Tex Palmer Movies

A typical low-budget but competently made Columbia Western, The Riding Tornado featured Tim McCoy as a famous rodeo champ who, incognito, wins a supposed killer stallion, Pal, and a purse of 500 dollars in a small town race. Having amicably lost the money in a poker game, Tim is hired by Pal's prior owner, rancher Hiram Olcott (Lafe McKee), to track down a gang of cattle rustlers headed by Hetch Engle (Wheeler Oakman). In between fighting hothead ranch foreman Dick Stark (Wallace MacDonald) for the attention of lovely Patsy Olcott (Shirley Grey), Tim manages to track down Hetch and his gang before they can do more damage. Stark, meanwhile, is heroically killed attempting to stop a stampede, leaving Tim and Patsy free to plan a future together. Vernon Dent, who later menaced the Three Stooges in countless two-reelers, played Hefty, the bartender, a role he had originated in an earlier McCoy effort, Texas Cyclone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Cowboy star Rex Bell revives a favorite plot device of silent westerner William S. Hart in Crashin' Broadway. Bell temporarily leaves the Wide Open Spaces to conduct business in New York City. He runs afoul of gangsters, who prove no match forBell. Doris Hill is the leading lady whom Bell charms during his visit to the Big Apple. Crashin' Broadway was one of Rex Bell's last starring vehicles; soon afterward, he entered politics, eventually becoming lieutenant governor of Nevada. And as a bonus, he married Hollywood's "It" girl Clara Bow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third entry in John Wayne's superior Lone Star series for producer Paul Malvern, The Lucky Texan features Wayne as Jerry Mason, a young college graduate who, along with old family friend Jake Benson (George Hayes), locates a secret gold field. Returning to town with their gold, the two friends make the mistake of trusting the local assayer (Lloyd Whitlock) and his equally crooked partner (Yakima Canutt). The villains take a shot at Jake and, believing they killed the old coot, blame young Jerry for the "murder." At his trial, Jerry is delighted to discover his "victim" among the spectators, dressed in a costume formerly used in a local presentation of Charley's Aunt. Usually playing villains in the Lone Star Westerns, George Hayes got an opportunity to practice his later popular Gabby character in this entry. The Lucky Texan also featured several fine examples of director Robert North Bradbury's famous "swish-pan" method, in which characters are brought from one place to another as the camera sweeps over the landscape in a blur. As always, Yakima Canutt doubled both Wayne, Hayes, and several of the villains. In fact, Canutt got to virtually chase himself in a gasoline-powered handcar in the film's exciting finale. In addition to Wayne, Hayes, Canutt, and Whitlock, the Malvern stock company players did their usual fine work, including Earl Dwire as an elderly sheriff, stunt man Ed Parker as the sheriff's crooked son, and Gordon de Main as the local banker. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Definitely the most expensive-looking of John Wayne's "Lone Star" westerns, The Star Packer casts "the Duke" as U.S. marshal John Travers. Hoping to flush out a mysterious outlaw chieftain known only as "The Shadow," Travers becomes sheriff of a town where several unsolved murders have occurred. Accompanied by his Indian pal Yak (Yakima Canutt), our hero explores a tunnel leading from the sheriff's office to the outlaws' cave hideout. He manages to ascertain the identity of The Shadow, but first he must rescue heroine Anita (Verna Hillie) from the villain's clutches. As much a horror melodrama as a straightforward western, The Star Packer benefits from the casting of Lone Star "regulars" George (Gabby) Hayes and Yakima Canutt in highly uncharacteristic roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on William Colt MacDonald's Law of the Forty-Fives, this ultra low-budget Beacon Western stars Guinn "Big Boy" Williams and Al St. John as Tucson Smith and Stony Martin, a couple of drifters coming to the defense of elder rancher Hayden (Lafe McKee). Like their neighbors, the rancher and his pretty daughter, Jean (Molly O'Day), have been terrorized by a gang of land grabbers. Tucson and Stony quickly become suspicious of Hayden's attorney, Gordon Rentell (Ted Adams), who seems to know a great deal about the mysterious disappearance of British businessman Sir Henry Sheffield. When the latter (Broderick O'Farrell) is found imprisoned in Rentell's basement, the truth is revealed. Having learned that there is oil in the area, Rentell and his men have been systematically buying up land from their own victims. When the sheriff (Fred Burns) arrives to take Rentell and his men to jail, Tucson reveals that he has become a vigilante after his own father had been murdered. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

