The Range Busters (1940)

I'll tell you why so serious

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In this fast-paced, light-hearted Western from 1940 - "Crash" Corrigan, "Dusty" King, and "Alibi" Terhune (along with Elmer, the dummy) make up what's known as the Range Busters. These cowboy-dudes are very much like the 3 Musketeers of the Wild West, righting wrongs all across the new frontier.Homer Thorp, owner of the Circle T Ranch, finds himself in deadly danger when the mysterious Phantom strikes, terrorizing the land and killing his ranch hands.Thorp sends for immediate help from the Range Busters, 3 heroic cowboys, who have a vast reputation for bringing justice, law and order to the untamed West.When the Range Busters arrive at the Circle T Ranch they discover that Thorp has unexpectedly been murdered by the Phantom.In their noble quest to uncover the true identity of the Phantom, the Range Busters come into fierce conflict with a notorious outlaw named Torrance, along with his ruthless gang of mighty mean hombres.The Range Busters is an enjoyable Western.

The Range Busters were another trio of cowboy favorites put together in the 1940's following up on the success of The Three Mesquiteers, a group that saw a number of cowboy actors join and leave over the course of seven years from 1936-1943. With the original Range Busters, you got Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, John 'Dusty' King, and Max 'Alibi' Terhune, who was also a founding member of The Mesquiteers and stayed for a long run. Terhune was the only 'Buster' who appeared in all twenty four of THEIR films, and always managed to entertain with his wooden sidekick Elmer. The pictures were low budget and distributed by Monogram Pictures, and though their production values were somewhat below The Mesquiteers, matinée fans of the era were probably having too good a time to notice.This was the first entry in the Range Busters series, and I wish my DVD print didn't have so many jump cuts, but sometimes you have to endure the little things to enjoy your favorite film genre. The story brings our heroes to the Circle T Ranch in Paso Lobo County, Texas, where they were summoned to get to the bottom of some mysterious murders ostensibly committed by a character called The Phantom. The flick uses a little sleight of hand attempting to deflect guilt toward the blind uncle (Earle Hodgins) of ranch owner Carol Thorp (Luana Walters); her father who summoned the Range Busters was killed to open the story. You can make your own mind up whether Uncle Rolf was blind or not, he even had Corrigan guessing before the good guys got on the right track.One of the mainstays of the Range Busters films was the opening soundtrack of 'Home on the Range' playing over the opening credits. That along with Terhune's usual comic relief with dummy Elmer. If you're not too distracted, you'll notice that Max's lips move more than just a little when he's voicing Elmer, in fact sometimes (though not here), Elmer speaks when Max is several feet away and not even operating him. Don't try to figure it out, just sit back and enjoy between the horse chases and saloon brawls.

The Range Busters series were popular afternoon fare for Fifties youngsters on television. Cincinnati's WCPO-TV had a Six Gun Theater every afternoon at 5 p.m. for the young cowpokes to enjoy while Mom was rustling up chow. Of course, we couldn't eat in front of the television set so sometimes we had to come to the table, without knowing what was going to happen to Crash, Dusty and Alibi. Why Corrigan did not gain control of the series and distribute them to television stations under the banner of Range Busters Theater is anyone's guess. He had a controlling interest in the films since they were shot on his Corriganville Ranch. At the time Corriganville was opened as an amusement park in 1949, the films were being shown to youngsters on television. To us kids born after WWII, they may have seemed a little dated with Old West cowboys fighting Nazi spies, but what the heck, it was only a movie. Like their contemporary series, the Trail Blazers (Maynard, Gibson and Steele), they provided great fun for all us kids in the Fifties.

The first of the Range Busters movies. It starts off great, with a cowboy who's midway through singing a song being shot through an open window by "The Phantom." Unfortunately, there is one other song in the movie (sung by Dusty & strummed by Crash). A couple of other problems: 1) can anybody tell me why Alibi, a grown man, is carrying around a wooden dummy (Elmer) as he rides the range?, 2) can anybody tell me what happens to the Earle Hodgins character? He's a central character who just completely disappears without a mention! Other than those gripes, this is a good western, with likable lead characters, good action, & not too much humor or music, & I've never seen anyone drop a love interest as quickly as Dusty does in this movie! Enjoyable, & worth watching.