Fred Parker Movies

Monogram's answer to Republic's Gene Autry, Tex Ritter was never successful in his choice of sidekicks. In Pals of the Silver Sage he had to contend with bucolic Slim Andrews, who at least was a personal friend if no bargain in the comedy department. But this time he was also saddled with one Sugar Dawn, a very resistible child actress who would reappear in The Golden Trail) (not to mention haunt Tom Keene in no less than five consecutive oaters). Ritter, Andrews and little Miss Dawn filmed Pals of the Silver Sage in picturesque Tejon Ranch near Lebec, California, but that was the really the Western's only recommendation. Orphaned Sugar Dawn is in danger of losing her ranch unless she can make the deadline for a cattle delivery. But foreman Jeff (Dawn?) (Carleton Young), who is also the girl's cousin, is in the employ of nefarious neighbor Vic Insley (Glenn Strange). Enter Tex Wright (Ritter) and his sidekick Cactus (Andrews) who concoct a scheme to trap the villains. Tex is mistaken for a rustler along the way but everything is cleared up within the allotted 52 minutes. Ritter sang Prairie Fairy Tale by Johnny Lange and Lew Porter but otherwise kept the warbling to a minimum. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This average Tex Ritter music Western provided the former radio and Broadway performer with not one but two comedy sidekicks: Horace Murphy) and Snub Pollard. According to a few dour critics, Ritter would have been much better off without. The three played Arizona Rangers who rescue a pretty stagecoach passenger, Louise Rogers (Louise Stanley), from a gang of outlaws. Learning that rustlers are terrorizing the border populace, Tex and his cohorts align themselves with Captain Mendoza (Martin Garralaga) of the Mexican Rurales. But when Doc (Murphy) and Pee Wee (Pollard) are falsely accused of stealing and thrown in jail, Tex pretends to desert the rangers. He is quickly befriended by Jeffries (Earl Dwire), the head of the rustlers, and grabs the opportunity to combat the gang from the inside. Louise Rogers, pretending to be a saloon singer, is actually a secret agent and together they bring the rustlers to justice. Ritter took time out to warble his own title-tune as well as Arizona Rangers and, with Miss Stanley, Home on the Range. Riders of the Rockies was one in a series of Ritter Westerns produced independently by Edward F. Finney for release by Grand National. In fact, the low-budget but lucrative Ritter vehicles would finance the latter company's $900,000 Something to Sing About (1937), a James Cagney musical fiasco quickly dubbed "Something to Cy About." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Between 1934 and 1936, Producer/director Bernard B. Ray ground out 19 westerns starring flinty-eyed Tom Tyler. 1936's Roamin' Wild was neither the best nor worst; if you liked Tyler, you'd like the picture. The title is an apt description of the plot, which roams from one wild fistfight or gun duel to the next, with little rhyme or reason. Tyler upholds his dignity throughout, even when the other actors muff lines and the sound quality wavers between adequate and tin-can-and-a-string. The photography is gorgeous, especially when seen in a good print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by former film editor S. Roy Luby, this above-average mystery-western starred Johnny Mack Brown as Billy Donovan, a sharpshooter turned ammunitions expert coming to the aid of Jean Haloran (Sheila Mannors aka Sheila Bromley), whose ranch is the target of the "Desert Phantom," a masked killer. During his investigation of several mysterious deaths attributed to the "phantom," Billy comes across a wide range of suspects that includes Salizar (Ted Adams) a Mexican bandit trying to blackmail Jean into marrying him; Tom Jackson (Karl Hackett), Jean's somnambulistic stepfather; and Jim Day (Hal Price), a greedy neighbor. Literally stumbling over a hidden gold mine along the way, Billy manages to unmask the killer and save the girl from the usual fate worse than death. Desert Phantom was one of the last films distributed by A.W. Hackel's low-budget Supreme Pictures. Beginning with Undercover Man (1936), the Hackel/Brown series would be handled by Republic Pictures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this western, cattlemen and sheepherders battle it out to see who really can make their home on the range. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this adventurous North-western set in the Canadian wilderness, a courageous Mountie risks it all to bring in the crooks who killed his partner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the weirdest Western from Poverty Row entrepreneur Victor Adamson, The Rawhide Terror features Art Mix (aka George Kesterson) as Al Blake, a young rancher going up against a phantom killer known only as "The Rawhide Terror." Years earlier, a family of settlers became the victims of a gang of white renegades. Two young boys survived the attack, one escaping safely, the other wandering off into the desert laughing hysterically. Fast forward ten years, and the renegades have become solid citizens in the community of Red Dog. But three of them are killed by the "Terror," whose trademark is a strip of rawhide bearing the legend "Remember ten years ago." Al's father Tom (William Desmond) disappears after confronting a brutal neighbor, Black Brent (William Barrymore), and while searching for him in the desert, Al is captured by the "Terror," who leaves him bound and gagged on a runaway wagon. The hero is rescued in the nick of time by Sheriff Tim Luke (Edmund Cobb) and Tom is found alive and well by Black Brent's young son Jimmy (Tommy Bupp). The "Terror," who has kidnapped Al's sister Betty (Frances Morris), creates an avalanche, but is tracked down by Sheriff Luke and Al. Cornered in his mountain hideout, the mystery killer proves to be the sheriff's long-lost demented brother who has been masquerading as a rancher. The maniac dies happy in the thought that he had avenged the death of his parents. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this African action-adventure film, an explorer becomes an avaricious murderer after he learns of an invaluable cache of elephant tusks. Afterward, he convinces his wealthy former fiancee to help him fund an expedition to find the cache. At the same time they are looking, the dead man's partner is also looking for the ivory. Who will get there first? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of the most overworked plots of the silent era was the one about an Eastern wastrel who toughens up on a Western ranch. The charismatic Douglas Fairbanks popularized the character in the mid 1910s, but George Duryea, the Eastern snob this time around, was no Fairbanks. Duryea hires out as a ranch hand on a dude ranch, and there is plenty of low comedy as the effeminate Easterner learns the tough ways of the West. There's a girl involved, of course (Lina Basquette) and a couple of rivals among the guests (including veteran movie star Francis X. Bushman), but this early talkie from low-rent Sono Art-World Wide was not worth anybody's while. Leading man Duryea later changed his name to Tom Keene and enjoyed a brief vogue as a "B"-western star. Later still, he became Richard Powers and played character roles. Lina Basquette married one of the Warner Bros., starred in a couple of flops, but was better known for her off-screen antics, all of which she described in salacious details in her often very funny memoirs DeMille's Godless Girl. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide