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Archive for the ‘Lois Hall’ Category

DVD Review: Night Raiders (1952).

Posted in 1952, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Fuzzy Knight, Howard Bretherton, Iron Eyes Cody, Lois Hall, Monogram/Allied Artists, Warner Archive, Whip Wilson on July 17, 2025| 4 Comments »

Directed by Howard Bretherton
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Written by Maurice Tombragel
Cinematography: Ernest Miller
Film Editor: Sam Fields
Music by Raoul Kraushaar

Cast: Whip Wilson (Marshal Whip Wilson), Fuzzy Knight (Tex), Lois Hall (Laura Davis), Tommy Farrell (Marshal Jim Dugan), Terry Frost (Mike Lorch), Lane Bradford (Talbot), Marshall Reed (Sheriff Ernie Hodkins), Steve Clark (Charley Davis), Iron Eyes Cody (Cherokee)

Felt like taking the trail to Poverty Row, and since I haven’t stuck a Whip Wilson picture on here yet, I settled on Night Raiders (1952), one of Wilson’s later films — from Monogram’s last year before the switch to Allied Artists. Night Raiders is one of the pictures making up Warner Archive’s DVD set Monogram Cowboy Collection, Volume 2.

After a series of night raids on local ranches (without anything being taken), Fuzzy Knight sends for marshals Whip Wilson and Tommy Farrell to aide Fuzzy’s boss (Steve Clark) and his daughter (Lois Hall). Turns out it’s part of a plot to locate $15,000 that was hidden after a train robbery.

Whip Wilson (born Roland Charles Meyers) had been a singer before getting into the movies. After Buck Jones was killed in the 1942 fire at the Coconut Grove, Monogram went looking for someone to replace him. They felt Meyers resembled Jones a bit (personally, I don’t see it) and they gave him the name Whip Wilson. He’s not a great actor by any means, but he’s good with action and comes off as likable.

Before Night Raiders, Lois Hall made three Johnny Mack Brown pictures, including Colorado Ambush (1951). Along with appearing alongside Brown and Whip Wilson, she was in some Jimmy Wakely and Durango Kid movies. She also did some serials and plenty of TV Westerns like Wild Bill Hickok, Kit Carson, The Lone Ranger and The Range Rider. She continued working into the 2000s.

This was the last feature for director Howard Bretherton, who got his start doing props back in 1914. In the early 20s, he started working as an editor and wound up at Warner Bros. He got the chance to direct While London Sleeps (1927), a Rin Tin Tin movie.

Bretherton left Warner Bros. in 1935 and was tapped by Harry Sherman to do the first six Hopalong Cassidy films before eventually making his way to Monogram. There, his abilities often overcame the studio’s paltry budgets and punishing schedules.

Like so many directors from this period, Howard Bretherton tried his hand at television before retiring. He directed episodes of Racket Squad and Adventures Of Superman.

Night Raiders is included in Volume 2 of Warner Archive’s terrific Monogram Cowboy Collection, a nine-picture set dedicated to Wilson and Rod Cameron. The films all look great. Though they don’t get what you’d consider an actual restoration, the transfers are very nicely done.

I wish Warner Archive would spend more time digging around in the Monogram vaults. The stuff they’ve put out thus far are some of the real joys of my collection. All 10 volumes of the Monogram Cowboy Collection come highly, highly recommended.

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DVD Review: Texas City (1952).

Posted in 1952, Bud Osbourne, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Johnny Mack Brown, Lewis D. Collins, Lois Hall, Lyle Talbot, Monogram/Allied Artists, Russell Hayden, Warner Archive on February 11, 2024| 1 Comment »

Directed by Lewis D. Collins
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Written by Joseph F. Poland
Director Of Photography: Ernest Miller
Film Editor: Sam Fields
Music by Raoul Kraushaar

Cast: Johnny Mack Brown (Marshal Johnny Mack Brown), James Ellison (Jim Kirby), Lois Hall (Lois Upton), Terry Frost (Trag), Lane Bradford (Hank), Lyle Talbot (Captain Hamilton), Marshall Reed (Yarnell), Pierce Lyden (Marshal George Markham), Lorna Thayer (Aunt Harriet), Bud Osborne, Bill Coontz, John Hart

Seemed like a Lyle Talbot kind of day, so I pulled out Monogram’s Texas City (1952) starring Johnny Mack Brown — a solid little Western produced toward the end of Brown’s run at Monogram.

After a series of Army gold shipments are held up, Marshall Johnny Mack Brown is brought in to investigate. He suspects that the crooks are using the ghost town of Dawson City as their base. There he meets Lois Upton (Lois Hall), a young lady who’s just come West after inheriting the town’s dilapidated hotel and Jim Kirby (James Ellison), a young man who arouses Johnny Mack’s suspicions. 

This one’s got everything: gold shipment robberies, a ghost town, a cave hideout (with a secret entrance behind a grandfather clock), a pretty girl from back East, Bud Osbourne driving the stage and, of course, Lyle Talbot as a crooked cavalry officer.

One of my favorite things about the Johnny Mack Brown Monograms is his hat. (Never underestimate the power of a good hat in a Western.) Conversely, Lyle Talbot’s hat is just terrible. He must’ve made somebody mad in the Monogram wardrobe department.

