BRAND OF FEAR
(director: Oliver Drake; screenwriter: Basil Dickey; cinematographer: Harry Neumann; editor: Carl Pierson; music: Edward J. Kay; cast: Jimmy Wakely, Dub Taylor (Cannonball), Tom London (Marshal Blackjack Flint), Gail Davis (Anne Lamont), William Ruhl (Tom Slade), Cal Derringer (Marshal Reed), Holly Bane (Butch Keeler), Boyd Stockman (Jed), William Bailey (Frank Martin); Runtime: 56; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Louis Gray; Monogram, Warner Archive; 1949-B/W)
“Routine B-Western.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Oliver Drake (“Border Lust”/”Outlaw Treasure”) directs and Basil Dickey scripts this B/W shot routine B-Western, that features Monogram’s low-key singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely and Dub Taylor as his comic relief partner Cannonball.
Marshal Black Jack Flint (Tom London) sponsors Anne Lamont (Gail Davis) as the new school teacher in the small town of Oreville, Arizona. The marshal is her guardian, as she’s been told both her parents died when she was young and has been living for the last twenty years in St. Louis.
When the outlaw from the Texas Panhandle Tom Slade (William Ruhl) and his henchman, Butch Keeler (Holly Bane), discover the blacksmith Cal Derringer (Marshal Reed) runs several illegal activities in the outlying area of Oreville, they force him to make them partners.
In Nick’s Café, Jimmy Wakely, the mine-owner Frank Martin’s (William Bailey) trouble shooter, and Anne, are dining, when Slade foists his unwanted attention on Anne and Keeler starts a brawl with Jimmy, that doesn’t go well for the thug. The marshal orders Keeler and Slade to leave town. When Slade draws on him, the marshal shoots him and he’s wounded.
Slade tells Derringer that Black Jack is Jack Lamont, a Texas outlaw framed for the murder of a federal officer twenty years earlier by him. Derringer then smothers Slade to death and tells Black Jack what Slade told him.
Black Jack asks Derringer not to reveal to Anne that she is really his daughter. Derringer assures him that his secret is safe with him.
Martin asks Jimmy to keep an eye on a valuable payroll shipment due on the next stage. Jimmy and Cannonball ride guard on the stage when Derringer and his gang attack it, but Jimmy foils the holdup and takes Jed (Boyd Stockman), one of the gang, prisoner. When Derringer tries to blackmail Black Jack into releasing Jed, Black Jack draws his gun intending to kill him. Before the marshal pulls the trigger, Derringer informs him that he has written a letter telling of Black Jack’s history and has left instructions that, if anything happens to him, the letter is to be sent to the authorities.
That night, Jimmy and Anne are out walking when they see Jed escaping. Jimmy goes after him and recaptures him.
Meanwhile, Derringer assassinates Jed from a rooftop so he won’t blab.
When Derringer learns that an ore shipment is in the express office waiting to be transferred to a bank, he and two henchmen make plans to take it. Black Jack tells Anne that he is worried about her safety and asks her to return East. Just then, Derringer stages his raid with his gang, but Jimmy and Cannonball ride after them. Jimmy shoots one of them, and Cannonball follows the dead man’s horse back to Derringer’s corral.
Jimmy, Cannonball and Black Jack kill Derringer, capture his gang and get back the stolen ore. Black Jack tells Anne he’s her father, and that Slade confessed to being the killer and framing Black Jack.
All’s well in Oreville, again.
In an early scene, Jimmy and the boys welcome Anne to town by serenading her with “There’s A Rainbow Over The Rain.”
REVIEWED ON 11/23/2024 GRADE: B-
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