Outlaws of the Range

Poor acting by the star is not quite made up for by good acting from the leading lady -- about whom there is a LOT of confusion in the IMDb listings.

Bill Cody seemed to be rather clumsy, was not a good horseman, and not a very good fighter -- though he sure wasn't alone in that.

All the fight scenes were obviously not choreographed by Yakima Canutt, and not well directed or edited. Or performed.

In too many scenes, when the hero grabs a bad guy by the arm, the villain's other arm is not doing anything.

In fact, in addition to the acting, the editing was pretty bad throughout, but maybe the editor was just limited by the directing and acting.

However, the story and even the script were pretty good, and some of the actors were actually rather likable, but the leading lady and the son of the nominal star stole the acting honors and the attention of any viewers.

Bill Cody Jr. Showed the most potential, but his career was short, for reasons I don't know, and his death was a very sad situation.

"Outlaws of the Range" is more interesting than entertaining, but the lousy print I saw at Hoopladigital made it even worse. It's worth watching just for the Hollywood and Westerns history, but, oh, how I wish someone could have worked a little harder and made it a better film.

With finances in an unfavorable position, 42-year-old producer Ray Kirkwood commissioned his wife - using the pseudonym Zara Tazil - to devise the screenplay for "Outlaws of the Range," to complete the series of Bill Cody westerns released through Spectrum Pictures. Cody, as a wandering cowboy named Steve, happens upon pretty Catherine Cotter (who had experience on the stage in California before appearing in a handful of films) and learns that her father is being harassed by rustlers and pressured into selling his ranch. Framed for murder and subsequently jailed as he tries to right these wrongs, Cody ultimately prevails and saves the homestead for the charming young lady.

Cody, with neither theatrical training nor working cowboy experience, had an agreeable personality, coupled with a name perfectly suited to the type of film he made. He is as likeable as ever in this one, as is his 10-year-old son and co-star. The chief heavy is done here by Gordon Griffith, one-time child actor who played Tarzan as a child in 1918 and Tom Sawyer in 1920. A production photograph taken during the filming of "Outlaws of the Range" shows Griffith holding a rope from which Cody's son Billy descends from a roof after rescuing Cody from jail - the actor portraying the villain thus helping one of the film's stars to do a stunt, off-camera, of course.

It would serve no purpose to seek to compare this unpretentious series film with more polished and costly works from that era. Suffice it to say that the easygoing Cody and attractive Catherine Cotter (a former child actress on Los Angeles radio) pleasingly bring the series of Spectrum releases to a close with this entry.