Oklahoma Badlands

Enjoyable western starring Rocky Allan Lan. Great stunts, great action.

A slight bit of gender bending humor is part of this Allan Lane western Oklahoma Badlands. Lane is the best friend of a rancher who is murdered by Roy Barcroft who is playing his normal role, the chief henchman who handles the rough stuff for the big boss brains of the outfit.

The humor revolves around the last surviving member of the Rawlins family Mildred Coles who plays Leslie Rawlins. When she witnesses Roy Barcroft nearly kill a fellow male passenger on a stagecoach assuming that the man was Leslie Rawlins, Rocky Lane decides to become Leslie Rawlins the better to ferret out the leader.

And Coles masquerades as her own housekeeper and has a running battle with foreman Eddy Waller.

Another good performance to watch out for is western perennial Earle Hodgins who plays a ham actor who the bad guys hire. It was an acting job that nearly bought him his last reviews.

One of Allan Lane's best Republic westerns.

When Ken Rawlins and his father are both murdered, Rocky Lane hits town to try to save the Rawlins Ranch and its new owner, niece Leslie Rawlins (Mildred Coles). Through an assumed identity and with the aid of cantankerous foreman Nugget Clark (Eddy Waller), Rocky tries to flush out bad guys Oliver Budge (Gene Stutenroth) and his henchmen Sanders (Roy Barcroft) and Sharkey (Dale Van Sickel) to stop their scheme to control the valley.

As usual this entry in the Rocky Lane Series features lots of action and a higher quality feel then might be expected from the limited budget. A lot of the credit on the early Rocky Lanes has to to go to writer Bob Williams who did ten in the series. Williams added unique twists and angles to his scripts not often seen in B-Westerns. While this is one of his more straight-forward efforts, he uses the mistaken identity theme to move the action oriented, one-upsmanship plot along.

Roy Barcroft who plays Henchman Sanders is at his vile back-shooting best in this one. If anybody wonders why Barcroft is considered the iconic B-Western Bad Guy check out Oklahoma Badlands. Committing crimes too numerous to mention, never is Roy better than when he is playing the remorseless, wisecracking action-heavy.

Worth watching if you have an extra 59 minutes.