Boot Hill Bandits

Ray "Crash" Corrigan was a star who became just better and better as an actor.

He was a good-looking guy who got his start by being good-looking and athletic, but unlike some others who started on their looks, his talent came to the fore and he soon showed, as in "Boot Hill Bandits," acting ability to match his looks.

This Range Busters outing had a script that entertains with wit as well as action, with some good-natured joshing among the three heroes, and some credible fussing among the bad guys.

And all of it was well performed, with leading lady Jean Brooks giving another illustration of how unfortunate we all are that she wasn't given the chance to be a big star. She had the looks and the talent, but not the luck. A frequent Hollywood story.

Besides the action and the story, the best part of this movie is the interplay between and among the characters, with the town sheriff, played so well by the astonishingly prolific Steve Clark, standing out among the many.

Glenn Strange got to shine with a bizarre character, as did Stanford Jolley, an actor who is terribly under-rated.

Budd Osborne and George Chesebro also get big parts, and as usual show they could handle any role.

This Range Busters series is new to me. I don't recall seeing an entire entry before and now I'm spoiled: This one, "Boot Hill Bandits," is so good, I will expect high quality from the others I am now setting out to see.

Again, we thank Westerns on the Web and Bob Terry for bringing this to us.

During the course of The Three Mesquiteer films by Republic, stars who played the three leads in the series changed often. Eventually, two of the later stars, Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune, got into a dispute with the studio and left for Monogram Pictures. There, they made virtually identical films as The Range Busters. Unlike the Mesquiteer films, the make-up of the trio didn't vary for most of the run, with Corrigan, Terhune (along with his idiotic dummy, Elmer) and Dusty King played the leads. Sadly, in the final third of the series, the studio began messing with this formula...adding other folks to the lineup. "Boot Hill Bandits" is one of the first 2/3 of the films...with the usual Range Busters.

Early in the story, some baddie comes gunning for Corrigan...and the locals are scared of the gunman. But Corrigan is a Range Buster, so you know he'll defeat this jerk. As a result, he's made the town marshal and soon the bossman of the baddies decides to have him killed so that he'll be able to hijack the payroll with impunity. But Corrigan isn't killed and pretends that he is...so he and the other Range Busters can covertly investigate and figure out who is behind all the naughtiness in town.

This represents one of the demonically possessed episodes of the series. What I mean by this is that there is a scene where Max Terhune's dummy, Elmer, moves without anyone touching him! He moves his lips and backtalks a baddie as Max is standing across the room from them! I never understood why they had this dummy in the films...but in a few the dummy talked and moved on it's own. Nightmare fodder!

Aside from needing an exorcist, the film is pretty good...one of the better and more enjoyable installments of the series.