Romântico Defensor

While traveling from Texas to Albuquerque in a stagecoach, Cole Armin (Randolph Scott) and the other passengers are robbed by criminals on the road. There is a shootout and the horses dart with a little girl inside the stagecoach, but Cole rescues her. Cole, who comes to the town to work for his powerful uncle John Armin (George Cleveland), discovers that he is a hated man that operates the local freight company and is trying to destroy the competition of Ted Wallace (Russell Hayden) and his sister Celia (Catherine Craig) that was robbed in US$ 10,000.00 in the stagecoach. Further, Cole learns that John Armin is responsible for the heist and he forces his uncle to return the robbed amount to the Wallace siblings. Cole proposes a partnership with Ted and Celia and they form the Wallace & Armin Freighting Company. The new company gets profitable contracts with the local mines and John Armin hires the outsider Letty Tyler (Barbara Britton) to work for Ted, Celia and Cole and spy their business. Further, he uses his henchman Steve Murkill (Lon Chaney Jr.) to frame Cole and put him out of business.

"Albuquerque" is another great western from Randolph Scott that performs his usual role of a fair lonely man that helps people from a city. The story is highly entertaining with action, humor and romance very well balanced with predictable twists. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Romântico Defensor" ("Romantic Defender")

"Albuquerque" is a routine Randolph Scott western set in the town of Silver City about two competing freight lines.

Cole Armin (Scott) is on a stagecoach on which oddly enough, the driver Juke (George "Gabby" Hayes) and his co-driver are not armed. As luck would have it, the coach is held up, a passenger killed and a lady passenger, Celia Wallace (Catherine Craig) is robbed of $10,000, money that was to be used by herself and her brother Ted (Russell Hayden) to get their freight line up and running. Of course Cole is immediately attracted to the comely Celia.

The purpose of Cole's trip is to go to work for his uncle John Armin (George Cleveland) and learn his freight business. Cole soon learns that his uncle is behind the robbery and forces him to give the money back (although we don't see how). He declines his uncle's job offer and joins up with Juke and the Wallaces. Evil Uncle John and his chief heavy Murkill (Lon Chaney) do all they can to foil them.

Uncle John sends for confidence woman Letty Tyler (Barbara Britton) to infiltrate the Wallace company and learn of their plans. As you might of guessed, Ted Wallace becomes enamored of Letty and she soon sees the error of her ways and double crosses Uncle John. Meanwhile, the Wallace line negotiates a contract with miners Lane Chandler and Russell Simpson to haul their silver ore down a hazardous mountain trail. Ted is injured and, you guessed it again, Cole is forced to drive one of the wagons. Well..Uncle John learns of this and in a final confrontation they........

Scott is good as always in the lead but is hampered by a predicable and somewhat weak script. Britton does her best as the good/bad girl and Craig is suitably young and innocent as Scott's love interest. In an unusual bit of casting, George Cleveland plays the chief villain, a mean spirited wheel chair bound old man. Cleveland was usually cast as crusty old towns men on the right side of the law. Chaney is wasted again as Cleveland's henchman. His fight with Scott is ludicrous since he goes through the whole thing save for the last punch, with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. Hollywood never did seem to know what to do with Chaney. When he did get a chance to act such as in "Of Mice and Men" (1939), "High Noon" (1952) or "The Defiant Ones" (1958), he exhibited real talent.

Hayes and Hayden had appeared together in the Hopalong Cassidy series between 1937-39 as Hoppy's sidekicks. Hayes after a career in "B" westerns, appeared in several Scott "A" westerns in the last years of his career, which ended in 1950.

This film gives the viewer an excellent example to see the color process "Cinecolor" a cheap technicolor clone that was being used by some studios at the time. You'll notice that the reds all seem to photograph orange (note Scott's kerchief and Chaney's long johns, for example). Not unlike Republic's "Trucolor" which seemed to have a green tinge to it.

Great to see ole Gabby in color for a change though.

Former Texas Ranger Randolph Scott travels to Albuquerque to work for his uncle's transport service, only to find the old man a swindler and a murderer. Before long, he joins forces with upstart competitor Barbara Britton, in order to show up the old man and protect her and her brother from his uncle's sabotage.

A fairly good Technicolor western, this features another sturdy performance by Scott and some nasty villainy by George Cleveland, Lon Chaney Jr., as a vicious hired hand, and Bernard J. Nedel as the crooked sheriff in Cleveland's back pocket. George "Gabby" Hayes is here too, doing what he does best, as Scott's crusty sidekick.

Some nice twists and a decent amount of action and gun-play moves things along quite nicely.

At first I thought this was going to turn into another B western since it has a cast that includes Gabby Hayes, Russell Hayden and Lon Chaney in it, but then the plot quickens and it starts to get better as time goes on.

Randolph Scott plays Cole Armin, a happy-go-lucky guy who decides to come to Albuquerque and work for his wheelchair-bound uncle, John Armin (George Cleveland) in his freight business, only to find out that his uncle has got the town under his thumb and is willing to resort to murder in order to keep it that way.

Cole decides he doesn't want any part of his uncle's business and goes to work for honest-guy Ted Wallace (Hayden) and his sister Celia (Catherine Craig) who are the only freight competition in town against his uncle. They get a contract to transport ore for the miners down from the mountains, but Cole's uncle tries to sabotage it every step of the way, including bringing in beautiful Barbara Britton to spy on them and having Lon Chaney pick fights with Cole.

But that's all for naught because Britton starts to fall in love with Hayden and she informs Cole as to what his evil uncle is up to. It all ends in a gun battle on the street and the bad guys get their just rewards, including John Armin.

I'm glad the previous poster mentioned the cheap "Cinecolor" process that Paramount originally used because I was wondering why the film had a washed-out, 'colorized' look to it. It's even more apparent on the new Universal DVD that's recently come out.

Still, it not bad. Even Gabby Hayes was bearable.

6 out of 10

Released in 1948, "Albuquerque" is a Western starring Randolph Scott as Cole Armin, who arrives in the New Mexican town to work for his wicked uncle's ore-hauling freight line. When he discovers overt corruption, he switches to another company with an eye on his partner's sister (Catherine Craig). Meanwhile his uncle hires a hottie spy (Barbara Britton) from out of town to destroy the competition.

Reviewer msroz said it best in describing "Albuquerque" as an "okay and likable western, neither exceptional nor routine." The story is interesting, but loses momentum here and there; aspects of the film are better than the whole. One aspect that's great is the cast: Scott's amiable as the protagonist, George Cleveland is effective as the wannabe godfather of Albuquerque, Lon Chaney is formidable as one of the main heavies and the two women are gorgeous, especially Catherine Craig. She's both stunning and winsome. Another great element is the scenic Southwest locations, shot in Sedona, Arizona, and Iverson Ranch, California.

As long as you can adapt to the old-style of fimmaking "Albuquerque is a worthwhile Western, but it's hampered by the negatives noted above.

The film runs 90 minutes.

GRADE: B-