Marshal of Amarillo

If the writers at Republic Pictures had managed to tie up some loose ends in the story of this film this could have been one of the best Rocky Lane films that ever came out of that studio. As it is it's got some good things to recommend it.

Apparently there is some kind of elaborate scheme to rob a man traveling on the stagecoach with $50,000.00. Eddy Waller who flags down the coach and driver Roy Barcroft offers him a lift spoils the plans with an additional witness they hadn't bargained on. As it is one other passenger is killed and the intended victim disappears.

Fortunately Waller even with the dead body in a covered wagon he's driving to get away from a very spooky stagecoach station finds the Marshal From Amarillo and it's none other than Rocky Lane. Waller's story is so wacky that Lane actually takes him seriously and in due course gets to the bottom of the mystery.

Such reliable character players and western veterans like Elizabeth Risdon, Trevor Bardette, Denver Pyle and an unmasked Clayton Moore are in this film. The best thing that Marshal From Amarillo has going for it is a thrilling stagecoach chase scene, one of the best that Republic ever shot.

What the film needed was some kind of explanatory final scene as there were a lot of loose ends. But action fans will like Marshal From Amarillo.

This is a satisfying Rocky Lane picture, with an unusually off-beat B-western story and a sparkling cast of familiar ranch-hands doing their serious best to do right by the program. Eddy Waller always is watchable when sidekicking with Rocky Lane, but he really shines through here. Even though home base for the doings in this film is a spook-inflected stage station a long way from anywhere, this film really could best be termed an "action picture." B-westerns of the 1940s were generally longer on horseback chases, gun battles, and fisticuffs than were their 1930s ancestors, and this 1948 release has plenty of all three elements. The culminating stagecoach chase, although why it had to happen is curious, is really something special; everyone connected with the chase's production and presentation should have been proud about the screened result. There is little to find fault with in this adventure, and overall it makes for a fun diversion.

The emphasis is on mystery, something you don't always find in a western, and it's a great mix, but that doesn't mean there's no action. There's plenty of chases and shootin', but it's interspersed excellently within the mystery. There's an excellently creepy performance by Denver Pyle and Lane's sidekick's reaction to him is hilarious. There's "A lady vanishes" type of plot device going on - a rich man who has large sums of money for a ranch purchase vanishes from his hotel room, and so does the creepy clerk - and it's denied that the rich man was ever there. But don't worry we have Marshall Rock Lane on the case. A satisfying western with a really riveting stagecoach chase finale. A time where real people did stunt work - not CGI imposed images. Only gripe I have though is that a summary of the gang's scheme should've been explained.