The Texans

After the Civil War, the former Confederates of Texas are suffering under harsh taxes, ill treatment and corruption by the Federal Government during the Reconstruction era. Texas ranch owner, Ivy Preston accompanied by her grandmother Granna and her old ranch foreman, now the trail boss, Chuckawalla is trying to move her cattle to market to sell them. The carpetbaggers are not only trying to seize her cattle without payment but want her ranch as well for their own ends.

A Confederate veteran named Kirk Jordan ( Randolph Scott) who has had enough of war and convinces her to drive her cattle to Abilene, Kansas rather than Mexico but he is upset with her when he learns she wants to use the money to help the South continue fighting.

The Texans is a solid western set around the aftermath of the Civil War and the carpetbaggers (its depiction is really well done, quite grim). It has a healthy mix of humour, adventure and action, namely in some exciting sequences where the cattle driving are braving the elements through conflict such as Comanches and carpetbaggers. Joan Bennett plays the heroine and she's quite breezy, Randolph Scott is Randolph Scott and is solid but it's May Robson as "Granna" who steals the picture. There's a little love rivalry thrown in with Scott and Cummings vying for Bennett. I wonder who gets the gal. Ah! That's a no brainer. There's some slow bits and too many subjects are shoved into his running time but overall a solid western.