Riding the Sunset Trail

This is the second series of westerns made for Monogram by Tom Keene; his first Monogram series were four films made in the first half of the 1937-38 production season, and this film is the fourth in a series of eight he made for producer Robert Tansey at Monogram in the 1941-42 production season. And all eight featured the credited Rusty the Wonder Horse. This one has no interior shots at all, and also no town scenes, which means producer Tansey didn't have to hire any extras to play townspeople and/or barflies.

A band of outlaws, led by Jay Lynch (Kenne Duncan),ambush and supposedly kill Lynch's half-brother, rancher Jim Dawson (Jimmy Aubrey), but Tom Sterling, working undercover for the Cattleman's Association, and his pal, Lopez Mendoza (Frank Yaconelli), find the wounded rancher, and keep him in hiding. Lynch and crooked lawyer Jasper Raines (Slim Andrews) have a forged will that leaves Dawson's ranch to Lynch, and half-Uncle Lynch shows up and orders Dawson's daughters Betty (Betty Miles) and Sugar (Sugar Dawn) to vacate his newly-acquired ranch. Tom, as usual with his gun belt buckled in the back, and Lopez come riding in to aid the Dawson sisters in their efforts to keep the ranch.

Range detectives Tom Keene and Frank Yaconelli are sent to investigate some rustling when they find rancher jimmy Aubrey shot on the trail. Villains did not stick around to see if they finished the job.

All to the good for the good guys. With Aubrey declared legally dead half brother to Aubrey, Kenne Duncan produces a forged will giving Aubrey's ranch to him and dispossessing Aubrey's daughters Betty Miles and Sugar Dawn.

What's a cowboy hero to dobut fight for the wronged ladies. And that it happened to be his job so much the better.

Frank Yaconelli who could also play an occasional villain was funny comic relief with his traps he can't stay out of.

Nicely paced western from Monogram.

Tom Keene was a good cowboy actor. Usually. But he and his fellow cast members were burdened in "Riding the Sunset Trail" by some silly stuff apparently intended to be humor.

With the almost always but not this time excellent Frank Yaconelli and the always watchable Betty Miles, probably the best girl cowboy in movies, and the venerable Kenne (but here billed as Ken) Duncan, Keene continued to be as likable as ever, just not very entertaining.

But the flaw was in the script, and somewhat in the directing, not in the very good cast.

Players included Tom London and Gene Alsace, and they all had some good moments, even in some of the "humor" that a few times turned out actually to be funny.

It really is a good story, and you can find this for free at YouTube, so I do recommend "Riding the Sunset Trail." Just try not to let the not-very-funny "humor" de-rail you and your watching.

Despite having appeared in a ton of films, Tom Keene's career in films never really hit the big time. He starred in a few sub-par westerns and ended his film career by appearing in the infamous "Plan 9 From Outer Space". When you see him in "Riding the Sunset Trail" you can see why his career never blossomed. He didn't have a lot in the way of charisma or screen presence and he was also saddled with inferior scripts, directors and supporting casts.

This film begins with a ranch owner being ambushed and falling to what appears to be his death. His step-brother was behind this and he now produces a fake will--leaving everything to him and nothing to his daughter. Fortunately, Tom (Tom Keene) and his partner, Lopez (Frank Yaconelli) to come to the rescue--though mostly Lopez behaves like a bad Mexican stereotype (sort of like the Frito Bandito) and spends most of the film getting caught in bear traps, mouse traps and the like. The plot is EXTREMELY familiar-- especially when Tom gives a long exposition near the end explaining who he REALLY is and why he's there.

All in all, I've seen worse B-westerns...but not many. Strictly for folks who aren't real demanding and don't mind a western that breaks no new ground or isn't particularly entertaining.

By the way, one line I did find funny was when Tom came to help the daughter and she asked how she could repay him for his kindness. He said "we'll think of something later..."---and my mind went all sorts of places I don't think the filmmakers intended.