Blazing Across the Pecos (1948)

Wow! Such a good movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Copyright 17 June 1948 by Columbia Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 1 July 1948. U.K. release: September 1952. Not theatrically released in Australia. 6 reels. 55 minutes. U.K. release title: UNDER ARREST.SYNOPSIS: Gambling czar's efforts to seize control of the town are foiled by the Durango Kid.COMMENT: Above average Durango Kid western. There's plenty of action including a stagecoach chase with exciting running inserts and some good stunt-work (Jock Mahoney who has a brief two-or-three-line role doubles for the Kid) and some spectacular Indians-on-the-warpath stock footage. The patter-type musical numbers rendered by Mr Burnette and Red Arnall are very pleasant too, and Mr Burnette's foolery is fairly amusing. Charles Starrett does his usual competent job and we liked Charles Wilson's rubber-faced villain. Nazarro's direction is a cut above his usual standard and production values are generally adequate. Despite his prominence in the cast list, Thomas Jackson has only a minor role, the bulk of the support work being carried by Jack Ingram as Buckshot and Paul Campbell as Jim Traynor, neither of whom figure in the credits at all!OTHER VIEWS: A gambler wants to build a private empire out of Pecos Flats, so he bribes a band of Indians to terrorize the townsfolk and raid the wagon trains. Of course the Durango Kid sorts him out in time. Much the usual Starrett standard western, with plenty of pace and little subtlety. - E. Victor Dyer.

"Blazing Across the Pecos" starts out promisingly enough with an Indian attack on a trading post but soon gives way to its small budget and aging villains.Mayor Ace Brockway (Charles Wilson) is trying to drive rival Matt Carter (Thomas Jackson) out of business by having his trading post attacked by Chief Bear Claw (Chief Thundercloud). The Chief is being supplied with rifles by Brockway. The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) discovers a hidden Indian costume and a saddle ornament discarded by Brockway henchman Buckshot Thomas (Jack Ingram). Durango you see is trying to discover who is behind the raids.Later as Steve Blake, he manages to get appointed Deputy Sheriff under that fearless lawman Smiley Burnette and begins to investigate. Blake manages to foil assassination attempts by such fearless killers as Gunsmoke Ballard (Frank McCarroll). As Durango, he gains the support of newspaper editor Jim Traynor (Paul Campbell) and Carter's daughter Lola (Patricia White). The army buys up Carter's cattle for $20K which allows him to pay for much needed supplies for the settlers. Brockway gets Bear Claw to attack the supply train in return for 100 rifles, however the rifles are taken by Durango and.......................This film owes most of it's action sequences to stock footage first the attack on the fort then the raid of the supply train and lastly a cattle stampede. There are no fist fights other than the one in silhouette in the saloon between Starrett and Ingram. And the ending...no chase and no shoot out, what a disappointment. The supporting cast is below average. I can't say that I've ever heard of Charles Wilson or Frank McCarroll both who were too old for their parts.Patricia White later became Patricia Barry and went on to a lengthy career in both movies and television. Jock (Jack) Mahoney who doubled Starrett as the Durango Kid in the action scenes (of which there are few), gets to play a small role in the film. Musical group Red Arnell and The Western Aces liven things up with a couple of numbers as does Burnette complete with his frog voice.And look out Durango, Gene Autry is on his way to the studio to eat up even more of your budgets.

If memory serves correctly, my summary line quote sounds like something Yosemite Sam might have said to Bugs Bunny in one of those early Warner Brothers cartoons that frequently parodied Hollywood films. If not, then he should have.Fans of the Durango Kid know that the story writers regularly recycled his adventures so it's not unusual to run across films that are similar in nature. "Blazing Across the Pecos" has villainous mayor of Pecos Flats, Ace Brockway (Charles C. Wilson) selling rifles to the Indians who in turn raid a series of trading posts owned by Matt Carter (Thomas E. Jackson), in an effort to force Carter out of business so Brockway can take over all the local commerce. A few years later, the Durango Kid found himself in a similar situation in 1951's "Snake River Desperadoes", another early Western unique to my mind because it actually featured Smiley Burnette and his Silver Coronet Band performing a polka! Now that's versatile.Speaking of Smiley, he's got a gimmick here in which he tries to perform the old tablecloth pull from the table trick without losing any glasses. He didn't do too bad with three glasses but sort of goofed when he tried fifty eight. I'm sure he needed just a little more practice.Now here's a trick Durango manages to pull off that's even better than Smiley's. Remember when he was chasing the stagecoach with the outlaw inside who was guarding the carbines destined for the Indians? Well Durango shot the guy, who was sitting with his back to the rear of the stagecoach, and the bullet hit him in the chest! That would have been a trick shot enough by itself, but that bullet had to also make a ninety degree left turn into the stagecoach! That Durango sure had control of his weapon! Well none of this stuff was supposed to make sense for the matinée kid fans back in the day, as long as the good guys won and the bad guys got what was coming to them. A few tunes by Smiley Burnette and The Western Aces band provided some additional entertainment in this one, and on top of that, Smiley even let out with a 'Jumpin' Jehosophat' at one point. I guess he was having a pretty good time.

If you had seen as many Durango Kid westerns as you said you did, you should have realized that these were designed for kids some sixty years ago. Barry Shipman who wrote several of the screenplays admitted that they were written to a formula and as such the plots did tend to become a bit stereotyped. Frankly, we didn't care. We were there for a afternoon of fun and excitement where we could scream and yell to our hearts content without too much adult supervision. Obviously if you had been in the audience as an adult, we would have thought it was a little strange. The reason that the print quality is so bad is that Columbia cranked these things out on a budget. They were not meant to last several decades and in fact, many have disintegrated through the years because of poor storage. What I can't understand is if you were bored by the film, why didn't you turn it off. That way, you could have spent the rest of your hour more constructively. Incidentally, Charles Starrett hails from Athol, Massachusetts, whose family owned a machine tool business.