Robbers of the Range

Crooked railroad purchasing agent J. R. Rankin is trying buy up all the land for the incoming railway construction. His thugs kill a troublesome rancher and frames Jim Drummond (Tim Holt) for the murder who had also refused to sell on the cheap. While Drummond is being transported, the thugs attack again.

There are some fun stunts. The stage coach stunt is a standard classic. It's both dangerous and beautifully done. There is a deedle song although I would like a bar fight to go along with it. The acting is not the worst but far from the best. The second half meanders a bit. I do like the fake beating for its comedy. This is fine.

Robbers Of The Range are in fact a bottom feeding railroad agent and his grafting partners who are hoping to cheat ranchers out of their land and the big money they'll get for a right of way. Tim Holt is one such rancher and they frame him for a neighbor's murder. But Holt gets away and he moves on to the next town in the guise of a notorious gunman.

Holt goes to work for the railroad while sidekicks Ray Whitley and Emmett Lynn go to work for the new Cattleman's Association the better to find out what's going on from both ends. If those jobs had been reversed Holt would have had an easier time wooing Virginia Vale who is the daughter of the biggest rancher Howard Hickman.

Perennial western villain LeRoy Mason is the leading Robber Of The Range, but his chief henchman Ernie Adams has a great part as a real slime bag who does the killing and framing along with Tom London. Whitley and Lynn have the best scenes in the film getting a confession to both the murder Holt was framed for and another killing where Hickman is framed the same way.

Worth seeing Robber Of The Range for that alone.