Red River Robin Hood

Scott Yager (Eddie Dew) wins a court case upholding his old Spanish land grant and throwing many ranchers off their land. Yager pays off the judge. Chet Andrews is an angry young rancher who refuses to submit to the ruling. Chet's friends, Jim Carey (Tim Holt) and Ike (Cliff Edwards), arrive at Red River and come upon thugs trying to stop Carol Sterling (Barbara Moffett) from delivering her father's newspapers. They put on masks to play Robin Hood.

It is another B-western from Tim Holt. They are really churning these out. There isn't anything that stands out in this one. There isn't anything horribly wrong with it either. It's just more of the same general material.

Routine oater with the usual ingredients, but an interesting plot twist. Swindler Yager (Dew) uses phony Spanish land grant to evict ranchers unless they pay rent to stay. Few can afford to. Jim and Ike (Holt & Edwards) devise clever scheme involving black robes disguise to try to foil the scam. There's one well staged brawl, and some hard riding, but little good scenery since filming is in greater LA. Edwards is kind of lame comedy relief, showing why Richard Martin (Chito) was such an asset to Holt's later matinée series. I wish director Selander had given us more close-ups of the characters, especially Holt. As it is, events are photographed from an impersonal distance. Anyway, it's an okay oater without being anything special.

When the story begins, you realize that the plot is VERY familiar...too familiar for B-westerns in fact. Most B-westerns have about 3 or 4 diffferent plots....and I love it when the films feature a different one. But here, it's a typical story in most every way.

A local baddie wants to control everything and toss all the ranchers and farmers off their land. So, he uses a crooked judge to back up his schemes...and when that doesn't work, he uses his band of hired thugs. When Jim and Ike (Tim Holt and Cliff Edwards) return to town, they find the place in an uproar over the judge's decisions....but decide to fight him and the baddie boss by pretending to be evil and work for the side of evil...while actually working to expose their awfulness.

So, we have the VERY typical bad boss who wants everyone's land, the crooked judge (often it's a crooked sheriff), the good newspaper owner who is trying to fight them AND some good guys pretending to be bad...all elements that make this film about as unoriginal as possible...even compared to most Bs. To make it worse, and I know opinions will differ, but I think the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, Tim Holt and Roy Rogers (among others) simply did this sort of thing better. Overall, watchable but for fans of the genre, it's just too familiar and unimpressive to make this a must-see.

Red River Robin Hood finds Tim Holt and sidekick Cliff Edwards doing the Robin Hood thing when they find their friend Russell Wade with whom they plan to go into partnership with on a ranch in jail. Seems as though Eddie Dew has forged himself an old Spanish land grant to which he is the heir. He wants to extort money from all the ranches in the area or evict them.

So Holt and Edwards don capes and masks and become Mr. Justice robbing Dew's rent collectors. They also go to work for Dew.

Red River Robin Hood got enough action to satisfy any B western fan. But I have to say I did have a problem with how dumb Dew and his crowd could be and how easy Holt and Edwards fooled them. The only ones who are in on the game are Wade, editor Otto Hoffman and his daughter Barbara Moffett.

Some good comic relief besides Edwards is found with Sheriff Tom London who's a rather dim bulb and his thicker than a brick deputy Earl Hodgins.

Tim Holt's fans will be pleased.

A crime boss uses a corrupt judge and fake land grant to steal ranchers properties, but is met with strong resistance organized by two cowboys (Tim Holt and Cliff Edwards) and the town's newspaper editor.

There's no Robin Hood in this western, though there's a Zorro vibe with Tim Holt and Cliff Edwards donning cloaks and a mask, and fighting against Yeager, a crooked saloon keeper who is trying to steal land and rent it out to the rightful owners. What a skunk! Compared to the other Tim Holt westerns I have seen, this is fairly routine and lacks that punch, but it's fun with the some good action. Very hard for one not to like these 60 minute B-westerns.