Gun Law

Hmm...I just saw this for the first time on the Turner Classic Movie network. It was late at night and I'm starting to wonder if it was over my head or if perhaps I was just really tired.

TCM's description of the film is that an outlaw assumes the identity of a sheriff whom he has ambushed. What I saw was kind of the opposite. A lawman trails a bad guy named Raven into the desert but the bad guy gets the upper hand and steals the lawman's horse and water. The water gets spilled and Raven comes across an oasis. He ignores the words "bad water" which has been scratched into a nearby rock. Poor ol' Raven gets sick and bites the dust.

Anyway, the lawman rides into some town and pretends he is the infamously dangerous outlaw Raven. He attempts to use his new stature to clean up the town and force religion upon the clueless townfolk. Personally, I can see why this is an unknown film. "Gun Law" didn't have anything to make it worth seeing. 1/10

Gun Law finds George O'Brien and Ray Whitely doing a Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside bit of undercover work in the town of Gunsight. Whitely is a saloon entertainer and does the obligatory songs that one found in the B westerns of the time. O'Brien however masquerades as the infamous outlaw, The Raven who's been sent for by villain Robert Gleckler who runs the saloon.

Both these folks are US Marshals and O'Brien pulls off a really great con in convincing the outlaws he's one of them and then convincing them to masquerade as himself, a US Marshal. There have been a lot of stage holdups with payrolls going missing. The last and most dastardly of the outlaw deeds involve stealing church money.

It's a B western from RKO so I'm not expecting all that much. O'Brien brought a little humor into his role and of course found time to romance the parson's daughter, Rita Oehmann. Gun Law is not an hour wasted.

Finding a man alone in the desert, Marshal Tom (George O' Brien) is relieved - of his horse, clothes and water. When he catches up to Raven, he finds him dying from drinking bad water. When he gets to Gunsight, everyone thinks that he is the outlaw Raven and he plays it out so that he can end lawlessness.

An entertaining b-western starring George O' Brien benefits from a good idea - a marshal is mistaken for a notorious bad guy and he plays along with it, hoodwinking the villain almost to the end - and it doesn't outstay its welcome, and the plot is agreeable enough. The opening in the desert with the marshal bumping into the Raven, though, was an eye grabbing one, setting the scene for the rest of the film.

U. S. Marshall George O'Brien has orders to clean up the town of Gunsight. His plan is to masquerade as outlaw Edward Pawley to work his way into the bad guys' confidence. Why should they cotton to him? Because he claims to have killed Marshall George O'Brien and has the papers with his orders.

Let that percolate for a while, and repeat: O'Brien pretends to be Pawley pretending to be O'Brien. It has possibilities, and O'Brien is now working directly for RKO. For the moment they are anxious to keep him happy, so they gave him Joe August as his cameraman. You can see it in the compositions, if not the images, because the copy that plays on Turner Classic Movies looks like a blown-up 16mm. Copy, mistimed in the lab, and fuzzy sound track.

Oh, well. Ray Whitley offers a song or two.

Hollywood was probably cranking out two or three of these "Oaters" per week during the 1930s and early 1940s. They were simple "B" movies for the Saturday matinée audience.

Two things, in my opinion, made this movie a notch above the rest. First, Marshal Tom O'Malley, portrayed by George O'Brien, does not have some toothless, goofy old guy for a sidekick who tends to be more of a hindrance than a help to the hero. Instead, he is supported by a Deputy-Marshal, as played by Ray Whitley, who plays an integral role in bringing the bad guys to justice. Refreshing. Second, Whitley was a competent singer/songwriter of Western music (he wrote "Back in the Saddle Again" which became a big hit for Gene Autry) and he has a chance to perform some of his songs in the movie.

So, while the movie is hardly a must-see, it is a pleasant diversion for an hour and a cut above the standard "B" Western of that era.