' exploits, Dusty's son is knocked out by an accidental blow on the head. When he awakens, he finds he has been transported back to the Old West, and has assumed his father's identity. Once this has been established, the plot proper gets under way, wherein Dusty, Crash and Alibi (Max Terhune) try to stem the criminal activities of the villains (Quin Ramsyey, James Craven, Jack Holmes) and to champion the cause of the heroine (Sheila Darcy). By the time the heroes finally return to the Wild Frontier, the picture is half over, forcing the screenwriters to telescope 6 reels' worth of plot and action into 25 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ken Maynard's western series for bottom-barrel Colony Pictures sputtered along with Lightning Strikes West. Former government agent Ken Morgan (Maynard) is pressed back into service when bank robber Taggart (Michael Wallon) escapes from jail. Morgan's principal nemesis is Taggart's partner Laikon (the ineluctable Charles King), who also happens to be the cruel guardian of heroine Mae (Claire Rochelle). The screenplay is credited to Martha Chapin, but it appears as though star Maynard contributed a few of his characteristically bizarre and non-sequitur adlibs along the way. Not long after Lightning Strikes West, Ken Maynard left films for a couple of years to concentrate on personal appearances. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Yet another fast-paced western featuring the "Three Mesqueteers," pulp writer William Colt McDonald's trio of sagebrush heroes, Lone Star Raiders finds Stony Brooke (Robert Livingston), Tucson Smith (Bob Steele) and Lullaby Joslin (Rufe Davis) defending elderly rancher "Granny" Phelps (Sarah Padden) from greedy neighbor Henry Martin (George Douglas). Engaging in a bit of sabotage, the latter is hoping that "Granny" will lose a potentially valuable contract to supply horses for the cavalry. Wise to Martin's evil machinations, the Mesqueteers, aided by ranch foreman Cameron (John Elliott) and his daughter Linda (June Johnson), prevent the poisoning of the water trough. But our heroes soon find themselves falsely accused of killing Cameron and are thus prevented from participating in the Big Race that may determine "Granny's" future. The old lady, however, manages to break the trio out of jail in the nick of time and Cameron's real killer, Mason henchman Dixon (John Merton), is apprehended. Stony wins the race and "Granny" is rescued from financial ruin. Helmed by George Sherman, one of the best directors in the business, Lone Star Raiders moves at a typically fast clip and is constantly entertaining despite an overabundance of stock footage from earlier, more luxurious "Three Mesqueteers" entries. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Don't be fooled by the opening credits: the "Peter Stewart" listed as director Gun Code was actually PRC workhorse Sam Newfield. This low-budget western stars Tim McCoy as federal agent Tim Hammond, who follows a gang of big-city gangsters to the Wide Open Spaces. The crooks shake down the locals by demanding exorbitant funds for "protection" money, letting it be known that serious consequences will befall those who don't pony up the dough. When the villains kidnap a young boy, they've gone too far, sealing their doom at the hands of the stalwart Tim Hammond. Typical of the PRC product of the times, Gun Code is full of technical boners and logic gaps that tended to elicit laughter from more discriminating audiences. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This video chronicles the history of America with great men such as Jefferson and Washington as well as the Revolutionary War and the writing of the Constitution. ~ Rovi

Tim McCoy is back as hard-ridin' Lighting Bill Carson in Victory Pictures' Trigger Fingers. When rustlers invade a peaceful frontier community, troubleshooter Carson is summoned to throw the rascals out. Once more indulging his penchant for disguise, our hero dresses up as a gypsy fortune-teller, complete with earring and gloriously awful mittel-European accent. Also cloaked in gypsy garb is Carson's comic assistant Magpie (Ben Corbett), whose makeup wouldn't convince a nearsighted cow. No matter: all lapses in logic are forgotten during the action-filled climax. Trigger Fingers represents one of the first film appearances by perennial B-flick heroine Joyce Bryant, who managed to survive ten years' worth of this sort of thing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The real Frank and Jesse James were murderous thugs, light years away from the Robin Hood image imposed on them by revisionist dime novelists. But in 1939, 20th Century-Fox wasn't about to build an expensive Technicolor feature around the exploits of a couple of low-lives, thus Jesse James upholds the mythos, offering us the standard whitewashed version of the James boys. According to Nunally Johnson's irresistibly entertaining screenplay, Jesse (Tyrone Power) and Frank (Henry Fonda) become train and bank robbers to avenge the death of their mother (Jane Darwell), killed at the behest of greedy railroad interests. Once he feels his work is done, Jesse settles down to a life of marital domesticity--only to be shot in the back by cowardly Bob Ford (John Carradine). Frank James is left alive at film's end, paving the way for the 1941 sequel The Return of Frank James. Director Henry King stages the action sequences in glorious outsized fashion, notably the famous bank-robbery scene in which Jesse rides his horse through a plate glass window. The scenes involving both James brothers are stolen hands-down by Henry Fonda, not so much because he was a better actor than Tyrone Power but because his character had all the best lines. Jesse James was filmed largely on location in Missouri, resulting in crowd-control nightmares for the picture's beleaguered assistant directors. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The third of eight Bob Steele Westerns produced by bargain-basement company Metropolitan, Mesquite Buckaroo was a slight improvement over its predecessor, due mainly to a couple of campfire songs penned by Johnny Lange and Lew Porter and warbled by the now forgotten Bruce Dane. The diminutive Steele plays Bob Allen of the Bar A Ranch, whose Aunt Sarah (Juanita Fletcher) bets her neighbor (Frank LaRue) that Bob will win the rodeo against the Circle B's Luke Williams (Ted Adams). Realizing they can make a fortune if the reigning champion, Bob, loses, a couple of crooks indulge in a bit of kidnapping. About to be disqualified for tardiness, Bob, who has overpowered his captors, arrives just in time to beat the competition. This lightweight, potentially amusing bit of Western frivolity was thoroughly defeated by Metropolitan Pictures' slipshod production methods and the casting of amateurs (leading lady Carolyn Curtis, especially) in key roles. As he had in Steele's previous effort, Smoky Trails (1939), Carleton Young once again ably took care of the skullduggery, this time for some reason billing himself as Gordon Roberts. Veteran slapstick comic Snub Pollard added little to the overall enjoyment of Mesquite Buckaroo. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi