Pack Train (1953), Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride (1940), Ride Clear of Diablo (1954), On Top of Old Smoky (1953), Decision at Sundown (1957), Saginaw Trail (1953), Call of the Canyon (1942), Forbidden Trails (1941) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best B-western movies.
Storyline: The Rough Riders are called in to help save Master's stage line. Taggart has his gang robbing the stages and shooting the drivers. When Buck drives the next stage, Taggart's men rob it and then make it look like Roberts is part of the gang.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, sheriff, action, adventure, black and white, 1940s, short film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: As foreman of a dude ranch, Gene has two problems. One is a guest, the spoiled daughter of a millioniare, and the other is the disgruntled ex-foreman that Gene replaced, now just a ranch hand. Gene eventually gets the daughter straightened out but has to fire the ex-foreman and this leads to trouble when he returns intent on revenge.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, horse, music, texas, 1940s, black and white, rural ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Mesquiteers are supposedly losing cattle to a bear from the adjoining National park. But the culprits are the Dawson clan who kill the cattle and use Davey's pet bear to leave tracks. When Davey breaks his leg, they find a crutch mark along with the bear tracks and head after the Dawson's.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, adventure, classic, 1930s, action, heroism, treasure hunt ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Gene and the boys arrive at their new ranch to find themselves in the dairy business instead of punching cows. They soon become victims of Doc Blair's outlaw gang that is keeping all milk shipments from reaching the market. Gene eventually learns that Blairs's men get their instructions in code when his medical bulletins are read over the radio. Gene obtains the code and hopes a false message will lead the gang into a trap.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, classic, 1930s, musical, adventure, outlaw, sheriff ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: After members of his family are killed by the Maraday Gang during a stagecoach robbery, Larry Delong takes a job as stage guard in hopes that he will meet up with the outlaws. After he is captured by the bandits, his shot-up stage is returned to the town by the gang in order to draw the authorities out of town. After being left for dead, Delong escapes to warn the townspeople of an imminent raid by the outlaws. They don't believe his story and, in fact, accuse him of complicity in the stage robbery, tasking the town's remaining deputy with arresting him. A besieged Delong hides out in a local saloon before making his next move.—Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)
Plot Keywords: western, action, adventure, drama, crime, thriller, noir ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Dawson is running rustled cattle across the abandoned Trenton ranch and has given it the reputation of a ghost ranch to keep people away. When Henty Tenton arrives from England to take over the ranch, Dawson tries to get rid of him. But Billy and Fuzzy are on hand to help Henry and it's not long before they have to go into action.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, outlaw, sheriff, horse, gunfight, adventure, mystery ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In order to end the cattle rustling, Gene Autry becomes one of the first ranchers in his territory to fence in the open range with barbed wire and he incurs the wrath of small-ranch owner Ginger Kirby. Range warfare, fanned by livery stable owner Sandy Reeves, breaks out between the two factions of ranchers to differ on the use of barbed-wire fences. Reeves hopes the fighting will drive the cattlemen out of business and he can use the range for sheep. Gene and Ginger patch up their differences and with the help of Duke Kirby, her younger brother, Autry discovers that Reeves is responsible for most of the trouble. Cowpunchers, believing that the wire will put them out of work and urged on by Reeves, engage Gene's men in a gun battle.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, horse, outlaw, sheriff, gunfight, black and white, 1950s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Jeff Waring (Charles Starrett) and his friends Tex Harding (Tex Harding) and Cannonball (Dub Taylor) become involved in the affairs of two rival stagecoach lines, one of them headed by Mary Halliday (Carole Mathews) whose father (Nolan Leary) has been murdered by the gang of the rival line, Forrest Brent(Al Bridge. She is unaware of this, and hinders rather than helps the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) and his friends in their attempts to expose Brent and his gang.