Billy the Kid's Range War

Bob Steele got his turn to play Billy the Kid for Producer's Releasing Corporation in Billy The Kid's Range War. It's yet another western in the Hollywood tradition of taking a well known western character and putting them in a plot that would have nothing to do with their lives. In this case, the title is even wrong because there is nary a cow to be sighted in a picture where there is no range war.

What there is in this horse opera is Rex Lease is going around dressing like Bob Steele, riding a horse like Bob Steele's to make everyone think he's Bob Steele while he commits all kinds of crimes including murder. Of course the real Billy wants to get to the bottom of this, especially after he's accused of murdering Joan Barclay's father.

Al St. John is in his usual sidekick role and Carleton Young who later graced many a John Ford film plays friend Pat Garrett in all, but name.

Nothing too terribly special here, Billy The Kid's Range War which was not didn't even have the production values of the great B cowboy studio Republic.

Billy the Kid (Bob Steele) gets framed for murder by the sheriff (Ted Adams). Rex Leese is his doppelganger providing artful subterfuge for the Marshall (Charleton Young). Adams and Young are going to haul the Kid to the pokey but luckily his pal (Fuzzy St. John) is a dead aim with a slingshot. Attorney (Stephen Chase) states that someone is trying to stop Ellen Goreham (Joan Barclay) from completing her road for the stage line that is under construction. Billy takes the precarious job of going undercover as the road crew's new foreman in a desperate attempt to stop the hooligans. Great to see a most loyal character actor of 100's of films Milton Kibbee and Shakespearean trained Julian Rivero. Although Range War had sub standard production quality, it had many great actors of the era and plenty of action which fit in nicely with the 57-minute time frame.

With the help of a crooked sheriff, a group of villains frame Billy the kid (yet again) for the murder of a stage line operator who's attempting to build a road that the men want stopped.

Billy goes undercover as the road crew's new foreman in order to stop the sabotage of the line and catch the real killers.

This is a pretty forgettable undistinguished entry in Producers Releasing Corporation's Billy The Kid series. As usual, Bob Steele and Al St. John are good and the locations are excellent, but there's too much talk and not enough action this go-around.

The titular range war is nowhere to be found.