Fuzzy Knight Movies

Johnny Mack Brown from Alabama stretches his acting range to play the Man From Montana. The old "divide and conquer" western plotline is trotted out once more, as evil land usurpers pit homesteaders against cattlemen in a range war. Riding into this tense situation is Bob Dawson (Brown), who deduces that the man behind all the trouble is probably a highly respected member of the community. Dawson is absolutely right, but it takes a couple of brutal murders before the "mystery man" finally tips his hand. Nell O'Day, an expert horsewoman in her own right, plays the heroine, while Fuzzy Knight supplies an acceptable blend of comedy relief and rugged self-reliance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Johnny Mack Brown saves the day in the Universal western programmer Law of the Range. Finding himself in the middle of a family feud, Brown endeavors to unruffle the combatants' feathers for the sake of leading lady Nell O'Day. He proves that there's nothing for the families to fight over when he corrals the instigator of the feud, "outsider" Alan Bridge. Brown wields his six-shooters, Ms. O'Day displays some fancy riding and roping skills, Riley Hill (billed as Roy Harris) makes an impressively nasty screen debut, and comic relief Raymond Hatton provides...comic relief. Law of the Range is a remake of the 1935 Buck Jones vehicle The Ivory-Handled Gun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harold Bell Wright's bestselling novel The Shepherd of the Hills had been previously filmed in 1919 and 1928 before Paramount offered the first talkie version in 1941. In one of his least typical roles, John Wayne plays a young Ozark backwoodsman forsworn to kill his father, who years earlier abandoned his mother. Against this personal crisis is played the larger drama of outsiders who threaten to push Wayne's friends and family off their land. Fate plays a hand when a mysterious stranger wanders into the community. Not at all the action picture one would expect from star John Wayne and director Henry Hathaway, Shepherd of the Hills takes its own sweet time, unfolding its story in a leisurely pace befitting its slow-moving characters. The film's rich Technicolor photography adds to the restfully rustic ambience of this unusual entertainment.. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tyrone Power plays the college-grad son of jailed-embezzler Edward Arnold. Power tries to find work, only to be turned away because of his father's reputation. When he decides to use a phony name, he is still fired, because his ex-convict boss feels that Power is being unfair to his imprisoned father. If you can't win for losing in a 1940 film, you turn to crime. Power hires on as the right-hand man of personable but deadly gangster Lloyd Nolan. Arnold, who has become a model convict, is disgusted that his son has turned to crime. He even refuses to have anything to do with his son when Power lands in the slammer himself. Through the intervention of Nolan's moll Dorothy Lamour, a nightclub singer who has grown to love Power, Arnold realizes that his son is still a good guy underneath. Power proves as much by preventing a climactic jailbreak engineered by the homicidal Nolan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The once-in-a-lifetime teaming of Mae West and W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee had the potential for comic greatness: what emerged, though generally entertaining, was, in the words of critic Andrew Sarris, "more funny strange than funny ha-ha." Mae West dominates the film's first reel as Flowerbelle Lee, a self-reliant woman who is abducted by a mysterious masked bandit during a stagecoach holdup. Because she refuses to tell anyone what happened during her nocturnal rendezvous with the bandit, Flowerbelle is invited to leave her prudish hometown and move to Greasewood City. En route by train, Flowerbelle makes the acquaintance of con-artist Cuthbert J. Twillie (W.C. Fields), who carries a suitcase full of what seems to be large-denomination monetary notes. After a lively clash with marauding Indians, Flowerbelle tricks Twillie into a phony marriage; she does this so that she can arrive in Greasewood City with a modicum of respectability, and incidentally to get her hands on Twillie's bankroll. Once she discovers that Twillie's "fortune" consists of nothing but phony oil-well coupons, Flowerbelle refuses to allow Twillie into the bridal chamber (he unwittingly crawls into the marriage bed with a goat, muttering "Darling, have you changed your perfume?") Through a fluke, the cowardly Twillie is appointed sheriff of Greasewood City by town boss Joseph Calleila. The plot is put on hold for two reels while La West does a "schoolroom" routine with a class full of markedly overage students, and while Fields performs a bartender bit wherein he explains how he once knocked down the notorious Chicago Mollie. Jealous over the attentions paid to his "wife" by Calleila and honest newspaper-editor Dick Foran, Twillie decides to gain entry into his wife's boudoir by posing as the still-at-large masked bandit. His ruse is soon discovered by Flowerbelle, but the townsfolk capture Twillie as he makes his escape. They are about to lynch the hapless Twillie when Flowerbelle discovers that Calleia is the genuine masked bandit. She urges Calleia to save Twillie's life by making a surprise appearance at the lynching and by returning the money he's stolen. When all plot lines are ironed out, Flowerbelle and Twillie bid goodbye to one another. Borrowing a device utilized by ZaSu Pitts and Hugh Herbert in 1939's The Lady's From Kentucky, W.C. Fields invites Mae West to "come up and see me sometime," whereupon West appropriates Fields' tagline and calls him "My Little Chickadee." The script for this uneven comedy western was credited to Mae West and W.C. Fields, though in fact West was responsible for most of it. Fields willingly conceded this, noting that West had captured his character better than any other writer