A Roda da Fortuna

Produced immediately following his summer tour with the Downie Brothers Circus, Bill Cody's "The Lawless Border" is exceptionally good, despite the lack of typical B western movement. Producer Ray Kirkwood's wife, Jean (billed as Zara Tazil), devised a script which veers away from some of the traditional elements of the genre, yet maintains interest with a sound plot and well-motivated characters.

Director J. P. McCarthy succeeded in getting from Cody what is perhaps his best performance on-screen, with the help of nice photography by Robert Cline and the best editing of the series, judiciously executed by Jarrell Gose. Cody is a government agent this time, investigating the smuggling of arms across the Mexican border. To support him is perhaps the strongest cast Kirkwood assembled for the Cody series, including Molly O'Day as the love interest, Martín Garralaga as a splendid sidekick, Ted Adams as a criminal struggling with conflicting impulses, and Joe de la Cruz as a scurrilous would-be dictator - all provided with better material than one might expect to find in the typical series western script.

More melodrama than western, and with fine performances and good direction, "The Lawless Border" is a standout in Ray Kirkwood's series of Bill Cody features, distributed by Spectrum Pictures.