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, adventure, action, 1940s, classic, black and white, stunts ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Roy Rogers (Roy Rogers, and not playing "himself" but playing a character named Roy Rogers), posing as The Carson City Kid, is seeking vengeance on Morgan Reynolds, the man who killed his brother. To find Reynolds in the gold towns, he systematically stops stagecoaches and goes through the mail, hoping to find letters addressed to Reynolds and thusly learn his whereabouts. Thus "The Kid" earns the reputation of a stagecoach robber, although he never takes anything, and the reputation is enhanced by the fact that he travels with Laramie (Francis McDonald), a notorious half-breed outlaw. A posse is about to capture them and Roy rides back to get Laramie whose horse has been shot, and Laramie repays the favor by slugging Roy and escaping on his horse Trigger. The posse rides by the unseen Roy and captures Laramie and, since he is riding the "Kid's" horse, take him to jail as being the "Kid." Laramie denies this and is told he will be free when he identifies the "Kid"; othewise he will hang. Roy rides into town, having deduced that the Morgan Reynolds he is looking for operates the Yellowback Saloon under the alias of "Lee Jessup" (Bob Steele) . As part of his plan to get evidence against Jessup, who also does not know his true identity, Roy takes a job as saloon shotgun guard, and meets saloon singer Joby Madison (Pauline Moore, in one of the truly great performances found in the B-western genre) and falls in love with her. This doesn't set well with Jessup, as he has plans of his own regarding Joby. Young gold miner Scott Warren (Noah Beery, Jr.), having hit his strike and heading for home with his fortune, comes into the Yellowback, talks too much about his stake, and is soon relieved of it in a crooked poker game by Jessup and friends. Scott, realizing he had been cheated, breaks into Jessup's office and, announcing he is the Carson City Kid, holds up Jessup henchman Harmon (Hal Taliaferro) and takes his gold and some letters and papers from the safe. Captured, he is taken before Laramie, who quickly identifies him as the "Kid" although he has never seen him before, in order to win the immunity promised him. Roy, masked as the Carson City Kid and speaking Spanish as the Kid did on the stage holdups, intervenes and at gunpoint, asks Jessup to identify what Scott has stolen from him. Besides the gold, Jessup unwittingly identifies as his own the latters and documents, which establish him as Morgan Reynolds. Reynolds meets justice and Roy is exonerated. ne fine little B-western with an excellent performance by George "Gabby" Hayes (as Sheriff Gabby Whittaker), before he had the character down as a sleep-walking exercise and was still revolving, and by, as mentioned, Pauline Moore, as a no-excuses heroine for being where she was doing what she did as a saloon entertainer.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, outlaw, sheriff, 1940s, action, adventure, gunfight ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Having been sent to prison by his look-alike cousin Billy Carson, Jim is back as the head of a gang of outlaws. When his man Matt gets the job of bossing Foster's trail drive, he goes after the herd. When Billy interferes, he has him captured and dressed in Billy's clothes, he wounds Foster and lets Foster's daughter Helen see him. Then he has Matt ride into town with Billy as his prisoner and Helen is there to identify him.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, sheriff, 1940s, black and white, action, adventure, short film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In this Roy Rogers entry, featuring a song written by Oklahoma Governor Roy J. Turner (making him and Louisiana's Jimmie Davis and Texas' W.E. "Pappy" O'Daniel possibly the only state governors to write songs used in a western), Flying T ranch owner Sam Talbot is killed by a fall from a horse. St. Louis reporter Connie Edwards comes to check a rumor that he might have been murdered. She goes to Roy Rogers, editor of the local newspaper, and he takes her to the reading of Talbot's will. The ranch is left to Talbot's 12-year-old ward, Duke Lowery, much to the dismay of Talbot's niece, Jan Holloway. After some attempts on Duke's life, Roy finally proves that Jan, Steve McClory and coroner Jim Judnick had Talbot killed and are conspiring to do the same for Duke, making Jan the last heir.