An apparently lost entry in the long-running Bob Steele Western series produced by A.W. Hackel, The Rider of the Law presented the diminutive Steele as an Arizona lawman trailing the Tolliver brothers, a gang of outlaws. Steele catches up with the brothers in Apache City, where they are blackmailing the local bank president. As he has done so many times before, our hero then engages in a bit of subterfuge by pretending to be an Easterner. Thus catching the Tollivers off guard, he manages to discover their mountain hideout and there is a final shootout. Like all of Steele's early Westerns for Hackel's Supreme Pictures, The Rider of the Law was directed by his real-life father, Robert North Bradbury. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Paradise Canyon is one of the most action-packed entries in John Wayne's "Lone Star" series. On the trail of a counterfeiting gang, undercover agent John Wyatt (Wayne) joins the traveling medicine show of Doc Carter (Earl Hodgins). For a while, it looks as though Doc is the leader of the gang, but when he and his daughter, Linda (Marion Burns), are kidnapped by the real villain, Wyatt realizes he's been riding the wrong trail. The last-minute rescue is almost as thrilling as the earlier scene in which Wyatt takes a high dive off a steep cliff into a river. Ace stuntmen Reed Howes and Yakima Canutt are prominent among the supporting players. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Wayne stars in this Western as a law student seeking revenge on the ruthless land baron who killed his parents; after he is thwarted in the courts, he chooses to explore frontier justice instead. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In his second "Range Rider" music Western for poverty row newcomer Grand National, Tex Ritter played Tex Saunders, the troubadour brother of the sheriff (Forrest Taylor) of Rio Grande, Texas. When Tex and sidekick Chilo (Syd Saylor) on behalf of Laurie Hart (Eleanor Stewart) begin to look into what appears to be a gangster-style protection racket, saloon-owner Ike Travis (Warner Richmond) has the troubadour framed for killing bandit Red Dugan (James Mason). An angry populace demand an arrest and Tex is saved in the nick of time from being lynched. Outriding the posse, Tex manages the round up the racketeers, including the real killer.Headin' for the Rio Grande was filmed for around $8000 at Hollywood's Talisman studios and at the Monogram ranch near Placerita,, California. Ritter, who was under a personal contract to producer Edward Finney and not Grand National, earned a flat fee of $2000 for each of his Westerns. Reportedly, Ritter convinced Grand National to hire silent clown Snub Pollard for a small supporting role, having admired Pollard's silent slapstick comedies as a child in East Texas. Pollard would return in later films as Ritter's comic sidekick. In his first of 25 appearances opposite Ritter, veteran Bad Guy Charles King played one of the villain's henchmen. "I must have killed old Charlie King at least twenty times," Ritter would later reminisce. "Usually behind the same rock." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Produced by low-budget company Supreme Pictures (which weren't), this middling B-western was saved somewhat by its personable star, the strapping former footballer Johnny Mack Brown. Mack plays Dan Doran, the rogue of the title, who rescues a pretty missionary, Tess (Phyllis Hume), from the ubiquitous runaway team. In town, Doran not only leaves the welfare of the girl to Stella, the saloon hostess (Lois January), but admits to having earlier robbed the stage. Sent up the river for 20 years, Dan makes the acquaintance of Jim Mitchell (George Ball), a fellow inmate, and the two make their escape together. Returning to the scene of the crime, Dan joins Jim's gang of stage robbers. The town's natty-looking banker, Lige Branscomb (Alden Chase aka Stephen Chase) is observed courting Tess, who now owns the Golden Nugget coffee shop. Dan, who is in reality an undercover G-man, has Stella rescue Tess from marrying the villainous Branscomb who, of course, is the secret leader of the gang of stage robbers. Leaving Tess to her coffee shop, Dan proposes to Stella, who accepts. Although already beginning to exhibit the middle-age spread that would mar his later appearances, Johnny Mack Brown once again proves that he was a better actor than most of his B- western rivals. The same cannot be said for Phyllis Hume, who plays the missionary girl with only one expression, bewilderment, and whose only film this seems to have been. Max Davidson, an old-fashioned "Dutch-style" comic who had been in films before Charles Chaplin and almost everyone else, appears briefly and for no apparent reason in order to perform a bit of timeworn shtick as a Jewish salesman. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The third entry in a series of 22 Jack Randall Westerns, Stars Over Arizona was the last to be directed by the veteran Robert North Bradbury. Apparently losing confidence in the Randall vehicles early on, Monogram producer Maurice Conn would henceforth assign Randall lesser talents such as J.P. McGowan, Robert Hill, and Raymond K. Johnson. Randall played Jack Dawson, a government agent assigned to return the kidnapped son of Arizona's governor. The kidnapper proves to be Ace Carter (Warner Richmond), a nasty cattle rustler operating out of Tuba City, AZ, and the governor sends enforcement consisting of four former convicts who all owe Jack their lives. Although one of the convicts betrays him, Jack manages to rescue the kidnapped youngster (Sherry Tansey) and bring Carter and his gang to justice. Randall's sidekick, Grizzley, played earlier by George Cooper, was here portrayed by weatherbeaten Horace Murphy, an appealing comic character actor. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Fred Scott musical westerns were high in audience appeal, but invariably handicapped with syrupy titles like Moonlight on the Range. On this occasion, our hero is suspected of being an outlaw, but the real culprit is his look-alike half-brother (Scott plays both roles). At first hoping to wreak vengeance on his crooked sibling. Scott relents at the end, bringing brother dear in unharmed in hopes of reforming the boy. The film's highlight is a fierce gun battle between hero and villain, with director Sam Newfield doing an excellent job differentiating the two brothers. In the course of events, Fred Scott sings four songs, several of them for the benefit of leading lady Lois January. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide