Boot Hill Bandits

Starring:Ray Corrigan, John 'Dusty' King, Max Terhune, Jean Brooks (II), John Merton, Glenn Strange, I. Stanford Jolley, Steve Clark, George Chesebro, Richard Cramer, Budd Buster, Milburn Morante, Jimmy Aubrey, Herman Hack, Ray Henderson (II), 'Snub' Pollard, James Sheridan, Victor Adamson, Carl Mathews, Tex Palmer
Director: S. Roy Luby
Studio: Alpha Video
Product Type: DVD

Description

Marshal "Crash" Corrigan's first assignment in the town of Sun Dance is to find a missing stagecoach carrying a mine payroll and recover the strongbox full of cash. Outlaw saloon owner Brand Bolton and his henchman who pulled the robbery, booby-trap a stagecoach with a keg of dynamite and Corrigan barely escapes with his life.While the gang and most of the town believe the Marshal to be dead, he recovers from the explosion. With the help of his Range Buster buddies, "Dusty" King and "Alibi" Terhune he continues his pursuit of the bandits.The Range Busters, featuring John King's cowboy songs and Max Terhune's humorous banter with his dummy Elmer, rode alongside Corrigan through more than twenty Western features between 1940 and 1943.

Customer Reviews:

One foot in the grave.......2007-03-05

Specifically regarding the Alpha DVD. The source print was a worn 16mm dupe which is soft and has some missing frames plus a few audio dropouts. It certainly is viewable but better on a small television than a large High Def screen. The soundtrack is adequate with minor distortion. Overall, slightly above average for Alpha.

The film's storyline is pedestrian as is Ray Corrigan. This is standard, low-budget westen fare made during the height of World War II. Obviously, not everyone was rushing off to war, as the Range Busters series was cranked out throughout WW2.

Although this is available on Amazon for less than $3.50 with shipping, it is not worth the price. If you can find it a yard sale or swap meet for a dollar, then buy it.

This B-Western is annoying - there are better examples of the genre out there.......2005-08-13

This review is for "Boothill Bandits" issued by Alpha Video. It runs about 56 minutes.

The quality of this film transfer is decent, not great, but adequate considering the age of the film. The film transfer is better than the average issue you generally see of this type of public domain material. The sound quality is also only adequate - you can understand everything o.k., but there is some distortion thoughout the film. The bottom line is that you can watch the film and enjoy it for what it is without being overly distracted by the quality issues. Alpha Video has issued some very bad film transfers, but this is one of their better ones.

As for the film itself, it is supposed to be a clever comedy flavored remake of Tim McCoy's Frontier Crusader (1940), but I gave it just one star because the acting and direction were just plain stupid instead of funny and entertaining. I don't mind if a B-Western is hokey - the Roy Rogers films, for example, are hokey, but still great fun to watch because they take themselves seriously. This film was too obviously tongue-in-cheek for it's own good and ended up being just plain stupid and annoying. The actors just didn't care and clearly didn't take any of this seriously. The plot is also borderline incomprehensible. Many B-Westerns are dumb, but they can still be entertaining. This film is dumb and boring and annoying - a deadly combination.

If you want some really great early B-Westerns, check out virtually any of the Hopalong Cassidy DVDs issued by Platinum or the Red Ryder DVDs issued by VCI - those movies are well done and the quality of the Platinum transfers are particularly first rate.

DVD:

DVD

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