Law of the Badlands

Law of the Badlands (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Warner two-reeler has a Calvary man (Robert Shayne) framed for murder. Years later he's released and sets out for revenge about the man who framed it but he gets caught up Custer and the Little Big Horn battle. This is a pretty straight-forward and standard Western but at the same time it's very fast paced and entertaining from start to finish. A lot of the action sequences were lifted from THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON but they're edited quite well into the story here and in the end this is certainly an entertaining short as long as you don't take it too serious or try to pass it off as true history. The subplot of the man framed was an interesting story, if not that original. The way the revenge is carried out leads to some nice fist fights and I couldn't help but get caught up in all of them. The action was great even though most of it was lifted.

Law Of The Badlands was an example of Jack Warner's economy. Don't let good footage go to waste. Here a lot of battle footage from They Died With Their Boots On is recycled into this short western about a man cashiered from the 7th Cavalry played by Robert Shayne who never stops trying to find out who framed him for murder.

Shayne with young Angela Greene survives a stagecoach holdup perpetrated by the same villains and that ties in to the impending massacre at Little Big Horn. Can't say any more about this cut rate western.

Another of Errol Flynn's westerns Dodge City was recycled into one of these short westerns. In that one you could plainly recognize Flynn in the stock footage, here less so.

I do wonder how Errol Flynn felt about this.

Making extensive use of stock footage for all the battle scenes (from THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON), this Warner short tells a half-baked story about an man wrongly accused of a crime who gets a chance to prove that he's really innocent of all charges.

It starts out at Ft. Lincoln and immediately goes into the Custer story for background information. Scenes of Indians around a campfire are lifted from BOOTS and then frequently reappear throughout, especially toward the end when the story reaches the Custer "Little Big Horn" sequence, inserting shots of the hero alongside those of Errol Flynn as Custer.

It's strictly a routine "shoot 'em up western" with a stagecoach robbery for starters, lacking any sort of inspired touch as regards acting and direction.