Hostile Country

Shamrock is summoned to the ranch of his stepfather Henry Oliver whom he has never met. He still hasn't met him when he gets there because Knowlton shows up posing as Oliver.

The two former Hopalong sidekicks (James Ellison and Russell Hayden) find themselves in trouble again in this passable, yet unremarkable shoot em up which has some fine action, location shooting, an energetic duo and Julie Adams. However, no matter how frenetic the pace and the plot, I found it too confusing and not too engaging. A bit sluggish for me, but it's not awful, just a time waster. It's an unofficial remake of 1935's "No Man's Range" with Bob Steele.

Hostile Country was the first film of an ensemble western stock company that Lippert Pictures assembled. A studio that did mostly modern stories, I'm guessing Robert Lippert thought he needed a cowboy hero or two for a wider audience. He found them in James Ellison and Russell Hayden who played young sidekicks to Hopalong Cassidy in their salad days.

But he did more than that. In the six pictures that Ellison and Hayden did they had the same set of familiar western players. After watching and reviewing three subsequent features that cast was starting to get a familiar look. Go down the list of cast members on the subsequent films and see what I mean.

In this inaugural film Ellison hears from a man who married his mother after he left home who wants help on his ranch. So he and partner Hayden go to the ranch and before long find themselves in the middle of a range war with pretty Julie Adams who owns the neighboring spread.

I have to say the ones working for the stepfather have cooked up quite a scheme and I dare not say more.

It's a Lippert film so you know it's going to be on the pinch penny side. Still not a bad story.