I came across this picture by chance on a community access cable TV channel and found it quite satisfying, much better than the usual low budget Western. It supports Republic's reputation for doing a lot on a small budget. (Before the closing credits, I could tell it was a Republic picture by the distinctive sound effect that company used for every type of gunshot.) This is the type of Western that would soon be killed off by television, but the people who made and acted in them would be kept busy in that medium. Republic Studios would go to be the home of numerous TV Westerns produced by Four Star, Revue (before it moved to Universal), and CBS (who would later purchase the studio complex).
2 Reviews
"That fella was shootin' awful straight, we weren't gonna sit still for that".
classicsoncall9 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Rocky Allen arrives at the town of Bear Creek to help insure the safe arrival of forty thousand dollars the citizens have raised to build a new hospital. It's not clear to me now as I write this why the forty thousand dollars wound up OUTSIDE of Bear Creek so that it had to be shipped back, but I guess it's not that important. After one of the town's doctors is killed in an ambush, Rocky devises a plan with the remaining Doc (Ross Elliott) and Sheriff Davis (Irving Bacon) to smoke out the bad guys and save the day.
"Desert of Lost Men" takes it's name from the outlaw gangs who holed up in Arizona as nameless hoodlums. In the tradition of your late Forties, early Fifties Saturday afternoon matinées, the picture abounds in shoot 'em up action and endless horse and rider chases back and forth across the screen throughout the picture. I hadn't noticed it before, but Rocky's horse Black Jack is a magnificent looking animal, standing out from the rest of the herd, so to speak. I guess that's why he got second billing.
As with most of these 'B' oaters, the story is fairly formulaic, and the lead cowboy could have been anybody - Rex Allen, Charles Starrett, Tim Holt, or a dozen others. But this time it was Rocky Lane, and Rocky brings the bad guys to justice in fine order before the final curtain comes down.
"Desert of Lost Men" takes it's name from the outlaw gangs who holed up in Arizona as nameless hoodlums. In the tradition of your late Forties, early Fifties Saturday afternoon matinées, the picture abounds in shoot 'em up action and endless horse and rider chases back and forth across the screen throughout the picture. I hadn't noticed it before, but Rocky's horse Black Jack is a magnificent looking animal, standing out from the rest of the herd, so to speak. I guess that's why he got second billing.
As with most of these 'B' oaters, the story is fairly formulaic, and the lead cowboy could have been anybody - Rex Allen, Charles Starrett, Tim Holt, or a dozen others. But this time it was Rocky Lane, and Rocky brings the bad guys to justice in fine order before the final curtain comes down.
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