Knight of the Plains

I chanced upon this film one rainy afternoon and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

It is the usual western tale of the good guy tackling the bad and greedy land grabber. The plot is simple and holds few surprises but nonetheless it holds a certain charm. The lead actor is no acting superstar but is amiable enough and the rest of the cast is surprisingly good for what was probably a B movie.

The action rolls along at a pleasing pace leaving little time for fillers except for the occasional musical interlude.

This film will almost certainly only be enjoyed by fans of old westerns, as it is dated. However if you fancy a bit of old fashioned celluloid history then this is nice way to pass the time.

Produced by Stan Laurel this B western stars Fred Scott who was a kind of singing cowboy in the 1930s and 1940s.

It is a simple, efficient and fast moving western. A greedy land grabber uses fake deeds to get hold of some land and uses a fake Mexican to sell it on. The new landowner evicts the homesteaders leading to resentment and potential violence.

Scott who has cattle stolen from the land grabber's gang decides something his dodgy with all this land business and having fallen for a new girl in the plains decides to investigate and if need be uses his fists and guns to get to the bottom of the skulduggery.

Its a time passer, brisk and no great shakes. Scott looks overweight but gets to sing a few songs.

Difficult to understand why Stan laurel would want to be bothered to crank out B Westerns,Maybe to give employment to Al St John,whom he probably played with many times in silent comedies.St John has some very boring business first trying to solve a puzzle and then tripping up over everything.No doubt the idea being if it isn't funny the first time maybe it will be the tenth time.Unfortunately it isn't.The plot is rather bog standard the usual stolen land grant.Fred Steele sings a few songs and fights the baddies most of whom look extremely overweight and who would not be able to hit a cows backside with a banjo.The ending and everything about this film is predictable.