Lawless Empire (1945)

Lawless Empire: Directed by Vernon Keays. With Charles Starrett, Tex Harding, Dub Taylor, Mildred Law. A band of raiders are about to run the Murphys off of their homestead when they are stopped by the Rev. Harding and his sister Vicky. Gang leader Duke Flinders is about to shoot Harding when the Durango Kid appears and runs off the outlaws. Steve Ransom is persuaded by the townspeople to beome their Marshal. He soon learns that saloon owner Blaze Howard and Doc Weston are behind the raids and plot to gain the homesteads.

“A big attraction here is Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys who were quite an influence on country music, merging swing rhythms with more traditional country stylings. Their first number here shows off the new sound splendidly. The movie itself is fairly routine—land grabbers trying to get homesteaders property. The Durango Kid, however, is an interesting creation. Heu0026#39;s sort of like the Lone Ranger with his white horse and bandanna mask, keeping his real identity a secret. Here he switches identity when foiling the land grabbersu0026#39; various plots. Anyway, thereu0026#39;s some hard riding, not much fast shooting, but an eye-catching cattle stampede through town. All in all, itu0026#39;s an agreeable 60-minutes for Front Row geezers like me.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(Speaking of geezers, the landgrabbers are led by actor John Calvert who amazingly is still living at age 100+ !)”