Texas Buddies

A great combination of Steele, Gabby and director Dad Bradbury. Steele comes back from war in the worst way possible his parents are dead, his girl left and his horse is sold to the villain. His dad's pal (Gabby Hayes) throws him a lifeline and it's off to the races. Bob is bound to fall for beauty Nancy Drexel, an expert horsewoman in her own right. Even though they had only small roles here, great to see Francis McDonald and Si Jenks.

Based on ratings given by previous viewers one might expect a mediocre offering here, but I enjoyed "Texas Buddies" very much and recommend it highly to fans of westerns, B- or otherwise. Sure, it's from 1932 so you have to go in with lowered expectations, but this film has Robert N. Bradbury written all over it, meaning a thoughtful story and script and some really great atmosphere at every turn. The terrain looks like it was filmed in the area around the community of Pearblossom in southern California's Antelope Valley, what with the sparsely-vegetated hills giving way to a Joshua Tree woodland on the open desert. The settings are varied and evocative, including a human skeleton bleaching in the sun under one of those Joshua Trees; a pool table-filled saloon playing host to a tense poker game; and a largely forlorn railroad station with an arriving steam locomotive. We even have an old fashion horse race. The cast is excellent and includes another satisfying pairing of Bob Steele with the talented George "Gabby" Hayes. Take note, however, that the marquee stars have to compete for attention with a smoking, backfiring, rattling old car that has a mind of its own, as well as a vintage 1920's airplane piloted by Bob, who shows up dressed to the hilt in aviator gear. This film also contains one of the year's most memorable lines of dialog, when bad guy Harry Semels commands... "We'll shoot first and count them afterwards!" The fights in this movie are short and the gun battles are short, as they often were in the early 1930s, but the thoughtful story unfolds carefully and completely. This is just a well-done, honest, and starkly-photographed western that fans of Steele, his daddy, or westerns in general need to experience.