Renegades of Sonora

"Renegades of Sonora" is a routine little western from Republic's long running Rocky Lane series. Routine westerns from Republic Pictures however, were often better than the competition's similar offerings. Directed by western veteran R.G. Springsteen, the story keeps moving and (whew!) there are no singing cowboys.

Ambitious freight line owner George Keeler (Roy Barcroft) kills the local Indian chief and steals his medicine belt in order to incite the Indian tribe to attack the town of Sonora. While this is going on, Keeler plans to steal the local miner's gold ore and place the blame on the Indians.

Keeler's henchman is captured in another town and the medicine belt is recovered. A courier (House Peters Jr.) is dispatched to return the belt to Sonora. Unfortunately Keeler finds out about this and has the courier murdered. Rocky happens along and promises the dying man to deliver the belt to the Indian Agent in Sonora.

As you might expect Keeler has the agent murdered and steals the belt and poor old Rocky winds up being accused by grizzled old miner Nugget Clark (Eddy Waller) of murdering the agent and has him arrested. Well the rest of the movie has Rocky trying to prove his innocence which he does just in the nick of time to bring Barcroft to justice yet again.

Although Lane and Waller appeared together in most of the entries of this series, they were not always hero and sidekick. As is the case in this film, Rocky and Nugget don't even know each other. Rocky rides out alone at movie's end. Roy Barcroft (the busiest badman in westerns) was just that, menacing all of Republic's stars of the day.

Other notables in the cast are George J. Lewis as Eagle Claw, Frank Fenton as the sheriff, Marshall Reed as his deputy and Holly Bane and stuntman Dale Van Sickel as Barcroft's henchmen.

In a departure from the usual formula for his Republic films, Rocky Lane has no legal standing of any kind. He's not a US Marshal, sheriff, insurance investigator, etc. in this film. Just your ordinary cowboy who gets himself into a nasty jackpot when he comes upon a dying courier with a sacred tribal belt taking it back to the Indian agency.

Lane returns the belt to the Indian agency to whom he thinks is the agent, but turns out to be an impostor. And Rocky is accused of murdering the real Indian agent by witness Eddy Waller.

This is all part of a scheme by freighter Roy Barcroft to start an Indian war. Barcroft wants to steal mining ore while miners are fighting Indians. I don't know about you, but I would think that a villain as clever as Barcroft would find an easier way. Indian wars do tend to get out of hand.

Not the best of the Rocky Lane series from Republic.