Bandit Ranger

Tim Holt oater has our hero once again falsely accused of murder, arrested, escapes, and then must clear his good name. Jiminy Cricket plays Holt's sidekick, er, I mean Cliff Edwards, who'd later go on to voice Jiminy Cricket, plays Holt's sidekick. It's nothing you haven't seen before in other low budget Holt RKO westerns, but if you enjoy this sort of thing, which I do, you'll likely be entertained by Holt doing the Holt western thing.

Very shortly after doing the Magnificent Ambersons, Tim Holt was making Bandit Ranger, one of his innumerable and indistinguishable Westerns. They were all pretty enjoyable, and short enough not to outstay their welcome, and this is no exception. Holt is very young for a rancher, but has the screen presence to overcome this handicap.

The plot is absolutely routine: Holt uncovers a murder, for which he is blamed, and has to clear his name while simultaneously keeping a pretty girl out of danger. The girl, as is traditional in this plot, doesn't know Holt, and so he has to win her trust ... and maybe love? This is the plot of dozens of Holt films; here the part of the idiot sidekick is played, not by Richard Martin who came along later, but Cliff Edwards - more of a clown in his Ukelele Ike role, and he has a couple of nice musical numbers. The baddies are bad and plausible. The girl (Joan Barclay) is a bit dim. The twist where the bad guys turn the tables on Tim Holt is a clever one.

All in all, very entertaining in its lower case way.

Rancher Clay Travers finds and brings in the body of ranger Frank Mattison, murdered on the road to Trail City, where he had been sent to deal with an outbreak of cattle rustling. Businessman Art Kenyon, who has hired gunman Ed Martin to impersonate Mattison to further his rustling schemes, quickly changes Martin's story and has Travers framed for the ranger's murder. Managing to escape, Travers must come up with proof to clear his name and bring the true killers to justice.

Bandit Ranger is another lively Tim Holt western with enough twists in the trail -loved how the fake Ranger - he had taken identity of the dead real one - turned things around when the sister was saved and has Tim Holt seen as the culprit. Que: Holt goes on the run. It's quite fast-paced and ends with a bang in a hidden valley.

Although this is a Tim Holt western, the title role is played by perennial western villain LeRoy Mason who plays a killer who shoots down a Texas Ranger and steals his badge and identity. It is rancher Tim Holt who hears the shooting and comes to a dying Dennis Moore who points Holt to a moneybelt he was wearing that Mason and his henchmen didn't notice. It contains a letter of identification and some money that he was carrying for his sister Joan Barclay who was meeting him in town.

Holt does not expose Mason when he brings in Moore's body, he's hoping in some way that Mason will lead him to who's doing a lot of cattle rustling. But that proves a little too clever and Mason turns the table on him and it's Tim that's wanted for Moore's murder.

This was usually the kind of gambit you might more often find in a Roy Rogers western although usually played for a little more humor. Nevertheless Tim does carry it off.

Cliff Edwards whose career had a renaissance of sorts when he introduced When You Wish Upon A Star for Walt Disney in Pinnochio is playing the sidekick role for Tim Holt. That's another thing you would find in a Rogers western, a sidekick who was too stupid to know what was going on so Holt would have to explain his moves to him and the audience. Andy Devine was usually just such a sidekick in many Roy Rogers films of the Forties.

Again a quality B western from RKO for Tim Holt.