Robbers of the Range (1941) User Reviews

Bottom Feeding Railroad Agents

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 4 September 2011]

Robbers Of The Range are in fact a bottom feeding railroad agent and his grafting partners who are hoping to cheat ranchers out of their land and the big money they'll get for a right of way. Tim Holt is one such rancher and they frame him for a neighbor's murder. But Holt gets away and he moves on to the next town in the guise of a notorious gunman.

Holt goes to work for the railroad while sidekicks Ray Whitley and Emmett Lynn go to work for the new Cattleman's Association the better to find out what's going on from both ends. If those jobs had been reversed Holt would have had an easier time wooing Virginia Vale who is the daughter of the biggest rancher Howard Hickman.

Perennial western villain LeRoy Mason is the leading Robber Of The Range, but his chief henchman Ernie Adams has a great part as a real slime bag who does the killing and framing along with Tom London. Whitley and Lynn have the best scenes in the film getting a confession to both the murder Holt was framed for and another killing where Hickman is framed the same way.

Worth seeing Robber Of The Range for that alone.

solid B-western

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 27 April 2024]

Crooked railroad purchasing agent J. R. Rankin is trying buy up all the land for the incoming railway construction. His thugs kill a troublesome rancher and frames Jim Drummond (Tim Holt) for the murder who had also refused to sell on the cheap. While Drummond is being transported, the thugs attack again.

There are some fun stunts. The stage coach stunt is a standard classic. It's both dangerous and beautifully done. There is a deedle song although I would like a bar fight to go along with it. The acting is not the worst but far from the best. The second half meanders a bit. I do like the fake beating for its comedy. This is fine.

"Don't you know there's a law against murder?"

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 28 April 2024]

Cowboy hero Tim Holt takes on a dual identity in this programmer in order to thwart a classic B Western scheme in which the bad guys move in to steal the land out from under cattle ranchers and farmers. Perennial villain LeRoy Mason is once again the brains of the bad guy outfit, although he does report to a higher power in the form of Southwest Pacific Railroad boss, Colonel Lodge (George Melford). The only thing is, Lodge isn't aware of all the underhanded shenanigans, and doesn't even enter the story until the final frames. Holt takes on the guise of gunslinger Curly Yantis in order to infiltrate the Rankin gang after the real Yantis (Malcolm 'Bud' McTaggart) was shot in a stagecoach holdup.

Holt is sidekicked in this one by Emmett Lynn as the bushy faced Whopper, along with Ray Whitley as his pal Smokey. Usually in these pictures, the comic relief characters are fairly inept, but this time they really hold their own in helping set up the Rankin (Mason) bunch for a fall. The modus operandi of the outlaws is to kill a rancher and frame his neighbor or good friend for the murder. With cooperating witnesses abounding, it's not too difficult to play the local sheriff (Ed Cassidy) for a patsy, and then move in to steal the deed for the rancher's land. However, in one of the more clever B Western twists, Jim Drummond's (Holt) pals pull off an ambush and grab five thousand dollars that was on its way to Rankin in partial payment to redeem a promissory note, only to apply it to the remaining five thousand outstanding! Now that's thinking on your feet!

To round out their assistance to Drummond's cause, Whopper and Smokey get Rankin's business partner Greeley (Ernie Adams) to sign a confession by faking a working over of Rankin henchman Monk (Tom London). Even though Monk makes a getaway, it's not soon enough to stop a court proceeding under way to bring the land/murder scheme out into the open. In one of the dumbest moves you'll ever see in a Western, (although I have seen it before), Rankin's right hand man Daggett (Ray Bennett) shoots Greeley in a courtroom full of witnesses! My old pal Bugs Bunny would say, 'What a maroon'!

Needless to say, Tim Holt's character saves the day not only for himself, but fellow ranchers of Blue Mesa, who now stand to receive fair compensation for their land from the railroad if they so desire. Since Jim Drummond worked undercover most of the story, he never really got a chance to woo pretty rancher's daughter Alice Tremaine (Virginia Vale). Had this been one of the later Tim Holt Westerns, Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) would have been right there to pick up the slack!