For anyone keeping score, this was the eighth Range Busters film from Monogram Studios, who churned them out at a gallop beginning with the first in the series simply titled "The Range Busters". To give you an idea how prolific they were, eight pictures were made in 1941 alone, with a total of twenty four appearing between 1940 and 1943. The original trio of Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, John 'Dusty' King and Max 'Alibi' Terhune appeared in the first sixteen pictures, and an educated guess tells me that Alibi's wooden dummy Elmer did too.
Most of these pictures offered pleasurable matinée entertainment for young fans of the day, though some might find they take a little getting used to today. As a fan of this stuff, I can watch them all, but even so some are better than others. This one's OK, but it's got some clumsy elements that are downright hokey, like the lame gimmick the doc called 'actiminikosis' when treating Crash and Dusty for their discolored blue tongues. Seems I developed the same symptoms once when I had some blueberry pie.
The story opens with Crash getting arrested and then breaking out of jail with Dusty's help, along with outlaw Red Langdon (Bob Kortman), who shows his appreciation by introducing the boys to his outlaw bunch holed up in Fugitive Valley. It's a standard plot device used in dozens of B Westerns, here used with a slight twist as Alibi comes on the scene pretending not to know his partners, and using the stage name of Professor Hammo the Great, renowned magician and ventriloquist. That's where Elmer comes in, though he didn't really have much of a part to play in this one.
A cool element in the story has to do with the character of Ann Savage (Julie Duncan), who's role is left rather ambiguous as she assumes the identity of a mysterious outlaw known as 'The Whip'. Meeting up with her 'gang' at a secret hideout, she takes part in a robbery, and it's not until the finale that we learn she's actually working as an undercover Pinkerton Agent to take down the baddies led by Glenn Strange. The final showdown is a rather awkward affair, as some of the bad guys get shot down returning fire with no cover, not really a smart move if you ask me.
If the idea of a a woman heading up an outlaw gang is one that you find intriguing, a picture I can recommend has Jennifer Holt in the title role of "The Hawk of Powder River", an Eddie Dean flick from 1948. It's not often you'll see a female gunned down in a Western, but it happens in that one. Meanwhile, back in Fugitive Valley, the boys in conversation with Miss Savage have some thoughts about settling down only to be brought back to their senses by Alibi, anxious to get on to their next adventure with his closing remark - "Come on, we're ridin'."
Most of these pictures offered pleasurable matinée entertainment for young fans of the day, though some might find they take a little getting used to today. As a fan of this stuff, I can watch them all, but even so some are better than others. This one's OK, but it's got some clumsy elements that are downright hokey, like the lame gimmick the doc called 'actiminikosis' when treating Crash and Dusty for their discolored blue tongues. Seems I developed the same symptoms once when I had some blueberry pie.
The story opens with Crash getting arrested and then breaking out of jail with Dusty's help, along with outlaw Red Langdon (Bob Kortman), who shows his appreciation by introducing the boys to his outlaw bunch holed up in Fugitive Valley. It's a standard plot device used in dozens of B Westerns, here used with a slight twist as Alibi comes on the scene pretending not to know his partners, and using the stage name of Professor Hammo the Great, renowned magician and ventriloquist. That's where Elmer comes in, though he didn't really have much of a part to play in this one.
A cool element in the story has to do with the character of Ann Savage (Julie Duncan), who's role is left rather ambiguous as she assumes the identity of a mysterious outlaw known as 'The Whip'. Meeting up with her 'gang' at a secret hideout, she takes part in a robbery, and it's not until the finale that we learn she's actually working as an undercover Pinkerton Agent to take down the baddies led by Glenn Strange. The final showdown is a rather awkward affair, as some of the bad guys get shot down returning fire with no cover, not really a smart move if you ask me.
If the idea of a a woman heading up an outlaw gang is one that you find intriguing, a picture I can recommend has Jennifer Holt in the title role of "The Hawk of Powder River", an Eddie Dean flick from 1948. It's not often you'll see a female gunned down in a Western, but it happens in that one. Meanwhile, back in Fugitive Valley, the boys in conversation with Miss Savage have some thoughts about settling down only to be brought back to their senses by Alibi, anxious to get on to their next adventure with his closing remark - "Come on, we're ridin'."
