O Terror das Planícies

Texas Ranger Larry Madden (Tom Keene) is excited to get his first assignment to bring in Joan Stanton (Julie Haydon) for murder. His older brother Jim is uncertain about his readiness and takes the job for himself. Jim turns up dead and Larry vows justice. Larry arrives to find a more complicated situation.

This is a pre-Code western. There is some nice stunt horse riding and other stunts. The acting is sometimes stiff. Haydon is trying too hard in a couple of scenes. The staging is a bit static in a few scenes. I like the story, but I wouldn't mind a few changes. This is mostly good all the way to the end.

Tom Keene is on the trail of Julie Haydon, the desperado who's been leaving corpses with handwritten notes pinned to them. When she leads her men on a raid on Robert Ellis' ranch, Tom takes a bullet helping her escape, and then persuades her to to come with him ..... to Ellis!

It's one of the nicely shot B series westerns that RKO, alone among the Majors, maintained from the coming of sound into the 1950s. This one has a plot that switches back and forth nicely, some singing -- Keene's westerns were the first to feature singing, although it was always in the context of folks sitting around entertaining themselves -- and a good cast, including the usually wasted Julie Haydon.

RKO hired Miss Haydon, apparently as a backup or threat to Ann Harding, and then didn't do much with her. She distinguished herself on stage, though, and wound up marrying George Jean Nathan. In this one, she plays a woman of action very well.