

It is now an accepted fact that the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns were directed by the talented Joseph H. Lewis. Boss of Hangtown Mesa may not be in the same league as the Brown-Lewis classic Arizona Cyclone, but it comes awfully close. This time around, hero Steve Collins (Brown) comes to the aid of Betty Wilkins (Helen Deverell), who has taken over the telegraph-line business established by her uncle John (Henry Hall). The latter was murdered by outlaws who don't cotton to having the territory linked up electronically with the rest of the world.

Betty Wilkins

It is now an accepted fact that the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns were directed by the talented Joseph H. Lewis. Boss of Hangtown Mesa may not be in the same league as the Brown-Lewis classic Arizona Cyclone, but it comes awfully close. This time around, hero Steve Collins (Brown) comes to the aid of Betty Wilkins (Helen Deverell), who has taken over the telegraph-line business established by her uncle John (Henry Hall). The latter was murdered by outlaws who don't cotton to having the territory linked up electronically with the rest of the world.
1942-08-21
10
BULLETS BLAST THE BADLANDS!...as a two-gun terror blazes the Western trail of the Telegraph!
7.3The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
6.9In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.
6.5While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.
6.5Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.
6.3A man and his partner arrive at a small Western town to kill its most powerful man because the former blames him for his wife's death.
6.8An ex-convict drifter and his flawed young partner are made sheriff and deputy of a Western town.
6.5When vigilante land baron David Braxton hangs one of the best friends of cattle rustler Tom Logan, Logan's gang decides to get even by purchasing a small farm next to Braxton's ranch. From there the rustlers begin stealing horses, using the farm as a front for their operation. Determined to stop the thefts at any cost, Braxton retains the services of eccentric sharpshooter Robert E. Lee Clayton, who begins ruthlessly taking down Logan's gang.
7.0When a gang of ruthless claim jumpers brutally murders his miner father, a gunman known as the Silver Kid joins forces with the local marshal to free the tiny town of Silver City from the clutches of the dastardly villains.
6.7A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.
6.3Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a 'sanitary engineer' named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.
6.3A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vicious outlaws takes over his town.
6.5After crossing the border illegally for work, Miguel, a hard-working father and devoted husband, finds himself wrongfully accused of murdering a former sheriff’s wife. After learning of his imprisonment, Miguel’s pregnant wife tries to come to his aid and lands in the hands of corrupt coyotes who hold her for ransom. Dissatisfied with the police department’s investigation, the former sheriff tries to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and discovers disturbing evidence that will destroy one family’s future, or tear another’s apart.
6.7In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
7.8A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
6.1Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.
6.8A former sheriff relentlessly pursuing the 7 men who murdered his wife in Arizona crosses paths with a couple heading to California.
6.4A renowned former army scout is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers but finds himself on trial for the murder of a boy when he carries out his job too well. Tom Horn finds that the simple skills he knows are of no help in dealing with the ambitions of ranchers and corrupt officials as progress marches over him and the old west.
7.2Tom Destry, son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn’t believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent.
6.3Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.
7.6Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
7.0A guitar-playing drifter helps a rancher's granddaughter find her true calling. They soon find themselves in the middle of a land war driven by quirky characters and magical realism.
7.0Lassiter discovers the judge who cheated his neice of her inheritance leads a gang of bad guys posing as vigilantes. This 1941 Fox production stars a young George Kennedy as Lassiter.
7.3Not to be confused with the 1929 film The Overland Telegraph, this Western from director Lesley Selander stars Tim Holt as a cowboy appropriately named Tim Holt. In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) enlists the assistance of a gang of outlaws led by Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont in one of his many pre-Leave it to Beaver roles). Unfortunately for the bad guys, Holt and his cohort Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) sense that there's foul play afoot and embark on an investigation.
9.0Two-fisted cowboys fight for law and order in their encounters with outlaws.
6.2Billy Carson and Fuzzy Jones have just collected a reward and Fuzzy indulges in a dream of getting away from the hectic life he has been leading and wants to settle down. They arrive in Red Rock just as the newspaper is being sold at foreclosure and, despite the attempts by Lafe Barlow to intimidate him from bidding. Fuzzy finds himself the owner of a newspaper. Fuzzy meets Edith Martin, daughter of the former owner, and unthinkingly commits himself to carrying on her father's policy of bringing a telegraph line to Red Rock. For reason of his own, Barlow is against this and has his henchmen wage a campaign of terror against the ranchers and citizens. Before long, Billy who had been lazily indifferent to everything connected to Fuzzy and his newspaper, decides to take a hand on the side of the good guys.
8.0Johnny Mack Brown is sent to the badlands to round up an elusive outlaw gang.
5.2The arrival of the telegraph put Pony Express riders like John Blair and his pal Smoky out of work. A race will decide whether they or stageline owner Drake get the government mail contract.
6.8Marshall Jed Cooper survives a hanging, vowing revenge on the lynch mob that left him dangling. To carry out his oath for vengeance, he returns to his former job as a lawman. Before long, he's caught up with the nine men on his hit list and starts dispensing his own brand of Wild West justice.
6.8After arriving at his new, remote Army outpost, Capt. John Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify the gruesome claims.
5.0A young doctor rejects his older outlaw brother Johnny who put him through medical school by dubious means. The brothers find themselves on opposite sides of a range war between homesteaders and a crooked cattleman.
6.3Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a 'sanitary engineer' named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.
9.0Eddie and his sidekicks have been called in to help get a new telegraph line through. Dawson and his men along with his stooge Judge are out to stop them. When Eddie and the boys catch three of Dawson's men destroying telegraph equipment, the Judge releases them and this leads to the showdown between the two sides.
6.5Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.
5.5In this western, brave Red Ryder and his sidekick save a murdered judge's son from going to jail by proving that someone else killed his father.
5.8A circuit judge in the old west attempts to bring a suspected killer to justice. The judge runs afoul of the killer's rich cattle baron father in the process.
5.7The Mesquiteers capture a horse thief who escapes justice through a crooked judge. They gather signatures urging the governor to investigate but a friend with the petition is murdered. Stony is accused.
4.3To increase profits for his shipping company, Lynch has goaded the Indians to attack both the telegraph line and the new railroad. When Lynch sells rifles to the Indians, Rod Farrell captures Lynch and his gang. But Lynch's Indian friends free him and this time Farrell finds himself the prisoner.
6.5A singing frontier judge (Gene Autry) dismisses a case of double jeopardy.
8.0The two nieces of the deceased Charley Bronson arrive to learn that an unknown judge will determine which one of them will inherit his ranch. But Bronson is still alive and posing as the cook. Hilda learns of this and sets out to use this information to win the ranch from her cousin Laurie.