Lois Hall was in three Johnny Mack pictures, a couple Whip Wilson things, two Durango Kids, some Sam Katzman serials at Columbia and Republic’s Daughter Of The Jungle (1949). She’s usually terrific, but she doesn’t have a lot to do in this one. James Ellison had been in the early Hopalong Cassidy pictures, I Walked With A Zombie (1941) and a series of Lippert Westerns co-starring Russell Hayden. Not long after Texas City, Ellison would leave the picture business for real estate.

John Hart appears as a cavalryman in the opening shootout — about a year before he (temporarily) replaced Clayton Moore on The Lone Ranger. Lorna Thayer, who plays Lois Hall’s aunt, later played the waitress who winds up on Jack Nicholson’s bad side in Five Easy Pieces (1970).

Texas City is one of nine Monogram Westerns included in Volume 4 of Warner Archive’s Monogram Cowboy Collection. It has all three pictures Lois Hall did with Johnny Mack Brown.

Texas City was beautifully shot by Ernest Miller, making good use of locations we’ve all seen a hundred times. So it’s nice to see Miller’s work well-presented here. Though it obviously wasn’t given what we’d call a full restoration today, the transfer is excellent. These Monogram Western sets are wonderful, one of my favorite things Warner Archive has done. If you don’t have ’em, you’re really missing out. Highly, highly recommended.

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DVD Review: Colorado Ambush (1951).

Posted in 1951, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Johnny Mack Brown, Lewis D. Collins, Lois Hall, Lyle Talbot, Monogram/Allied Artists, Myron Healey, Warner Archive on September 11, 2023| 1 Comment »

Directed by Lewis Collins
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Screenplay by Myron Healey
Director Of Photography: Gilbert Warrenton
Film Editor: Fred Maguire
Music by Edward J. Kay

Cast: Johnny Mack Brown (Johnny Mack Brown), Myron Healey (Chet Murdock), Lois Hall (Janet Williams), Tommy Farrell (Terry Williams), Christine McIntyre (Mae Star), Lee Roberts (Gus), Marshall Bradford (Ben Williams), Lyle Talbot (Sheriff Ed Lowery)

Lois Hall came up recently when Imprint Films announced their upcoming Blu-Ray set Tales Of Adventure, Collection Two — which has her starring in Republic’s Daughter Of The Jungle (1949). And since I’ve been meaning to revisit the Warner Archive Monogram Cowboy Collection sets, why not take a look at one of Miss Hall’s Johnny Mack Brown pictures? Conveniently, all three are on Volume 4 of that terrific series.

In Colorado Ambush (1951), somebody’s picking off Wells Fargo riders to get ahold of the payroll. It looks like an inside job, and Johnny Mack Brown is sent to investigate. He soon meets the Williams family — father Marshall Bradford, daughter Lois Hall and son Tommy Farrell — who care for Wells Fargo’s horses and are in charge of transporting the payroll. Only they know when a rider is carrying the money.

Turns out Farrell’s in cahoots with the ruthless Myron Healey and Christine McIntyre to ambush the riders toting the dough. And when Brown and sheriff Lyle Talbot start to sort out the scheme and things go south for the crooks, the bullets fly and the bodies start piling up. There’s not a lot of the cast left breathing at the end of the picture’s 51 minutes.

Monogram’s B Westerns of the late 40s and early 50s were obviously done on the skinny, both time-wise and financially. But there’s usually plenty of shootin’ and ridin’, some great character actors — and of course terrific leads like Wild Bill Elliott and Johnny Mack Brown. What’s more, they tend to be more adult than what you expect from pictures like this. And in the case of the Johnny Mack Brown films, there’s the added benefit of the wonderful hats he wears.

In an interview with Boyd Magers, Lois Hall said of Johnny Mack Brown: “I feel the same thing everybody else says about him…a true gentleman. And a little distant. He wasn’t one to sit around the set. He went back to his dressing room between things. But a very pleasant person.” Brown was evidently as likable on the set as he is on the screen. 

Myron Healey is not only the villain in Colorado Ambush, he was also the screenwriter. His script is pretty clever — how the bad guys know when the riders are carrying the cash is rather ingenious. Healey scripted another Johnny Mack picture, Texas Lawmen (1951).

Lyle Talbot plays the sheriff, an old friend of Brown’s. This was about a year after Talbot appeared as Lex Luther in the serial Atom Man Vs. Superman (1950). It’s always a treat when Talbot shows up in something, and since he made a point of never turning down work, he turns up quite a bit.

Lewis Collins directed dozens of Westerns like this, including some of the William Elliott and Whip Wilson Monograms (oh, and 1950’s Hot Rod) that were being done around the same time Colorado Ambush was released. Collins died of a heart attack in 1956. He’s a bit like Lesley Selander — you can count on him to make a decent, fast-moving Western under about any circumstances.

As I mentioned earlier, Colorado Ambush is included in Volume 4 of Warner Archive’s Monogram Cowboy Collection, a nine-picture set that also includes some Jimmy Wakely films. It gives you all three Brown Westerns co-starring Lois Hall, the other two being Blazing Bullets (1951) and Texas City (1952). The films look great — even though they don’t get an actual restoration, the transfers are very nicely done. Personally, I kinda like some dust or scratches here and there, and there are a few incidents of each in Colorado Ambush. The sound’s excellent. I wish Warner Archive had kept digging around in the Monogram vaults. The stuff they put out are some of the real joys of my collection. 

Colorado Ambush, this set, the Monogram Cowboy Collection and anything else Warner Archive gave us from Monogram is highly recommended. You’re not gonna come across a masterpiece, but you’re certainly gonna be entertained.

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