Days of Buffalo Bill

Sunset Carson is a big part of why I love B westerns. His Six Gun Heroes television program on South Carolina Educational Television introduced me to several B western stars that I may have never seen otherwise. I eventually started going to western film fairs and got to meet Sunset Carson in person. He was an extremely nice person to everyone who came to his table, show after show. The man signing autographs really was the hero from the movies. Sunset understood the importance of connecting with his fans.

Days of Buffalo Bill has absolutely nothing to do with Buffalo Bill. The title is just a generic western title. The movie starts off with Sunset and his sidekick Banty (Tom London) trying to save a young rancher from getting taken by a couple of crooked gamblers. Sunset's good intentions backfire with the rancher being killed, and for the rest of the movie Sunset and Banty try to set everything straight. Along the way they run into Molly Owens (Peggy Stewart), the sister of the young rancher who was killed. She is a tough female rancher that everyone respects, and she tries to kill Sunset a couple of times. A nice touch is the way the double-crossers keep double-crossing each other during this movie right up to the end. There is enough action and adventure in this movie to keep it interesting, but at the end there is a situation where the right characters just "show up" at the right time to tie up the plot. Even then there is an action packed climax.

Tom London is not someone that I normally think of as a sidekick, but he was good in that role. He apparently took out an upper plate to go for a "Gabby Hayes" approach to being a sidekick. He played it kind of restrained, however, because he never steals a scene from Sunset Carson.

This is a good movie, but Days Of Buffalo Bill was not the best western of its day. Sunset was not as good an actor as some of the other Republic stars, not that many of the cowboys were that great to begin with. He was bigger than anyone around him and seemed suited to the action. That explains why Sunset Carson was one of the best liked western stars of 1946. His success at Republic was partly due to being surrounded with a good cast a crew because his later movies away from Republic were not good. Days Of Buffalo Bill is an excellent example of Sunset at his best.

Ace Diamond (James Craven) and Bill Clinker (Rex Lease) frame Sunset Carson (Sunset Carson) for the murder of a young rancher, Jim Owens (Jay Kirby as Jay Kirby). Sunset and his sidekick, Banty McCade (Tom London) escape and ride to the Owen's ranch to aid Jim's sister Molly (Peggy Stewart) in her fight to hold the ranch from being taken over by town banker Jacob Lewis (Edmund Cobb), secretly in cahoots with Diamond; both men are aware that an assay report indicates there is gold on the Owens property.

Another solid Sunset Carson western with Sunset framed for the murder of a young rancher and he later incidentally ends up working for the late young man's sister ( Peggy Stewart) who is quite nifty with a gun. There's the usual misunderstandings and villainous schemes. The suspense is good, so is the action - the fight in the mine is so wild and I loved that cliffhanger sequence where Sunset almost loses consciousness on the rail bed and almost gets hit by a mine car... Peggy Stewart plays a tough ranch lady who shoots first and ask questions later. No buffalo Bill in sight so the title is plainly wrong.