Pioneers of the Frontier

Wild Bill Elliott is playing Wild Bill Saunders once again in Pioneers Of The Frontier. This story has Saunders coming in to avenge the death of his uncle at the hands of perennial western villain Dick Curtis who was foreman of the uncle's vast Ponderosa like holdings.

The uncle played by Lafe McKee has an interesting scheme whereby he has pieces of his real estate leased by various small farmers and ranchers to make a go of it as he can't possibly oversee the whole thing himself. Something Ben Cartwright sure never tried. But Curtis murders both McKee and Carl Stockdale the lessee of one of the tracts. His daughter is Dorothy Comingore who gets interested in Wild Bill as a savior and maybe a husband.

As Elliott was McKee's nephew and closest heir it seemed to me that if he shows up and says to Curtis and his gun-hands to just clear out that would be all that was needed. But Curtis is far more megalomaniacal than he usually is as a villain and he likes running things even if he hasn't the semblance of a legal title to anything.

That makes Pioneers Of The Frontier a bit hard to swallow. But I'm sure the Saturday matinée kids didn't care at all in 1940.