Reviewed by DAN STUMPF:         


RIMFIRE. Lippert/Screen Guild, 1949. James Millican, Mary Beth Hughes, Reed Hadley, Victor Killian, Henry Hull, Fuzzy Knight, Chris-Pin Martin, Glenn Strange, Jason Robards Sr., I. Stanford Jolley and the ubiquitous (at Lippert) Margia Dean. Written by Ron Ormond, Arthur St. Claire and Frank Wisbar. Directed by B. Reeves Eason.

   Not a terribly good movie, but an unusual and intriguing one, Rimfire offers James Millican as an undercover cavalry officer in search of a purloined gold shipment. Early on he stops a stagecoach robbery (masterminded by that stalwart of the genre, the fancy-vested saloon-owner) and gets a job as deputy for the local sheriff.

   All pretty standard stuff, but it happens that one of the stagecoach passengers is a savvy gambler known as the Abilene Kid (saturnine Reed Hadley) who knows a thing or two about the local bad guys, and in short order, he’s framed for cheating at cards with a marked deck and promptly hanged by the law-abiding citizenry.

   Well I wasn’t expecting that. Nor the next part where a ghostly shadow shows up at odd times and starts murdering the rest of the cast, leaving a playing card at the scene of each slaying.

   The origins of this bit aren’t far to seek. Co-writer Frank Wisbar is best known for writing/directing Strangler of the Swamp (PRC, 1946) which also featured the ghost of a wrongly-hanged man exacting revenge. Director B. Reeves Eason, who helmed such off-beat adventures as Undersea Kingdom and Darkest Africa (both Mascot, 1936) knew his way around the world of low-budget thrills, so Rimfire achieves a certain eerie resonance as we see each doomed victim suddenly shrouded by shadow, staring fearfully into the camera as a sepulchral voice tells him his time has come. And some of the murders are unusually grim for a B-western.

   Alas, however, and also alack while you’re up, the makers of this thing opted for a fairly conventional “surprise” ending which I saw coming about 10 minutes in. Damn shame, that.

   Along the way though there’s some fairly chilling fun to be had, and if Rimfire never makes it into the ranks of Creepy Classics or Western Noir, at least it offers something a little out the ordinary to keep you watching.