Trail Guide

I love Chito's pick-up line to the wagon train cutie—"You know for a girl, you ain't bad looking". Now what gal could resist an endearment like that. Reviewer Fob's right: it's an average Holt entry. But an average entry's still fun for many of us front-row geezers. The question is what would these oaters do for plot if ranchers and settlers got along. Here, it's shenanigans around cattlemen wanting to drive off late-coming settlers. At the same time, real bad guy Regan (Wilcox) is looking to get rich by exploiting the situation. But guess who's working to put things right, that is, if Tim can keep Chito away from the girls long enough. There's some hard-riding, and some cold-blooded gunplay, but catch the lively barroom brawl where nobody loses his hat. I really don't know how they did it unless the Stetsons were glued on. Except for some opening stock shots, action never leaves greater LA locations, so scenery doesn't count for much. Anyway, it's a good supporting cast with several cuties instead of just one. So it's an entertaining way to pass an easy hour.

Tim Holt turns in a workmanlike job in this run-of-the-mill entry in his long-running series of "B" westerns for RKO. The story about cattlemen vs. homesteaders has been done countless times before, and there's nothing new to be found in the script. The action scenes are OK, the production values are good--as they usually were in this series--and there's a better-than- average supporting cast of veteran western players: John Pickard, Kenneth MacDonald, John Merton, Frank Wilcox. Pretty, but wooden, Linda Douglas is the female interest, and the picture moves along at a satisfactory pace. Tim Holt's westerns were always a bit too cut-and-dried for my tastes and Richard Martin's irritating Chito Rafferty has grated on me from the first time I saw him--the patently phony Mexican "accent" and the "devil-may-care" attitude that he was never able to quite pull off--but on the whole they were better than most of the series westerns at the time, especially the awful Whip Wilson ones from Monogram, and this is no better or no worse than others in Holt's series.

Trail Guide finds Tim Holt and Richard Martin doing just that, guiding a wagon train of homesteaders to new settlements. But when the job is done it's a lot of hostility that the new settlers are finding. Later on wagon master Kenneth MacDonald is shot and robbed of all the homesteaders money and more importantly the deeds to the new farms.

It wouldn't be a Tim Holt or any other kind of western if the cowboy heroes didn't stay and take a hand in the fight. Of course there's a nefarious villain with a nefarious reason for wanting to keep the hostility going.

Brother and sister ranchers Robert Sherwood and Linda Douglas lead the cattle people's opposition to the new settlers. Wendy Waldron is the girl with marriage on her mind where Chito Rafferty is concerned. That overactive libido working overtime again.

Distinctly unfunny and at time downright annoying his Tom London as the oldtimer comic relief.

Other than Mr. London, this is a good B western.

In an effort to keep homesteaders off the open ranges near his and his sister Peg's ranch, young Kenny Masters hires crooked saloon owner Regan to steal their claims. As the settlers' wagonmaster is ambushed and robbed, and the town marshal is killed, Kenny gets cold feet as good-guy trail guide Tim Holt and his partner Chito suspect him of the wrongdoings.

Par for the course Tim Holt and Chito Rafferty western with the expected chases, shootouts, villainous schemes and Chito running from a woman when she mentions matrimony, all executed in a workmanlike fashion. Not the most standout entry, but not bad either. I wonder if Genevieve the dog managed to jump through the hoop.

Tim Holt and Richard Martin starred in a long series of RKO B westerns from the early 1940s through the mid 1950s. Production values were good, stories generally were fine, but the directors were people like Lesley Selander, director of this effort, who knew how to shoot the scenes very well but wasn't much on directing the actors. Good actors like Holt and Martin could usually manage, although they occasionally made bad acting choices, but the leading ladies, usually up-and-coming starlets, often gave wooden readings of their lines, like Linda Douglas in this.

This is a typical entry. It is, by all means, satisfactory except for one or two performances. It is well worth your time.