Saddle Mountain Roundup

This particular film in the Monogram Range Buster series finds Dusty King, Ray Corrigan, and Max Terhune with the ever loquacious Elmer doing more detective work than hard riding and shooting.

Saddle Mountain Roundup finds the Range Busters working for miserly old John Elliott who lives alone in his ranch house with his Chinese cook Willie Fung. Someone is trying to murder Elliott and someone succeeds before the Range Busters arrive.

As it is only two of them Dusty King and Crash Corrigan do the detecting. Max Terhune is delivering a ranch payroll and he and Elmer the dummy get kidnapped. By the way Elmer actually has more of role than he did either with Range Busters or the 3 Mesquiteers. In a roundabout way he foils the plans of villain.

Only at the end is there really a lot of riding and shooting associated with these films. Still Saddle Mountain Roundup is decent enough western entertainment.

I have never really understood Max Terhune. In his Range Buster films, he's always toting about his ventriloquist's dummy, Elmer. Think about it....a hero riding about the range with a puppet in his arms! Because of that, I can never take any of his films very seriously, that's for sure. So, at the outset, this one could be, at best, a decent film--never a very good one.

The story is a nice change for the series because in some ways it's like combining a Charlie Chan or old dark house movie with a traditional B-western. It begins with a very nervous old man writing a letter to the Range Busters requesting their help. However, before they arrive, the old guy has been murdered--and so, naturally, the three (Dusty King, Ray Corrigan and Terhune) investigate. One of the possible killers is a guy named 'Blackie'---and this is at least a dead giveaway that he's NOT one of the good guys! Overall, the film is a decent mix of action, comedy and mystery. Not great but a nice change of pace for the series.