Lawless Empire

This is a middling decent and typical 'Durango Kid' B western for Charles Starret, who spent ten years or so near the top of the 'B' western hill. The Durango Kid comes to town and is appointed marshal under his real name and spends his time fighting the baddies, who want to drive out the homesteaders. He spends the rest of the time in the usual mixture of song and gunslinging. Dub Taylor is the comic sidekick and former D.W. Griffith director Lloyd Ingraham has a good role too. The cinematographer, George Meehan, does a decent if unremarkable job, although he has a peculiar affinity for four-shots in this one.

The whole thing looks like it was the basis for Mel Brooks' western burlesque, BLAZING SADDLES.

A big attraction here is Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys who were quite an influence on country music, merging swing rhythms with more traditional country stylings. Their first number here shows off the new sound splendidly. The movie itself is fairly routine—land grabbers trying to get homesteaders property. The Durango Kid, however, is an interesting creation. He's sort of like the Lone Ranger with his white horse and bandanna mask, keeping his real identity a secret. Here he switches identity when foiling the land grabbers' various plots. Anyway, there's some hard riding, not much fast shooting, but an eye-catching cattle stampede through town. All in all, it's an agreeable 60-minutes for Front Row geezers like me.

(Speaking of geezers, the landgrabbers are led by actor John Calvert who amazingly is still living at age 100+ !)

The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) rides into the town of Dusty Gulch to find helpless homesteaders being run off of their property. He finds an ally in a preacher (Tex Harding) who is determined stand up for the homesteaders against a greedy saloon owner and loan shark, Blaze Howard (John Calvert), whose plan is to take over all of their land. Durango's alter ego Steve Ranson also has a personal interest in seeing the land grabber go to justice as he was involved in killing his brother, a formal Marshal of the town. Among Durango's buddies are Bob Wills and the whole of his Texas Playboys; Bob Wills even has a part, though he mostly just stands there and smiles.

Directed by second unit man Vernon Keays, who went into direction for a spell in the mid-1940s, "Lawless Empire" is well edited and reasonably well made, though gaffes of various kinds abound, not the least of which is that Bob Wills' high stepping, jazzy music does not coordinate in the least with the circa 1870 time frame suggested in the opening titles. The music is all terrific, and there is quite a bit of it; the story stands still while Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys play their numbers complete. "Lawless Empire" tremendously entertaining, and I only took it one point off a "7" simply because it lacks suspense; you know that the Marshall and the Durango Kid are one and the same very early on, and that the bad guys -- neither large in number, particularly bright or very tough -- have a hard row to hoe to win this one. One the bad guys, Duke (Ethan Laidlaw), wins points for both being the most threatening and yet most sympathetic of the men on Blaze Howard's team. Dub Taylor is on board to bring comic relief, and his stunt gags are pretty good, but overall there is plenty of action and music to make this one worth its oats. Just not much in the way of surprise.

In the lawless town of Dusty Gulch, the Durango Kid comes to the aid of Reverend Harding in his fight against Blaze Howard and his henchman. When Durango foils all of Blaze's plans, Blaze's boss Doc Weston realizes that it's Cannonball who's tipping off Durango. Weston then lets Cannonball overhear false information that will send Durango into a fatal trap.

The villain played by John Calvert has the most idiotic henchmen, especially when they are facing up to the Durango kid - it's a better than average entry with a more emphasis on plot rather than gunplay, though there's no shortage of that either. The songs are quite good and don't get in the way of the story. Dub Taylor provides the humour.