PRAIRIE LAW. RKO Radio Pictures, 1940. George O’Brien, Virginia Vale, Slim Whitaker, Paul Everton, Cy Kendall. Directed by David Howard.

   Generally speaking, I didn’t intend to include reviews of B-western movies here on the M*F blog, but since there’s more than the usual amount of criminous activities going on in this film’s 60 minutes, I decided to break my own rule, and who better?

   A crooked land promoter, Judge Ben Curry (Paul Everton), is taking money from farmers hand over fist, without telling them two things: One, that the former ghost town of Olympia City, where his headquarters are, has no water, and two, that the land he is selling them belongs to cattleman Brill Austin (George O’Brien).

   Yes, in this movie it is the cattlemen who are the good guys and not the usual other way around. Among the settlers is the daughter of one of the farmers, Priscilla Brambull (Virginia Vale) – and no, I didn’t think of that until right now, and no, it’s not that kind of movie. Among other legal misbehavior committed by Judge Curry is his blatant attempt to call for an election without proper notice, stuffing the ballot box, and declaring Olympia City the county seat so that the killer of the sheriff, Brill Austin’s Uncle Jim, can be set free.

   Later on in the movie while a valid trial is being held in Prairie Rose, the jury does double duty: while deliberating on the verdict, they’re also dodging bullets by the judge’s henchmen. All this in sixty minutes, I remind you, which also includes a song sung by the uncredited Ray Whitley and his band.

   There’s nothing here to be taken too seriously, as the players certainly don’t, but other than that, it’s a rather pleasurable experience. As for George O’Brien, a former silent film star who went into non-series westerns like this one when talkies came in, this was close to the end of his steady movie career.

    [Truth in advertising: The photo of O’Brien comes from another film of the same vintage and not this one — but it could have been.]

STAR IN THE DUST. Universal, 1956. John Agar, Mamie Van Doren, Richard Boone, Leif Erickson, Colleen Gray, James Gleason, Terry Gilkyson, Harry Morgan. Based on the novel Law Man (Ballantine #51, 1953) by Lee Leighton (Wayne Overholser). Directed by Charles F. Haas.

   A “B” western, perhaps, but it packs a lot of drama into its 80 minutes. Folksinger Terry Gilkyson, soloing on his guitar, frames the story from time to time, the tale of a bad man named Sam Hall (Richard Boone), who is to be hanged at sundown at the end of the single day in which the this film takes place.

   But why is a review of a western movie here in the first place, on a website dedicated to crime and mystery fiction, you may ask. And I reply, in almost every western, whether in print or on film, there is a crime, and as a bonus, there is often a crime to be solved.

   The mystery in this case is, who hired Sam Hall to kill three farmers who (the ranchers say) crossed over the creek into their lands? The sheriff (John Agar), who’s been staying neutral and keeping the peace, has his own battles to fight, trying to live up to his father’s reputation on the job, for one, and salvaging his wedding to the sister (Mamie Van Doren) of the banker (Leif Erikson) who’s the head of the cattleman’s association (see below).

   And (as fate would have it) this would-be brother-in-law is his leading suspect as well. It’s a tough job, but Sheriff Jorden seems up to it. You might think that Mamie Van Doren would be out of place in a western drama, but I certainly didn’t mind. It also seems to me that throughout his career James Gleason always played skinny old men, and at the age of 74, when he made this one, he’d finally grown into the part. Richard Boone may have made a better western villain than he did a western hero (Paladin), and even if you may not agree, he’s at his best (that is to say, his nastiest) in this one.

   There are a few twists and turns in the tale, more than I expected, but as far as the identity of the man who hired the killer is concerned, unfortunately there is no twist at all. There’s plenty of full color action, though, for those who look for that in their westerns, including one sprawling fight between two ladies who are no ladies at the time at all, neither of whom is played by Mamie Van Doren, who is always very definitely a lady.