Rio Grande Raiders

This 1946 cowboy saga stars the amiable Sunset Carson as a cowpoke working to help his brother, who has just been released from the pen. The always reliable Bob Steele appears as the brother, who is being used as a pawn by a dastardly businessman.

This film will be enjoyed by fans of the B-westerns that filled the matinees in post-war America. Carson was not a very convincing actor, but did handle the action scenes and lighter moments pretty well. Steele was a well-rounded performer, who is outstanding here. The lovely Linda Stirling was a great casting choice.

I enjoyed the plot in this film and found this fairly entertaining. Carson's career was pretty brief and this film was one of his better performances.

Maybe it was just a casting thing, but whatever possessed Herbert J. Yates to approve casting the 6'6" Sunset Carson with 5'6" Bob Steele as brothers? In scenes together in Rio Grande Raiders the two looked positively ridiculous. No way anyone even the most enthusiastic B western fan would believe those two as siblings.

In the tradition of the B western Carson is in white while Steele is in Black. They work for most of the film for rival stagecoach lines, Carson for Edmund Cobb and Steele for the ruthless Tris Coffin who'll do just about anything to put his rival out of business and pulls some dastardly stunts.

It's also a case of acting chops as well. Steele developed some pretty good ones while Carson who is cut to be a cowboy hero never was anything else. It really, painfully shows in their scenes together.

Siblings, siblings, there were never such fighting siblings.

Sunset Carson is a driver for the stagecoach line, Harding Transportation. His brother Jeff (Bob Steele) who has just been paroled from prison also works for Harding Transportation. Marc Redmond, the corrupt owner of the rival Redmond Transportation Line, played by the familiar and always good Tristram Coffin (what a great name!) has Jeff under his thumb because it was he who enabled Jeff's release from prison. Jeff quits the Harding Company and goes to work for the shady Redmond. An action highlight is the stagecoach race; in this one Sunset is pushed off the stage falling under it, and then climbs up the back of the fast moving stage and has a fight on top of the stage with the bad guy who had pushed him off. What an exciting stunt. There was one scene that caught me off guard – Sunset and Nancy Harding (Linda Stirling) flat out lie to the Sheriff about a certain incident. I don't recall ever seeing the hero telling such a lie in a B Western. The supporting cast does a solid job in this movie and Bob Steele certainly was a better actor than Sunset Carson. One slightly jarring element in the casting of the characters is that Sunset Carson was 6' 6" and Bob Steele was 5' 5". Given that they were brothers, they had a lot of scenes together. Every time I saw them together I couldn't help thinking of Mutt and Jeff.

Sunset Carson, ace driver for the Harding Stagecoach Line, persuades his boss Frank Harding (Edmund Cobb) to hire his brother Jeff (Bob Steele), recently released from the penitentiary. Sunset isn't aware that Jeff owes his release to Marc Redmond (Tristram Coffin), owner of the rival line, and that Redmond is forcing Jeff to give him advance information when the Harding stages are carrying valuable shipments so that his henchmen can rob the stage and force Harding out of business.

Brothers are pitted against each other as they are on opposites sides of law - Sunset Carson is the good brother who works for a Stagecoach line and Bob Steele plays the former Stagecoach employee who works for the villain who has a shotgun toting man behind a curtain. Rio Grande Raiders is action-packed western with plenty of impressive stunt work, length chases - it's these things that make this western quite watchable. Plus there's fine acting all around.