Billy the Kid's Gun Justice

"Billy the Kid's Gun Justice" sure surprised me. I was set to hate the film but ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Why was I so prepared to dislike the film? Well, it was made by PRC--a tiny production company known for making crappy films. Additionally, I HATE films that idolize western villains like Billy the Kid, Jesse James and the rest. These films completely fictionalize these real life killers--making them heroes! It's all complete bull! But, oddly, the film manages to overcome all this because the plot was clever...and that's something you usually don't see in B-westerns.

Billy and his friends, Jeff (Carleton Young) and Fuzzy (Al St. John) are headed to the ranch owned by Jeff's uncle. However, when they arrive they find a nice family is living there and they've never heard of the uncle. They insist that they were sold the property by a scum-bag named Allen (Al Ferguson). And, it turns out Allen has been cheating all the local homesteaders by selling them property he doesn't even own and then denying them water rights! So, it's up to our trio of heroes to save the day. None of this is unusual for a B and the plot is pretty familiar. However, HOW they resolve all this is what makes the film so interesting. It is NOT settled with guns but with brains--imagine that!

Overall, it's well made and worth seeing just to see Fuzzy's cool drunk scene. Well worth your time and like most of Bob Steele's westerns, full of fist fights!

There's no real fireworks in Billy The Kid's Gun Justice. It's fast paced enough but runs out of steam near the end.

The standard issue plot consists of Billy and his sidekick Fuzzy trying to unravel the mystery of a friend's missing uncle and bring to justice the criminals behind the disappearance whom they suspect are also behind a related land swindle.

There's a few decent action scenes and Bob Steele is good as the wanted (framed) title outlaw. His tough guy posturing is pretty interesting compared to the somewhat sensitive men you usually see wearing white and wooing the ladies in these types of pictures.