he'd ever met. Despite this seeming gallantry, it was no secret that West and Fields disliked each other intensely, a fact that had an injurious effect on their scenes together. My Little Chickadee has assumed legendary status thanks to its stars, and it certainly does deliver the laughs when necessary: still, it is hardly the best-ever vehicle for either Fields or West, two uniquely individual performers who should never have been required to duke it out for the same spotlight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Chip of the Flying U was Johnny Mack Brown's first western entry for 1940. Brown essays the title role of Chip Bennett, foreman of the Flying U ranch. Before the second reel has tumbled over the spools, Chip finds himself falsely accused of robbery and murder. The actual miscreants are in the employ of a band of foreign gunrunners, who speak in heavily Teutonic accents. Rest assured that Chip makes short work of these bush-league Storm Troopers before the sun sets in the West. Musical interludes are provided by a group calling themselves the Texas Rangers, even though they actually hailed from Kansas City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

West of Carson City remains one of the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns. The story takes place in a gold-rush community where the locals are taken to the cleaners by duplicitious Eastern gamblers. When it becomes obvious that the local constabulary has been "bought off" by the crooks, two-fisted cattleman Jim Bannister (Brown) swings into action. The film's highlight is an outsized fistic brawl between the hero and secondary villain Breed, played by loose-limbed comic stuntman Frank Mitchell. Peggy Moran, one of Universal's most overworked ingenues, provides the nominal romantic relief. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Worth seeing for its title alone was the Johnny Mack Brown western Riders of Pasco Basin. This time, Brown plays the head of a group of vigilantes (the peace-keeping variety) who take on a gang of clever villains. With the law on their side, the bad guys have been cheating the local farmers while promising to dig an irrigation ditch. Before bringing the crooks to heel, second-billed Bob Baker (who own western series was scotched by Universal the previous year) performs a brace of cowboy tunes, the most enjoyable of which is "I'm Tying Up My Bridle to the Door of Your Heart". Director Ford Beebe brings a serial-like pace to the proceedings, as was his custom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inspired no doubt by the success of Republic Pictures' singing cowboys, Universal dragged Jimmy Wakely and his Rough Riders harmony group into performing a couple of hayseed ditties in this otherwise average Johnny Mack Brown oater. Johnny plays Cal Sheridan, a pony express rider hired to replace alcoholic station agent Griff Atkins (Stanley Blystone). The latter naturally takes umbrage to being ousted and begins a reign of terror that culminates in a fake Indian raid and the murder of station agent Reese. Cal, however, isn't fooled by the "Indians" and manages to run both Atkins and his murderous henchmen to ground. In between the skullduggery, Wakely and his Rough Riders perform Johnny Bond's "Ride, Ride, Ride" and Everett Carter and Milton Rosen's "My Saddle Serenade", while comedy relief Fuzzy Knight takes care of Bond's "I Don't Milk No Cows". ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Cecil B. DeMille takes us back to the 1860s, then rebuilds the first intercontinental railroad in Union Pacific. The real-life spectacle is occasionally interrupted by the fictional adventures of railroad overseer Joel McCrea, postmistress Barbara Stanwyck (with an incredible Irish brogue), and McCrea's best pal Robert Preston. Unfortunately Preston has fallen in with Brian Donlevy, who is dedicated to destroying the Union Pacific railroad on behalf of a crooked political cartel. During an Indian attack, McCrea and Preston fight side by side to save Stanwyck, prompting Preston to turn honest. On the day in 1869 that the "Golden Spike" is to be driven at Promontory Point, Preston is killed saving McCrea from Donlevy's bullets. Union Pacific owes a great deal to John Ford's 1924 film on the same subject, The Iron Horse, even restaging one or two major action sequences from the earlier film. This DeMille spectacular was a big hit with audiences of 1939, who craved a booster shot of flag-waving now and again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fred Stone stars as the mayor of a small town, threatened by "progressive" politicians who plan to radically change the administration after the next election. Stone is vaguely aware that his opponents are crooks, and that they hope to loot the city treasury. To avoid this contingency, Stone bends the law a bit himself, "fixing" the ballots. On the brink of going to jail for vote fraud, Stone exposes the true crooks. Quick Money should not be confused with a like-vintage 20th Century Fox "B" comedy, Quick Millions ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by the veteran J.P. McGowan, Where the West Begins was the fourth of 22 Westerns -- some with music -- starring Jack Randall (aka Addison Randall), the lesser-known brother of Robert Livingston. This time around, Randall played Jack Manning, a ranch foreman, who, when not battling a greedy neighbor (Dick Alexander), warbles such tunes as "Sleep, Little Cowboy, Sleep" and "I'm in Prairie Heaven," both by Connie Lee, and "Born to the Range" by Johnny Lange and Fred Stryker. Ranch owner Lynne Reed (Luana Walters) is more interested in pursuing an acting career than paying attention to her property, which unbeknownst to her contains a large deposit of sulfur. Assisted by his sidekick, Buzz (Fuzzy Knight), Jack not only saves the ranch from the evil neighbor, but wins the love and affection of Lynne, who abandons all hope of stardom in favor of marriage. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide