Pioneers of the Frontier

Pioneers of the Frontier features William Elliott as the title character who discovers that his uncle Mort (Lafe McKee) has been murdered by an unscrupulous ranch foreman, Matt Brawley (Dick Curtis). But before he can right Brawley's wrongs, Wild Bill is arrested for a murder he didn't commit. Sidekick Cannonball Sims (Dub Taylor) and disgruntled girl rancher Joan Darcy (Dorothy Comingore) plot to break Wild Bill out of jail but Brawley is wise to their plans

Dick Curtis as Matt Bradley really steals the scene with his brutish behaviour. He looks every inch the villain. And the megalomaniac kind. As he killed Wild Bill's uncle, Wild Bill rides back home to fix him but it isn't all that easy - not after much tactics and gun smoke. An enjoyable western.

Wild Bill Elliott is playing Wild Bill Saunders once again in Pioneers Of The Frontier. This story has Saunders coming in to avenge the death of his uncle at the hands of perennial western villain Dick Curtis who was foreman of the uncle's vast Ponderosa like holdings.

The uncle played by Lafe McKee has an interesting scheme whereby he has pieces of his real estate leased by various small farmers and ranchers to make a go of it as he can't possibly oversee the whole thing himself. Something Ben Cartwright sure never tried. But Curtis murders both McKee and Carl Stockdale the lessee of one of the tracts. His daughter is Dorothy Comingore who gets interested in Wild Bill as a savior and maybe a husband.

As Elliott was McKee's nephew and closest heir it seemed to me that if he shows up and says to Curtis and his gun-hands to just clear out that would be all that was needed. But Curtis is far more megalomaniacal than he usually is as a villain and he likes running things even if he hasn't the semblance of a legal title to anything.

That makes Pioneers Of The Frontier a bit hard to swallow. But I'm sure the Saturday matinée kids didn't care at all in 1940.