Across the Plains

This is the first Jack Randall western I've seen, and I must say I'm impressed. You learn not to expect too much from a Monogram picture--and that's usually what you get--but this one is different. Randall had an easy-going manner and wasn't a bad actor at all. He was a good rider and handled action well. In this above-average Monogram oater, he's a trail scout named Cherokee who was adopted by Indians as a child after his parents were killed by a bandit gang in an attack on a wagon train. His little brother (Dennis Moore) was taken by the bandits and raised as one of them, and they told him it was Indians who had killed his parents. Years later the two brothers run into each other but don't know they're brothers. Director Spencer Gordon Bennet keeps things moving swiftly, and there's some really good use made of locations at Lone Pine, California, that give the picture a very sweeping and expensive look, something you don't often see in your run-of-the-mill "B" western. Addison carries the picture well, Moore has a meatier role than he often got and does well with it, Joyce Bryant is pretty to look at, veterans Bud Osborne and Glenn Strange are around for authenticity, and there's a good gun battle at the end with somewhat of an ingenious little twist. All in all, a very pleasant and pleasing little B from Monogram. Check it out.