Carleton Young Movies

Thunder River Feud is the latest adventure of "The Range Busters," aka Ray "Crash" Corrigan, John "Dusty" King and Max "Alibi" Terhune. This time, the heroic trio come to the rescue of pretty rancher Maybelle (Jan Wiley), who is stuck in the middle of a deadly range war. Causing all the ruckus is villain Pembroke (Jack H. Holmes), who pits the cattlemen against the homesteaders in hopes of wiping out both factions for his own financial gain. The Range Busters quickly figure out what the bad guy is up to, and from then on in it's "Katy bar the door!" Somewhere along the line, John King gets to sing "What a Wonderful Day". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Small-but-wiry Bob Steele plays the title role in the PRC western Billy the Kid's Range War. Once again rewriting history, the script contrives to have honest Billy falsely accused of a series of killings. The actual murderers are trying to sabotage an under-construction stagecoach road. Hiring on as a stage driver, Billy not only clears his name but corrals the crooks. He also exposes the brains behind the scheme, who turns out to be a supposedly respectable peacekeeper. Ubiquitous PRC cowboy sidekick Al St. John shows up in his customary role of Fuzzy Q. Jones to offer Billy some much-needed assistance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Muggs Maloney (Leo Gorcey) is supposed to be preparing for the Golden Gloves competition but he doesn't want to train anymore in a stuffy slum building. His friend Danny (Bobby Jordan) lures him upstate to what he thinks is going to be a training camp, but instead turns out to be a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, where young men sign up to do land reclamation in exchange for support for their families -- Muggs feels cheated, but his mother can use the money and the labor is keeping him in shape, so he sticks it out, even saving the life of another boy, though his pugnacious, self-centered attitude quickly alienates most of the camp from him. When Willie (Bobby Stone), one of the few friends he has, tells Muggs that he stole $100 from the captain's office to send to his mother, Muggs decides to help him out by taking up a local fight promoter (Carleton Young) on his offer of a prize fight; he wins and tries to replace the money, but gets caught by the captain. Muggs won't squeal on Willie and is dismissed from the camp, but Danny won't let the issue go and forces Willie to confess his role in the crime. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Texas was Columbia Pictures' lighthearted (and frankly more enjoyable) follow-up to its 1940 big-budget western Arizona. William Holden and Glenn Ford, looking collectively 28 years old, play a couple of ex-Confederate soldiers who get into all sorts of trouble in a wide-open Texas town. The two split up, whereupon Ford takes a job on Joseph Crehan's ranch; by and by, he falls in love with Crehan's daughter Clare Trevor. Meanwhile, Holden has joined a gang of rustlers headed by town dentist Edgar Buchanan (in real life, Buchanan had been a practicing dentist, retaining his license well into the sixties just in case things slowed down in Hollywood). Ex-friends Ford and Holden confront each other again when Holden tries to steal the cattle that Ford is driving across the state to Abilene. Complicating matters is the fact that Holden, too, carries a torch for Trevor. Though packed with action and suspense, Texas never loses its subliminal sense of humor, a fact that can be attributed to its director, slapstick comedy veteran George Marshall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The paying customers got two Donald Barrys for the price of one in this typically well-mounted Republic Western directed with his customary vim and vigor by George Sherman. A petty criminal, The Sundown Kid (Barry number one), is persuaded by a gang of rustlers to change places with his lookalike brother, Bruce McKinnon, the town sheriff. Assuming his "sheriff's duties," the Kid, aka Jim McKinnon, gets in trouble with his girlfriend, Nita (Lupita Tovar), who jealously watches him courting Bruce's fiancée Ruth Morton (Lynn Merrick). Jim pacifies the seething Nita by telling her the truth, but when a minister turns up to marry "Bruce" and Ruth, she angrily betrays him. In the ensuing melee, Jim is mortally wounded, but manages to reconcile with his estranged brother before expiring. A fine actor in the James Cagney mold, Donald Barry (nicknamed "Red" for obvious reasons) convincingly portrayed the disparate brothers. In what was to become one of the longest partnerships in B-Western history, blond Lynn Merrick (formerly Marilyn Merrick) went on to do 15 additional Westerns opposite Barry. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

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

The second entry PRC's "Billy the Kid" series was 1940's Billy the Kid in Texas. The titular Kid is played by Bob Steele, who this time out becomes sheriff of a Texas town (despite the price on his own head). In this capacity, he is forced to do battle with any number of outlaws, one of whom turns out to be his own brother (Carleton Young). Al "Fuzzy" St. John, comic sidekick to every one of PRC's western heroes, does his usual here. Eventually, the "Billy the Kid" series would serve as a showcase for Buster Crabbe-whose sidekick, of course, was the inescapable Fuzzy St. John. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fred Harmon's popular comic strip and radio hero Red Ryder came to the screen in this above-average Republic serial directed by the team of William Witney and John English. Don Barry, until this film mainly playing villains, was cast in the title-role, a rancher organizing the local land owners in opposition to crooked banker Calvin Drake (Harry Woods) and his chief henchman Ace Hanlon (Noah Beery, Sr.). Having learned that the Santa Fe Railroad is planning to build a line through the town of Mesquite, Drake and Hanlon are attempting to buy all the surrounding land by any means possible, including murder. When Colonel Ryder (William Farnum), Red's father, is murdered by Drake's hired killers, Red teams of with his young Native American pal Little Beaver (Tommy Cook) and lovely Beth Andrews (Vivian Coe) aka Vivian Austin), the daughter of another murder victim, Sheriff Andrews (Lloyd Ingraham). With the new sheriff (Carleton Young) in the employ of Drake and Hanlon, it takes the combined efforts of Red, Little Beaver, Cherokee (Hal Taliaferro, formerly Wally Wales) and "The Duchess" (Maude Pierce Allen), Red's indomitable aunt, to bring the villains to justice in the 12th and final chapter, "Frontier Justice." According to co-director Witney, a staged fire went out of control during the filming of this serial, almost burning the soundstage to the ground. Although highly praised by reviewers and audiences alike, Don Barry, whom some observers compared favorably to James Cagney, hated the role and balked at playing it again. Consequently, when Republic inaugurated a regular series in 1944, William Elliot played Ryder. But so popular was Barry's original rendition of the role that he would henceforth be known as Don "Red" Barry. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Thanks to a practical joker, hotshot radio newscaster Steve (Kent Taylor) announces that prominent financier Pomeroy (Morgan Conway) has been convicted of murder. When it turns out that Pomeroy has been acquitted, Steve, his radio station and the newspaper that owns it are slapped with libel suits. It's up to Steve and his reporter friends Maggie (Linda Hayes) and Smiley (Richard Lane) to figure a way out of the mess. Putting their heads together, the threesome tries to solve the murder case themselves, leading to the usual surprise denoument. Fans of the Charlie Chan films will get a kick out of watching "Number One Son" Keye Luke doing a series of celebrity impersonations! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Monogram's seemingly endless series of inexpensive crime mellers continued with Convict's Code. Robert Kent plays a star football player who is framed by gamblers on a robbery charge and sentenced to prison. Serving three years behind bars, Kent is paroled in the custody of the same gambling boss (Sidney Blackmer) who engineered the frame. Unaware that his benefactor is also the guy who sent him up, Kent falls in love with the gambler's innocent sister Anne Nagel. Ten points to anyone who can figure out the relevance of the film's title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide