Frank Ball Movies
- 1935
A young John Wayne is charged with building a road into the title valley in this routine Western from Monogram. The building project, however, is constantly interrupted by LeRoy Mason and his gang who wants the valley in general and its rich mines in particular free from outside interference. Wayne, who is aided in his quest by grizzled old mail carrier George Hayes (who had yet to earn his famous nickname of "Gabby"), manages not only to build the road but also capture the nasty Mason, a rival for the affections of bleach blonde postmistress Lucile Browne, and his cohort, paroled convict Buffalo Bill Jr. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, LeRoy Mason, (more)
In his second Western for Poverty Row producer A.W. Hackel, former football star Johnny Mack Brown goes in search of both his long-lost father and foster-sister. Mistakenly believing that they murdered his young son Johnny, John Wellington (William Farnum) kills three ruffians and becomes a wanted man. Young Johnny (Barry Downing), who had survived the attack, is instead raised by rich Sir George Thorne (Lloyd Ingraham). The latter's old-fashioned ideas causes him to lose both his son-in-law, Gentry Winters (Frank Ball), and young granddaughter, Gale. In his search for the missing girl, Johnny ( now Mack Brown) learns that Winters has been killed by Trent (Earl Dwire), an outlaw whose advances Gale (Beth Marion) had spurned. Aiding Johnny in his quest to capture Trent is one Rand who, it turns out, is none other than the missing John Wellington. Although initially opposed to Johnny's courting of Gale, Wellington/Rand changes his mind in due time and heroically takes a bullet meant for his son. After finishing off the murderous Trent in a final confrontation, Johnny can begin to plan a more peaceful future with Gale. According to contemporary reports, Between Men was filmed in six days at Lone Pine, CA. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Mack Brown, Beth Marion, (more)
- 1935
John Wayne goes up against a nasty vice lord in this, his second Western under the new Republic Pictures banner. Hired against his father's wishes to lead a wagon train, John Dawson (Wayne) at first battles then befriends the outlaw Kit (Al Bridge) and his gang, whom he supplies with food. The friendship comes in handy back in Frontier, OK, where Ace Holmes (Warner P. Richmond) has been terrorizing the citizenry in general and John's father, Milt (Sam Flint), in particular. When the latter is killed, John takes on the responsibility of sheriff, deputizes Kit and his men, and together they clean up the town. Filmed at Lone Pine, CA, and using plenty of stock footage from Ken Maynard's silent era The Red Raiders (1927), The New Frontier was directed by editor Carl Pierson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Muriel Evans, (more)
- 1935
Directed by his father, Robert North Bradbury, Bob Steele's third Western for independent producer A.W. Hackel remains one of the most bizarre and evocative B-Westerns of the 1930s. Written by set designer/supporting actor Perry Murdock, The Big Calibre is really a horror movie masquerading as a Western, complete with a mad, disfigured scientist who kills by employing vials of poison gas. Steele's onscreen father (Frank Brownlee) becomes the Mad Doc's first victim and the sheriff's investigation points to town chemist Otto Zenz as the killer. Before he can be arrested, Zenz escapes with Steele in hot pursuit. (Eerily, director Bradbury favored stories about sons hunting down their fathers' killers.) Along the way, the young cowboy stumbles over a mysterious and unsettling pile of dried-up bones, a stage hold-up that isn't quite what it appears to be, and a girl (Peggy Campbell) whose ranch is threatened by a greedy lawyer (Forrest Taylor). The latter's co-conspirator, the hideously deformed assayer Gadski, may or may not be the missing chemist/killer. Despite all that, Steele manages to revenge his father's death in a final, desperate struggle during which the maniacal killer is undone by his own murder weapon. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Steele, Peggy Campbell, (more)
- 1935
- NR
John Wayne's easy-going charm truly began to manifest itself in this, one of his later "Lone Star" Westerns for Monogram. Falsely accused of killing the paymaster (Henry Hall) of the Rattlesnake Gulch rodeo, John Scott (Wayne) and his girl-chasing partner Kansas Charlie (Eddy Chandler) trail the real killer, Pete (Al Ferguson), and his unwilling underling Jim (Paul Fix) to Poker City. Jim wants to go straight, but Pete blackmails him into robbing the stagecoach. John and Kansas, who are known in town as Jones and the Reverend Smith, are once again accused of the crime, but Jim helps them escape from jail. When the young bandit refuses to commit bank robbery, Pete shoots him in cold blood. The villain is caught by John and Kansas, whom Jim has cleared of all crimes on his deathbed. Besides one of Wayne's better early performances, The Desert Trail -- whose title bears no close scrutiny -- also benefitted from the presence of Frank Capra-regular Eddy Chandler, a rotund comic actor whose sparring here with Wayne is first-rate all the way. Paul Fix is equally good as the outlaw with a conscience and Mary Kornman, of Our Gang fame, is tolerable as the obligatory heroine. The Desert Trail was directed with easy assurance by the veteran Lewis D. Collins, who for some reason billed himself "Cullin Lewis." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Mary Kornman, (more)
- 1935
Cowboy star Johnny Mack Brown made eight westerns for A.W. Hackel's Supreme Pictures during the 1935-36. Courageous Avenger, like most of the Brown Supremes, was directed by Robert N. Bradbury, then concurrently working on Hackel's Bob Steele series (Bradbury was, of course, Steele's father). In this one, Brown borrows Steele's favorite plotline: searching for his father's murderer. He dukes it out with rustler Warner Richmond, then enjoys a fadeout clinch with Helen Erikson. It all transpires in an economical (in every sense of the word) 58 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1933
