The Vigilantes Return

Marshal Johnnie Taggart, posing as an outlaw named "Ace" Braddock, comes to Bannack, Montana to restore law and order. But he is recognized by Kitty, co-owner with Clay Curtwright of the infamous Bull Whip saloon. But "bad-girl" Kitty keeps her mouth shut. When Johnnie's pal Andy reports a stage holdup, Curtwright's henchman, Ben Borden, talks the sheriff and Judge Holden into suspecting Johnnie. Johnnie reveals himself to Judge Holden as a government marshal, and the judge voices his opinion that Curtwright is the leader of the road agents, but voices it in the presence of his granddaughter, Louise Holden., who is in love with Curtwright, a smooth operating crook.

Vigilantes Return is a competent western from Universal studio that stars Jon Hall as the hero - he's ok though a little on the bland side. Margaret Lindsay's performance as Hall's ex-flame and saloon keeper adds the meat in her role and Jack Lambert does his usual snarling as a henchman. A little liveliness scattered here and there and some good action scenes - riding through the saloon and the Stagecoach out of control sequence come to mind - keeps thing zipping along.

Marshal Johnnie Taggart is sent to Montana to investigate a series of stage robberies & murders, and goes undercover as outlaw Ace Braddock. Working with dance hall accordion player Andy, he is also recognized by Kitty, co-owner of the dance hall, whose other owner Clay Curtwright is the leader of the bandits. Curtwright learns of Taggart's identity and arranges a bank holdup where the watchman is killed and Taggart is framed for the murder. The only person in town besides Andy & Kitty who will stand by Taggart is Judge Holden, but this gets complicated when his granddaughter, Louise, is in love with Curtwright. Andy helps Taggart escape from jail, and sensing that he better get out while he can, Curtwright plans to take the stolen loot, but not before he can square accounts with Taggart. The movie has a b-movie cast, plot, and setting, but you can tell that Universal was trying to make this western a notch above the others they were making before, but it doesn't really come off. The Cinecolor really makes the film look too dark at the night scenes and too bright for certain day scenes. There are a good deal of fights and action scenes, the best being Taggart & Andy going through the saloon on horseback. The script does aim at a more complex nature with the Louise-Curtwright relationship, which did end differently from what I predicted. The cast is fine, even though I really don't buy Wilcox as a leader of a gang of road agents. Rating, 6.

Yet another variation on the stock Western ingredients of stranger-in-town with comic sidekick, saloon girl contrasting with respectable girl (or is she?), saloon co-owner running a gang, with sheriff in his pay.

Jon Hall (seldom seen on UK TV) reminded me of a less-rugged Randolph Scott, and Margaret Lindsay (hitherto unknown to me)of a slightly-mellow Barbara Stanwyck. Both do reasonably well.

The unsung hero is Andy Devine's horse, which takes his overweight rider to safety in a chase which entails jumping over a fence that deters most of the pursuers. Incidentally at first I thought his curious snoring after he'd walked into town was something more offensive.

The plot creaks a little. It remains unclear to me whether Devine was merely an old friend of Hall's who happened to be on the stagecoach at the beginning or whether he was heading into town to help him. Paula Drew's change of loyalty is a little hard to swallow, but does provide a twist. Also making me blink was the arrival at the end of perhaps sixty vigilantes who came together very quickly indeed from outside town. I presume these had been active in suppressing outlaws in the past. Until they charge into town, I had thought that the current bad guys numbered barely half-a-dozen, but all the patrons of the villain's saloon mount a short-lived resistance to the vigilantes.

"Flashing color" says one tagline; in fact it's Cinecolor, which at times is almost monochromic.

Nice to see Jack Lambert and Bob Wilke among the bad guys, and one day I must really identify Lane Chandler, whose name appears near the bottom of screen credits in so many Westerns of this period.

I have not seen this movie- but heard about it in the documentary of P.K. Nair- film archivist and popularly known as the Henri Langlois of Indian Cinema. In a documentary about his life, CELLULOID MAN, K Nair reminisces about how he got attracted to movies at a very young age and he remembers this movie Vigilantes Return as the first Hollywood movie he saw in Trivandrum as a young boy. He still has with him the ticket stub when he saw the movie at Sree Padmanabha Theater, Trivadnrum. This was his first introduction to Hollywood and from then onwards he became a fan of cinema. His life then took a turn and was devoted for preserving cinema and cinematic history. He started the first film archives in India. This is the movie that started all this. Now I got to see this movie