Charles Starrett once more hits the trail as "The Durango Kid" in Columbia's Across the Badlands. By now, the formula was a well-oiled machine: Starrett becomes a lawman, is challenged by the local criminal element, and ultimately goes beyond the law as the masked Durango.
Charles Starrett once more hits the trail as "The Durango Kid" in Columbia's Across the Badlands. By now, the formula was a well-oiled machine: Starrett becomes a lawman, is challenged by the local criminal element, and ultimately goes beyond the law as the masked Durango.
1950-09-14
0
The Badlands Echo With Six-Gun Action!
Charles "Durango" Starrett and his pal Smiley Burnette go after smugglers. Our heroes travel incognito across the Mexican border to beard the leader of the gang in his den.
Fort Savage Raiders is another entry in Charles Starrett's "Durango Kid" western series. Starrett once again does double duty as a peacekeeper named Steve (this time his last name is Drake) and as masked avenger Durango. The heavy of the piece is escaped military prisoner Craydon (John Dehner) who, with several other fugitives from justice, forms an army of terrorists.
When Robin Grant inherits a valuable range, certain evil interests try their best to kill off Robin and claim the land for themselves. US Marshall Steve Saunders comes to the boy's rescue.
Jim Stewart comes to Mesa City and buys a ranch from publisher Matt Edwards, who is confined to a wheelchair. The area is terrorized by an outlaw gang known as The Phantoms. When Jim's cattle herd is rustled and his ranch foreman Pop Evans killed, he takes an active hand against the gang in his guise as the Durango Kid.
Outlaws of the Rockies is the fourth of Columbia's revitalized "Durango Kid" series. Charles Starrett is back in the saddle as the masked do-gooder Durango, aka easygoing sheriff Steve Williams. Accused of being a member of an outlaw gang, Williams is forced to don his Durango disguise to bring the actual criminals to justice.
The Durango Kid rides again in Lightning Guns. As ever, the masked Durango (alias Steve Brandon) is played by Charles Starrett, who this time around is on the trail of a gang of cold-blooded killers. Rancher Dan Saunders (Edgar Dearing) is held responsible for the killings because of his opposition to a politically expedient dam project. Durango believes that Saunders is innocent, and he intends to prove it.
Starrett tries to prevent a range war between settlers and the Native Americans. Blue and his fellow scoundrels think they can profit from the bloodshed,but the Durango Kid along with a couple of precocious youngsters put an end to Blue's terrorism.
Western star Charles Starrett was amazing; he kept making the same film over and over, but always made it seem as if it was for the first time. In West of Sonora, Starrett once again plays a frontier good-guy named Steve (Steve Rollins, to be exact), who, when the need arises, disguises himself as The Durango Kid, masked righter of wrongs. This time, Steve/Durango champions the cause of 10-year-old Penelope Clinton (Anita Castle), who has spent her short life as the focus of a feud between her grandfathers, suspected outlaw Black Murphy (Steve Darrell) and Sheriff Jack Clinton (George Cheseboro).
Filmed at the Providencia Ranch (today's Forrest Lawn in Burbank, CA), this typical "Durango Kid" Western featured the Cass County Boys performing "Go West Young Lady" by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, in addition to series regular Smiley Burnette singing his own "It's My Turn" and "The Yodeler. This time, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) is chasing down a gang of outlaws shipping stolen gold in crates marked "ring bolts," ably assisted by Smiley, a treasury agent working undercover as a house painter. Virginia Maxey supplies female interest and little Tommy Ivo, in one of his six appearances in the Durango Kid series, also gets in the way of the action.
Using marked bills, Steve is looking for the supposedly dead Henry Hardison. Coming to Bonanza Town he gets a job with the town boss Crag Bozeman and gets paid with marked bills. He suspects Hardison is Boseman's boss and he is right as Hardison and his men are now planning to get rid of both him and the Durango kid.
Mahoney is a sheep man who's framed for the murder of a rancher. It's all part of a scheme by a dishonest cattleman who hopes to extenuate a range war for his own profit. The Durango Kid helps clear Mahoney's name.
It's 1873 and the disbanded Texas Rangers have been replaced by the corrupt Texas State Police. Steve Lanning arrives posing as a wanted outlaw to get in with them in his attempt to have them replaced. His inside work helps the Durango Kid break up the State Police raids but he is in trouble when his secret identity as Durango becomes known to them.
Quick on the Trigger was Charles Starrett's second "Durango Kid" picture for 1949. It all begins when ousted sheriff Steve Warren (Starrett) is put on trial for the murder of heroine Nora Reed's (Helen Parrish) brother. Steve is innocent, of course, but he doesn't stand a chance against prosecuting attorney Garvey Yager (Lyle Talbot) -- especially since Yager is the real killer.
Steve is a Government Agent looking for the gang that stole the U.S. Mail. He goes undercover...
Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.
Charles Starrett makes his final appearance as The Durango Kid, this time as Steve Reynolds, a postal inspector who has gone underground to catch the bad guys. His longtime sidekick, Smiley Burnette appears as an itinerant optometrist who is hardly in the plot line of the film. Jock Mahoney plays Jack Mahoney, an eastern educated dude who has come back home. The Durango Kid teaches Jack how to draw and fire a six-gun, and the two ultimately work together to bring the outlaws to justice.
In Prairie Roundup, Fred F. Sears' direction brings a welcome jolt of vitality to Columbia's aging "Durango Kid" western series. Once again, Charles Starrett stars as Steve Carson, a lawman who is forced to assume the identity of masked do-gooder Durango. Framed for murder, Carson escapes to locate the real killer. It turns out that he was set up by cattle baron Buck Prescott (Frank Fenton), who eliminates competition by stealing livestock from other ranchers.
A major Indian uprising is expected and Wyoming military posts are alerted. Colonel Dennison is meeting with Chief Eagle and his son Running Wolf when Chief Eagle is mysteriously shot. Steve Holden, an agent for the government peace commission, with the aid of a wandering shoemaker, Smiley, discover the troubles and the Chief's murder have been instigated by Cronin, the regimental scout, for personal gain for he and his gang of outlaws.
When Sheriff Jeff Connor of Powder River cannot stop the crime wave, his young son, Larry, writes to the Durango Kid for aid. Taggart, the saloon owner, is the secret head of the outlaws, while Connor's brother Bill is in cahoots with him. Steve Randall, the Durango Kid, and his pal, Smiley Butterbean, arrive in time to stop a stagecoach holdup, and Steve is made a deputy sheriff. Taggart has one of his men, Slade, pose as the Durango Kid and while he is speaking to the townspeople, the rest of the outlaw gang pillages the town, and this somewhat damages the Durango Kid in the eyes of Larry and his sister Doris. Steve suggests that Sheriff Connor visit the government about a railroad project, and Taggart instructs Slade and the gang leader to kill Connor on his trip back.
A late entry in Columbia's seemingly endless Durango Kid Western series, Cyclone Fury was augmented with a hefty dose of stock footage from an earlier Durango effort, Galloping Thunder (1946), footage that included sidekick Smiley Burnette warbling "Hear the Wind (Singing a Cowboy Song)" accompanied by Merle Travis and his Bronco Busters.