Fighting Frontier

In Arizona, bandits attack a stagecoach on the way to Marlen City. The robbers have the locals in fear. Despite seeing one of them, coach driver Ira refuses to identify Kit Russell (Tim Holt). Traveling salesman Merriwell does the identifying for the reward, but he is forced out of town. The court case falls apart. Kit may not be all he appears to be.

This is a B-western with Tim Holt. It is generally better than most of the others in this genre. There is plenty of shooting and riding action. It is nothing too great. I wouldn't mind more and better action. There is a bit of mystery also. It is fine.

Kit Russell, appointed special investigator, has infiltrated a local robber gang ostensibly led by Snap, but has found out that an unnamed local person is really the brains behind the outfit.

Tim Holt stars in this lively western where he plays an investigator, out to stop a gang who rob gold, and that's by going undercover. The western starts with Holt robbing a Stagecoach, and gradually we learn he's isn't the bad guy. What I liked about this western is that we don't know who the main honcho of this criminal outfit is, lending it some mystery. There's some good action sequences and nice witty lines.

Fighting Frontier has Tim Holt as a young hell raiser who has joined an outlaw band ostensibly headed by Tom London. In reality Tim's an undercover agent looking to discover who London gets his orders from.

The real outlaw leader is one of the more respected citizens of the area and you have a nice array of potential suspects. Still I think you can probably figure out who it is, but not too much before Tim hears London blurt it out in a moment of panic. How they get to that moment of panic is the basis for the plot of Fighting Frontier.

As usual the Tim Holt westerns are nicely paced and well plotted, this one especially so. I would rate it higher but for the presence of Cliff Edwards who was playing Tim's singing sidekick at this point in his career. Try as I might I could not wrap myself around the concept of anyone using Ukelele Ike as an undercover agent. Why the outlaws have him around is beyond me and he'd be dangerous to Holt as well working undercover. Cliff does sing a couple of nice western ballads however.

Fighting Frontier is a pretty good film, but they should have left Cliff Edwards on the right side of the law.