Cyclone of the Saddle

An undercover cavalryman attempts to track down who is behind attacks on wagon trains.

This a typical western of it's time a short running time, stilted dialogue and a simple good versus bad story line. From a personal point of view I loved the crackly old cinematography featuring an Indian attack on the wagons.

It's a fast moving story and as predictable as night following day. You're never in any doubt that the bad guys will get their comeuppance and this is exactly what the audiences of the time wanted. It features the legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt and a good performance from the child actor Bobby Nelson. Rex Lease is no John Wayne but he makes an amiable enough hero.

This is strictly for fans of old westerns but I enjoyed it and thought this was pretty entertaining.

Cherokee Charlie (George Chesebro) and Snake (Yakima Canutt), a french-accented whip-wielder, are selling rifles to the Indians. To stop this, the Army sends agent Andy Thomas (Rex Lease), who poses as a sombrero-wearing renegade and adds a highlight for the audience trying to decide if his Spanish-accent is worse than Canutt's French accent. It isn't. Andy, Charlie and Snake converge on a wagon train which is under attack. Pa Carter (George Morrell, who shows up later as a soldier)is killed and Andy is attracted to his daughter Sue (Janet Chandler) and makes a buddy out of her younger raccoon-hat wearing brother Dickie(Bobby Nelson.) Andy, claiming to be from Taos, proves he a real cyclone of the saddle by riding Cherokee's horse (played by Black Fox the Marvel Horse, according to the credits, and owned by rodeo-performer Mable Strickland), and winning him on a bet. This ticks Charlie off,and he has Snake attach a knife to the end of his whip---the backlash is deadly if there is a miss---and kill two Indians to start an uprising. The Range Ranglers (Jack Kirk, Glenn Strange, Jack Jones and Chuck Baldra, employing another offshoot name used by "The Arizona Wranglers" band)sing four songs---"Going' Home", "The Old Wagon Train", "There's No Place Like Home" and "Range Riders"---which may or may not be in some of the chopped-up video tape versions of the film. Written by Les Adams {longhorn3708@windstream.net}

Cyclone Of The Saddle has hero and army officer Rex Lease going undercover as a wagon train scout to find out who's been stirring up the Indians. As usual it's a pair of no good white renegades played by perennial western villain George Chesebro and legendary stunt rider Yakima Canutt wielding one mean whip.

They've got to be a pair of the dumbest villains ever since the two both bungle into situations they don't have to and never know when to cut their losses. The last bungle was Canutt kidnapping young Bobby Nelson and bringing him to the Indian camp. In real life they would have just killed the kid, but this was Hollywood under the Code and even with no Code the audience for a B western like this would not go for the killing of a kid. After they were the ones watching films like these on Saturday matinée.

In addition Chesebro's got the hots for lovely heroine Janet Chandler, sister to Nelson. The kid has a steady eye and nicks Chesebro with a bullet when he tries to get too friendly.

Cyclone Of The Saddle is downgraded to a tropical storm.