The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen

There are Hooded Horsemen but not much of a mystery in The Mystery Of The Hooded Horseman. Still as this was a B picture feature for the Saturday matinée kid crowd it had a lot of riding and shooting with Tex Ritter singing a song or three for Grand National Pictures.

Tex Ritter and sidekick Horace Murphy come upon a gang of masked horsemen wearing Ku Klux Klan like hoods instead of your regular bandanna masks who shoot down and kill an old friend of Tex's father. The cowboy code demands Tex take action and he does. Of course there's some singing and a little romance with leading lady Iris Meredith.

There are a couple red herrings thrown at the audience as suspects, but it doesn't take too much to figure out who the leader is. Keep it simple for the kids and I'm sure they enjoyed it back then.

Tex Ritter's country stylings in his songs are the main reason to watch The Mystery Of the Hooded Horsemen today however.

To all you lovers of B-westerns, hold on tight...I am about to say something really, really mean. I've seen at least a hundred or more of these movies in the last six months and of all the cowboy heroes, the lamest I have seen is Tex Ritter. I know he had a lot of fans since he made so many movies, but I just can't see his appeal. Since these are particularly cheaply made films (even for Bs), the acting is among the worst and his singing, generally, is pretty limp. When you see a Ritter film and compare it to a Roy Rogers, Tim McCoy or Three Mesquiteers film, the quality difference is very noticeable--and not for the better.

In this installment, Tex investigates a group of hooded killers. They are NOT the KKK neither are they particularly scary. For example, there is one shootout scene where at least 100-200 shots are fired--and at the end, only one guy is hit! These must be the most myopic villains in film history--as the gang of a dozen or more don't manage to have even one of their bullets land!! The only bullet that hits its mark is one of Tex's--and for that, the community wants him to head a vigilante crusade--though they have no idea WHO these men are. All they know is that Tex's gun can apparently hit something...occasionally. But, when Tex dresses up as a hooded rider, d, now things look bad as the community now think HE is one of the dreaded gang (and you know that they are bad due to the skull and crossbones on their silly uniform). Can Tex extricate himself and find the real baddies? And, can he manage to sing a song that doesn't make your ears bleed? Well, as for the latter, no. His song "I'll Ride, Ride, Ride" is particularly painful--with all of its 'woo-woo-woos'! Of all the Ritter movies I've seen so far, this is probably the worst due to dopey villains and really, really bad acting. Only for die-hard fans who can look past all this. Limp and silly.

This is a mediocre western programmer, utterly unremarkable and not worth your time, except for Ritter's singing of traditional songs, particularly his rendition of "Ride Around Ye Little Dogies." The acting is more concerned with making sure that people speak clearly, and the gunfire sounds like cap pistols.

All of your western tropes can be found in this film. Horse chases, gun fights, bar fights and Tex singing some nice country ballads. Worth a watch for fans of the western genre, but might be less appealing to the casual viewer.

Singing cowboys were big back in the day before they invented color and Tex RAINBOW OVER THE RANGE Ritter was of the same magnitude a performer as Roy Rogers even if some of the material he had to work with was occasionally cringe-worthy. The songs Tex has to sing this time aren't exactly top of the pops and The Ranch Ramblers howling like coyotes on stage at the saloon fare no better. This could have used a little more love and attention from the lowly Grand National Films and producer Lindsley ROLLIN' PLAINS Parsons. Tex finds himself coming to the rescue of a young lady (Iris THE SON OF DAVEY CROCKETT Parsons) who's being hounded by a gang of hooded bandits. Along with his loyal steed White Flash, our hero infiltrates the marauders to the consternation of the sheriff (Earl THE PURPLE VIGILANTES Dwire) who can't tell the good guys from the bad. From writer Edmond TEX RIDES WITH THE BOY SCOUTS Kelso and director Ray FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE Taylor. B&W.