Bonanza Town (1951) User Reviews

Two for One!

[bsmith5552 · 5/10 · 2 April 2018]

"Bonanza Town" is another cost conscious entry in Columbia's Durango Kid series starring Charles Starrett and Smiley Burnette. The "B" western series were all coming to a close and the various studios were incorporating stock footage from previous films into their product. Columbia was no exception. Approximately half of "Bonanza Town" uses footage from 1947's "West of Dodge City".

The story opens with Durango chasing down a wagon containing Smiley Burnette for no apparent reason (it was probably stock footage). They tacked on new footage with Steve Ramsay (Starrett) directing Smiley to go to town and be on the lookout for Henry Hardison (Fred F. Sears who also directed) who is passing marked bills around town. Smiley next turns up as a barber instead of the wares salesman he was in the runaway wagon.

Steve, who is a Treasury Agent, believes Judge Anthony Dillon (Luther Crockett) is an honest contact that he can trust. In reality the Judge is controlled by town boss Krag Boseman (Myron Healey) who in turn takes his orders from Hardison.. We are then taken by flashback to the earlier film where Hardison and his gang are wreaking havoc among the citizens. Hardison blows up a dam and is believed to have perished. But the marked bills have revealed that he survived. Back in the present, Hardison makes his move and...............................................

The stock footage from "West of Dodge City" is the best part of this film. I suppose that if you hadn't seen the earlier film, you would have liked this one. There's a virtual who's who of western players in "West of Dodge City", such as George Chesebro, Steve Clark, I. Stanford Jolley, Zon, Murray, Marshall Reed, Bud Osborne and Bob Wilke in the cast.

In "Bonanza Town", the small budget really shows. Healey's office is a good example. For a town boss he had simple furnishings and space. His gang which includes Charles Horvath look at times like The Three Stooges falling through doors and the like. Speaking of the Stooges, look for veteran comic and Stooges foil Vernon Dent as Smiley's bearded customer.

Fred F. Sears who played the same character in both films, was the only repeat villain in the Durango Kid series and he apparently gained some weight between the two films. At "Bonanza Town's" climax, you can plainly see Jock Mahoney's face as he doubled Sears falling off of a roof.

"Hurry up Smiley, we're ready to go!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 23 November 2014]

Early in the story when Steve Ramsay (Charles Starrett) arrives in River Bend, old pal Smiley Burnette greets him by saying "I haven't seen you in a coon's age". I've always assigned a pejorative meaning to the term so to get things straight I just had to look it up. It turns out the phrase dates back to the early 1800's and simply refers to 'a long time', possibly because raccoons were thought to live a long time, especially in captivity. And you thought B Westerns weren't meant to be educational.

A good half of this Durango Kid flick takes place in an extended flashback some four years prior to the main story. An outlaw town boss by the name of Henry Hardison (Fred F. Sears) was presumed killed in a flood when a powder blast set by the bad guys destroyed a dam and flooded the valley around River Bend. Hardison was pressuring local rancher Avery to sell his property, presumably to use the reservoir for a power project.

Apparently staying dead was Hardison's idea of maintaining control behind the scene while operating outside the law through surrogate Krag Boseman (Myron Healey). At the same time, he was blackmailing his own brother, town judge Anthony Dillon (Luther Crockett) using an assumed name. If you join the picture pretty much anywhere except right from the beginning, it's a pretty safe bet you'll miss the nuance to all this, and wind up as confused as Smiley seemed to be once Durango's alter-ego Ramsay hinted at Hardison's being still alive.

About midway in the story, Smiley thought he had it figured out who Hardison was, and became determined to shave the beard off the suspect when he came calling at Smiley's tonsorial parlor. Getting it wrong, the customer in turn shaved Smiley's head, who learned that Rocky Mountain Hair Restorer didn't quite live up to it's name.

Out of the Durango Kid catalog of fifty plus films, this one's not going to rank up there with the best, but it's entertaining enough if you pay attention. One of Smiley's singing numbers is called the 'Rooty Toot', which follows a snappy rendition of 'It All Shows to Go Ya' (not a misprint). For the finale, keep an eye on baddie Hardison as he finally gets his due at the hands of Durango. Shot while on an upper story roof, Sears' stunt man guides his fall to another roof just below, and pushes off so he can complete the maneuver to the ground. Seems these outlaws cheat at everything.

Although below form, it's still a must-see entry for Fred F. Sears fans!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 26 October 2014]

Although it starts off with a rousing chase after a covered wagon, complete with running inserts, this film is mainly of interest for the opportunity to watch director Fred F. Sears direct actor Fred F. Sears, who has a lead role here as Henry Hardison. Otherwise, it's a slightly below average example of the Durango Kid cycle. At least half the story is narrated in flashback, introducing stock footage from a previous entry, namely West of Dodge City (1947), which we could not at the time identify. We don't object to this sort of cutting back in production values so long as the stock material from West of Dodge City and so on is reasonably exciting. It isn't!

Good Production Values But Trite Script

[FightingWesterner · 4/10 · 2 December 2009]

The Durango Kid is called upon to clean up a town beset by a ruthless gang that goes unmolested due to the town's judge being in their hip pocket.

Bonanza Town is technically well made, fairly fast-paced, with an adequate amount of action, and also features a few good songs courtesy of Smiley Burnette. However, the script is quite tepid and the movie very forgettable.

I've never seen any of The Durango Kid movies before this one, so I'm not sure how it holds up to others in the series. But the fact that this Saturday matinée style B-western was made in 1951 instead of 1941 and the studio was Columbia Pictures and not Producers Releasing Corporation or Monogram Pictures, leads me to believe that this should have been a better overall picture than it ultimately was.

Bonanza town

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 9 April 2023]

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.

Bonanza" director Fred F. Sears appears in both films as the same character, who was supposed to die in the first film, but is back now making life miserable for a judge. It can be quite complicated as scenes from other Durango Kid is sewn into the flash back, which was Columbia's ways to cut down on costs. Still, it's a wholesome entertainment with some nifty shoot em up scenes.