Brothers in the Saddle

Tim holt plays.... cowboy tim holt, with his usual sidekick chito (richard martin). When his brother steve (brodie) gets into trouble, tim is willing to help out, until he hears that steve is up to no good. Will the brothers look out for each other no matter what? Flora (carol forman) the one witness that can save steve has run off so she doesn't have to testify. Fistfights. Horse chases. Some scenes filmed at garner ranch, near idyllwild, up in the mountains of southern cal. The film is pretty good. Your basic good versus evil, western cowboy justice. Can the truth be told before they come after steve? Directed by les selander, king of the westerns. And tv series, including lassie. Story by norm houston. They made a ton of films together. Tim holt died pretty young of cancer, at 54.

I watched this movie this morning on TCM. Brothers in the Saddle (1949) is different than most Tim Holt/Richard Martin B-westerns made during this time period. It's a lot more violent for one thing. For another, Tim plays Tim Taylor, not himself, Tim Holt, as he usually did. Maybe that's because he has a selfish, brutal brother in this one and he didn't want to besmirch the Holt name.

Tim is the foreman of a ranch owned by pretty Nancy Austin (Virginia Cox). His worthless brother, Steve (Steve Brodie) is engaged to Nancy and has been bleeding her for money to cover his gambling losses. Tim covers up Steve's bad side for Nancy. But when Steve kills a crooked gambler in self defense, but is accused of murder. Nancy has to find out. Saloon girl Flora (Carol Forman) can clear Steve, but she ran off to Mexico. To save Steve from a lynch mob, Tim and Chico break him out of jail. Then Tim and Chito head for Mexico to bring Flora back. But while they are gone, Steve robs a stagecoach and murders in cold blood one of the framing gamblers. Tim and Chito bring Flora back, but learn that the stagecoach was held up and they know it had to be Steve who did it. Now Tim and Steve are headed for a final showdown. It's an unusually prolonged and violent one.

Carol Forman plays Flora. She is best known for her role as the chief villainess in the 1947 RKO serial, The Black Widow. Steve Brodie plays Steve. He was in quite a few Tim Holt/Richard Martin B-westerns. Virginia Cox is Nancy. This is her one and only film credit. It's really a mystery how she got the role and what happened to her afterward. RKO had Martha Hyer and Lois Andrews (Mrs. Steve Brodie) under contract at the time and this is the type of role that either could have handled well. Both appeared in several B-westerns. Why it was given to Virginia and why she never appeared in any other movie or TV show doesn't appear to be known. She just dropped out of sight.

Check out Brothers of the Saddle (1949) but be prepared to see a different type of B-Western from Tim and Richard.

More dramatic entry than usual. Most of the action involves Tim's wayward brother Steve (Brodie) who seems caught in a vortex of crime that he either can't or won't get out of. Good thing both Brodie and Holt had feature film experience because their roles here require solid acting. And both come through in compelling fashion. Then too, Chito is Chito, often amusing but never in a clownish way.

There's plenty of flying fists, and enough broken furniture to stock a hotel. Not much hard riding, though Tim's clever mount Lightning gets him out of a tight jam—(was Lightning vying for Roy Rogers' Trigger for top Palomino). There's some fast shooting but not much—note that Tim actually aims his shot at movie's end, something matinée shootouts seldom bothered with. Note also that Tim puffs on a pipe at one point—the first time I think I've seen a matinée hero actually smoke. Anyway, some good LA-area scenery and a good story add up to a better than average Holt-Martin 60-minutes.

An "8" on the Matinée Scale.

Bad boy Steve Taylor is pulled out of a saloon by his brother Tim after Steve kills cheating poker player Hoyt Parker in self defense. Steve, who's been financing his gambling addiction with money from his fiancée, is convinced by Tim to give himself up for trial. Found guilty without crucial testimony of his innocence by saloon girl Flora Trigby, who has fled to Mexico, the two brothers make their getaway to a secret hideout, where Tim heads out to find Flora. Tim's enthusiasm for protecting his brother lessens when he returns with Flora and learns someone matching Steve's description has held up the stage and killed passenger Nash Prescott, Parker's co-partner and Steve's chief accuser at the trial.

A different kind of Tim Holt and Chito Rafferty western with Chito taking a slight backseat. It's similar to Saddle the Wind, a brother gone bad story - the bad brother here is Steve Brodie and Holt plays his brother. At first, Brodie's first killing is in self-defence, the second one not so. There's some good conflict, and a few vigorous fistfight. A neat scene where lightning the horse helps Tim. He grabs the stirrup and he pulls him out of the dust. The film ends inevitably with Brodie getting his just deserts. A nice intense shootout.

If you've read my review I've considered Tim Holt's westerns at RKO to be a cut above the usual B westerns. Brothers In The Saddle is a cut above them and could easily have been done on an A budget by some major league stars.

Tim has a brother in this one played by Steve Brodie and while Tim is a straight arrow, Brodie is no good. He's a degenerate gambler and not very good at it. He borrows money from his bride to be Virginia Cox who Tim would have liked to wed on false pretenses.

One night he catches the guys who've been cheating him all along and drills one of them in a fair fight. But he's arrested for murder anyway and Tim Holt and Richard Martin do a most un-Holt thing and spring him from jail while they look for a missing witness.

In the meantime Brodie decides he likes the outlaw life and goes on a crime spree of his own. In the end Holt and Martin can't go to the well for him once again.

Two other westerns dealing with good and bad brothers come to mind, Winchester 73 and Saddle The Wind. Both had the major star power of James Stewart and Robert Taylor respectively and the class A production values that Universal and MGM could provide.

RKO was quite daring in this film as things happen to both Tim and Richard Martin's character of the happy go lucky Chito Jose Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty that never happened in any other of their films I've seen. The studio must have got a lot of angry mail from fans wanting to know why the norm was deviated from in this Tim Holt western.

But seen today Brothers In The Saddle holds up very well as Holt and Brodie give standout performances as rival siblings.