B-Western perennial Bob Steele made attempts at diversifying in 1933 by playing a circus acrobat in The Gallant Fool and a would-be boxer in The Fighting Champ, although, truth be told, never veering too far from the range in either. In The Fighting Champ, Steele plays Brick Loring, an itinerant cowboy who shows some promise as a prize-fighter. Crooked fight promoter Nifty Harmon (George Chesebro) attempts to bribe both Brick and his opponent Jock Malone (Charles King) to throw the match and although Brick only pretends to be interested, his backer, rancher Fred Mullins (Frank Ball), publicly accuses him of cheating. Mullins daughter Jean (Arletta Duncan), meanwhile, believes the young cowboy to be innocent and sets a trap for both Harmon and Malone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Steele, Arletta Duncan, (more)
- 1933
The Galloping Romeo is Bob Steele, a wandering cowboy who's had incredibly bad luck with women. After several romantic setbacks, Steele finally falls for a girl who he thinks is as pure as the driven snow. In actuality, the "heroine" and her father are in charge of a lucrative stage-holdup racket. As Steele rounds up the miscreants, the girl promises to go straight, but he's heard that song before. While it's fun to see Bob Steele offer what amounts to a Hoot Gibson imitation in Galloping Romeo, one can be grateful that he didn't attempt comedy too often. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Steele, Doris Hill, (more)
- 1933
In this romantic western, a daring masked outlaw steals the gold from a crooked mining company and uses the loot to pay the honest investors it cheated. When a lovely woman sees the hero unmasked, he kidnaps her to protect his identity. At first the damsel is enraged. But as she is the daughter of one of those the mining company cheated, she soon decides to help the hero with his mission. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Tyler, Adele Lacey, (more)
- 1933
Bob Steele has trouble sticking to The Ranger's Code in this western. As the sheriff, Steele must bring in a young man who's been consorting with crooks. Trouble is, the suspect is the brother of Steele's sweetheart. Fortunately, our hero is able to prove the boy's innocence by film's end, thereby saving his job and his love life. Ernie Adams, usually cast as a snivelling stool pigeon, delivers the best performance in Ranger's Code -- which, like most Bob Steele vehicles of this period, was directed by Bob's father, Robert N. Bradbury. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Steele, Doris Hill, (more)
- 1932
A wagon train sequence and a stampede of buffaloes -- both courtesy of stock footage -- remain the most interesting features of this otherwise stagy early talkie Western from low-budget entrepreneur John Freuler's Monarch Productions. Tom Tyler stars as Tennessee Matthews, a renowned buffalo hunter, who, although in love with settler Virginia Hawkins (Betty Mack), chooses the solitude of his mountains over guiding her wagon train safely through Indian country. Tennessee changes his mind when the new trail guide, O'Hara (Al Bridge), seems to be purposefully leading the train right into an Indian ambush. As it turns out, O'Hara, who is courting a reluctant Virginia, has been robbing several wagon trains with the assistance of the Indians in general and Lola (Mildred Rogers), a fiery squaw, in particular. The latter, who mistakenly believes Virginia to be encouraging O'Hara's company, has her rival kidnapped during the Indian raid, but the white girl is saved by Tennessee, who not only heads off a buffalo stampede, but arrives in the nick of time with the cavalry. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Tyler, Betty Mack, (more)
A judge investigating two Wall Street brokers accused of stock manipulations learns of a mysterious invention, a "DXL Accumulator" with which its inventor, Prof. Farrington, plans to harness solar power. The judge decides to visit the professor at his mountain hideaway. When he arrives, he finds that the professor's daughter and her boyfriend are there, along with the professor's mysterious housekeeper, her creepy son and a strange couple the daughter and her boyfriend brought along. As the judge is questioning the professor, someone turns off the lights, and when the daughter and her boyfriend rush into the room, the judge is found murdered and the professor has disappeared! Mischa Auer and Martha Mattox, the twin menaces in the "classic" horror cheapie The Monster Walks, play approximately the same roles here. The sputtering laboratory equipment and the electronic special effects were the handiwork of Kenneth Strickfaden, of Frankenstein fame. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Mulhall, Josephine Dunn, (more)
- 1932
In the last of four low-budget Westerns for the ill-named Big 4 Film Corp., Bob Custer plays Bud Bryson, a young cowboy mistaken for a cattle thief and branded. He escapes the law with the help of Slim Grant (Nelson McDowell), and both obtain jobs on a ranch belonging to John Walker (Frank Ball) and his daughter Ellen (Betty Mack). After Ellen is courted by legitimate rustler Bill Morse (Robert Walker), Walker objects to the assignation and Morris has him arrested on a trumped-up charge. Bud determines to clear both himself and Walker, but when Ellen learns that he is wanted for rustling, she rejects him. Happily, Slim proves to be an undercover agent for the cattlemen's association and together with Bud manages to trap the real rustler. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Custer, Nelson McDowell, (more)
- 1932
Based on a story in Golden West magazine by Frederick Ryter, this rather pedestrian Monogram Western starred handsome Tom Tyler as Jess Ryder, a detective for the Cattlemen's association who infiltrates a gang of rustlers. The gang is hired by a nefarious land grabber (Robert Walker) to drive the Langton family off their valuable land and their methods of destruction -- injecting the cattle with snake venom -- was the only off-beat touch in this otherwise humdrum Western effort. Tyler, whose B-Western career had begun in the late silent era, was never less than interesting to watch, but Monogram producer G.A. Durlam and veteran director J.P. McGowan offered him very little to work with here. The author of the story, Frederick Ryter, appeared as one of Walker's henchmen. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Caryl Lincoln, Jack Richardson, (more)
