Between Fighting Men

I have only recently become a fan of the B movie genre and even more recently become a fan of the old b westerns. I enjoy them very much and its easy to do so. Admittedly, their charm often doesn't include much in originality or good writing. Basically you have a hero, a pretty girl, some bad guys and they spend their time chasing each other on horseback with six guns blazing. It sounds simple but it definitely works. However, you occasionally run across one that rises above and entertains with the usual elements plus gives you something extra. Sometimes its a really exceptional cast, maybe taunt direction, especially well staged action scenes...whatever. This one stands out because it has the usual elements plus outstanding writing. This is a very well plotted movie and the cast seems game to do the material proud. I really like this one and Ken Maynard has not been high on my lists of favorite cowboys before now.

You get a really nice love triangle wrapped around some well conceived humor and the usual action. This is a story worth telling and told well. In my opinion this a true Hollywood near classic and a genre gem.

Between Fighting Men is a good place to start if you want to learn about Ken Maynard. He always came across as a great guy in all of his westerns. Maynard may have been a jerk in real life, but you would never know it from watching him. In this movie he was still trim and doing a lot of action. He was the perfect cowboy star at the time this movie was made.

A war between cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers is always a fun plot element. Add to that a beautiful daughter of the sheep man to lure the affection of the sons of a cattle man and you have a standard, but great, plot for a B western. Ken and Wally cleverly try to best one another for the attention of Judy. Regarless of the western setting, the lengths they go to in their efforts would make any movie from the thirties entertaining.

There is no shortage of cowboy action in this movie. Pick it up if you can.

Land is opened up for sheepherders to set up homesteads on the land formerly owned by cattlemen. Naturally this leads to conflict and Win Thompson who owns the largest ranch wants to drive the sheepmen off. Trying to help are Ken & Wally Thompson, who are even given more incentive to help when they see Judy Winters, daughter of one of the sheepherders. Thompson's foreman Butch Martin is given orders to drive the rustle the sheep, but interprets the orders his own way and murders Judy's father. Win takes Judy in at the ranch, but she later learns that Win gave the order to Butch to drive off the sheep. Ken tries to remedy the matter, but can't do much especially when Wally is influenced by Butch that Ken is stealing Judy away from him. Enjoyable B western even though the script had already been done to death at every poverty row studio. The highlight is probably Ruth Hall who does a great job as Judy making us wish she kept up her film career. Another highpoint was Josephine Dunn as the café proprietor whose bit trying to snag Wally at the dance is fun to watch. Maynard is good as he usually is, but I think we could have had a bit more action. Rating, based on B westerns, 6.

Between Fighting Men is one of those B westerns that had it gotten produced at a major studio with decent production values and an A list cast this could have been a classic western. At 20th Century Fox for instance I could easily have seen Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda as the two brothers as they were in Jesse James. As it is Ken Maynard and Wallace MacDonald aren't that bad as feuding brothers.

Brothers occasionally will fight and these two have a good natured history of it. But the real fighting in their part of the west is going to happen when the government says that land the cattlemen have been grazing on is open range and anyone can settle and claim it. The sheepmen intend to do just that. Which means range war.

But it means more than that when Ruth Hall and her father Buck Connors move in with their sheep. When the two of them start courting her and forget the range war, others haven't. When Butch Martin kills Connors and he's been hired by Maynard and MacDonald's father Walter Law as a range detective strong arm guy, it all hits the fan.

Between Fighting Men is a pretty good product coming from a Poverty Row studio with little production values. Definitely shows cowboy star Ken Maynard off to his best advantage.