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, 1940s, sheriff, outlaw, black and white, justice, small town ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Eddie Dean and Soapy Jones foil an attempted stagecoach holdup designed to murder Circuit Judge Hilton, bound for Rawhide to restore law and order. The Judge and the other passenger, Parson Trimble, decide to put up at the ranch owned by Sherry Lynn, Eddie's sweetheart, and her mother Ma Lynn. They are waylaid again, but the outlaws are driven off, and Nevada, an undercover man for the Judge, allows one of captured men to escape so he can follow him to the gang hideout. The Judge also deputizes Eddie. Nevada gets in with the gang, led by Duke and Dad Dillon, and is given the assignment to kill the Judge, whose first act in Rawhide was to close Duke's saloon and fire the city manager, Colonel Blake, a hireling of the Dillons. Eddie, Nevada and Soapy find evidence at the Dillon mine that they have been stealing government gold shipments. Colonel Blake is preparing to skip town and reveals to Sherry and saloon-girl Lola, Duke's girlfriend, that Duke is really the son of Judge Hilton, kidnapped in infancy by Dillon as an act of revenge. The Dillons and Eddie and his men are in a gunfight outside of the Palace Saloon when the Judge, having learned that Duke is is son, goes out to look for him. Duke, not believing the story, is looking to kill the Judge.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, 1940s, musical, outlaw, sheriff, black and white, action ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Traveling thru Tombstone Canyon, Ken is aided by the mysterious Phantom when a gang attacks him. He later finds the man that was going to tell him of his true identity murdered. Alf Sykes was the murderer and when the Phantom kills one of his men he blaims Ken. Planning to hang Ken, Sykes lets him out of his cell and then shoots the Sheriff. But Ken escapes and with everyone after him heads for Tombstone Canyon where both his identity and the Phantom's will be revealed.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: western, 1930s, black and white, independent film, outlaw, sheriff, action ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Sintown is just a deserted ghost town until Vanderpool starts looking for silver. Cookie and Roy's partners put $20,000 into the business only to find that the mine is worthless and Vanderpool is bankrupt. Carol comes out to look for silver to save the company, but does not know that their engineer, named Regan, is crooked and wants all the silver for himself. But only Old Ed knows where the mother lode is located.—Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>
Plot Keywords: western, outlaw, sheriff, adventure, action, 1940s, gunfight ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: One of three films made by Columbia circa 1936-37 based on behind-the-scenes film making with a "western" setting ("The Cowboy Star", "Hollywood Round-up" and "It Happened in Hollywood"), plus RKO weighed in the same year with George O'Brien's "Hollywood Cowboy." It had been done before, RKO's 1933 "Scarlet River", and would be done again, "Shooting High" from 20th Century-Fox and Republic's "Bells of Rosarita", among others with a western setting, but this Coronet production with Buck Jones may well be the best of the lot as it devotes more footage to actual film-making both on studio sets and locations. One out-of-the norm plot incident has the studio head Lew Wallace offering a job to a fading star Carol Stevens, with a semi-apology for casting her in what he calls an "outdoor special" and she calls a "horse opry", and this scene in a B-western leaves no doubt that the B-western and it people were near the bottom of Hollywood's pecking order. The stereotypes are there, with Shemp Howard's over-zealous "assistant director" (who does calm down and gets more real when he loses his whistle), the ego-ridden "star" in Grant Drexel, and the deserving-to-be-the-star relegated to stand-in and stunts Buck Kennedy, but the remaining crew and player roles are realistic (especially the real stuntmen playing stuntmen). Buck Kennedy is the stand-in and double for star Grant Drexel and is fired when he has a fight with the bullying Drexel over Drexel's treatment of leading lady Carol Stephens. The movie company is on location, and a group of gangsters led by Eddie Kane and Lester Dorr, posing as another movie company, come to the location town and talk the banker into letting them film a fake holdup in his bank, but the holdup is real and the out-of-work Buck, whom they hire as the fall guy to cover their getaway, is left holding the bag and jailed by town sheriff Slim Whitaker. Things get worse for Buck before they get better. A mid-point sequence has hotel clerk George R. Beranger, who dreams of being a western star, performing a twittering, ballet-slippering audition for the checking-in film company by quoting lines from a western and asking them to identify the film. Shemp Howard guesses "Little Women."—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: western, sheriff, 1930s, black and white, independent film, low budget, short film ...
Movie Details Click Here !