"The Topeka Terror" is a rip-snorting, action-packed Allan Lane adventure set during the western land rushes of the late 1880's. Republic seems to have taken care to make this a quality entry in the 1945 B-western corral, for the directing and production values are all done pretty darned well. The story is involving and easy to follow. This is Allan Lane just before he embarked on his Red Ryder stint and before his "Rocky" Lane persona took flight. He has a nice presence but doesn't seem to have quite the charisma here that he would later carry during those personas yet to come. But the rest of the cast is sharp, with several distinctive characters on the move. The always more-than-reliable Roy Barcroft does a fine job here as a scheming and sinister land swindler, and you just know he's going to have some kind of a showdown tangle with Lane before the show is over. And character actor Earle Hodgins... he has a lot of fun in his role (and so do we) as an apparently newly-minted dude lawyer who is not quite ready for prime time, using his new professional vocabulary in ways that confuse even himself. There is a lot of action in this film, including a spectacular runaway wagon rescue and a really big, all hands on deck saloon fight. In fact, there are several fight scenes, all of which are choreographed and performed very well. Be advised, however, that gun battles are the order of the day; Allan Lane picks off quite a few bad guys with his blazers...but all in a day's work I guess. And now for a final note about the music score: sometimes music in these 1940's B-westerns can be obnoxious and intrusive, but I found the effort here thankfully to be tempered and appropriate. So all in all, go into this one expecting to have fun... and you probably will.
Review of The Topeka Terror
