By Richard Harland Smith
Blazing Guns
Brief Synopsis
Ex-cons get together to clean up a lawless town in the old West.
Cast & Crew
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Robert Tansey
Director
Ken Maynard
Ken Maynard
Hoot Gibson
Hoot Gibson
Leroy Mason
Duke Wade
Emmett Lynn
Weldon Heyburn
Film Details
Genre
Western
Release Date
Oct
8,
1943
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Monogram Productions, Inc.
Distribution Company
Monogram Pictures Corp.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
54m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
4,833ft
Synopsis
U. S. Marshals Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard are given a commission by Governor Brighton to clean up the murderous gang that has killed two marshals and has been plaguing Willow Springs. Willow Springs rancher Jim Wade becomes furious when he learns that his own brother Duke's gang of ruffians has purposely stampeded his herd of cattle because Jim refused to use Duke's range, for which he would have had to pay. Jim confronts Duke and shoots one of Duke's men in self-defense. Duke, who controls the town, orders his gang to bring his brother in dead or alive, but Jim hides at his friend Mary's ranch, and Duke's men are unable to get to him because Ken and Hoot come to his aid. Ken and Hoot reveal their commission to Jim and advise him to stay hidden while they investigate. Duke's men try to capture the marshals, but Ken and Hoot outwit the gang and lock them in the deserted town jail. The men are released soon thereafter by corrupt Judge Foster. With the help of the governor, Hoot recruits some of the country's most notorious gunslingers, including Lefty, Cactus Joe, Weasel and Eagle Eye, to act as back-up. Ken then confronts Duke in the saloon and tells him that he plans to clean up the town. Duke picks a fistfight with Ken, and after beating Duke, Ken warns his thugs to clear out of town. However, Weasel, who has no intention of returning to the penitentiary, double-crosses the marshals and tells Duke of their activities. Duke's gang corners Ken, Hoot and Jim at Mary's ranch and tries to kill them, but Jim and Hoot slip away to town while Ken holds off the gang. When the gunslingers learn that Weasel has betrayed them, they kill him, and then engage in a gun battle with Duke's gang, after Duke refuses to surrender peacefully to Ken. Ken, Hoot and their group rid the town of the outlaws, but pay a high price because Eagle Eye is killed during the gunfight.
Director
Robert Tansey
Director
Cast
Ken Maynard
Ken Maynard
Hoot Gibson
Hoot Gibson
Leroy Mason
Duke Wade
Emmett Lynn
Weldon Heyburn
Roy Brent
Jim Wade
Eddie Gribbon
Lloyd Ingraham
Gov. Brighton
Geo. Kamel
Cay Forester
Betty Baxter
Robbie Kavanaugh
Frank Ellis
Charles King
Ken Duncan
Dan White
Chas. Murray Jr.
Robert Allen
John Bridges
Crew
Film Details
Genre
Western
Release Date
Oct
8,
1943
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Monogram Productions, Inc.
Distribution Company
Monogram Pictures Corp.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
54m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
4,833ft
Articles
Blazing Guns (1943) -
A western hero of silent films who made the transition to talkies as a singing cowboy, Ken Maynard had fallen on hard times by the 1940s, a victim as much of his own tempestuous personality as of encroaching age and a decline in the demand for big studio shoot-em-ups. Maynard had been away from Hollywood for a few years, touring as a traveling circus act, when the Poverty Row outfit Monogram Pictures lured him back into the saddle for a run of B-westerns costarring his old Universal Pictures compadre Hoot Gibson. (Conspicuous in his absence from the Monogram westerns was Maynard's palomino "Tarzan, the Wonder Horse," who had died in 1940.) Despite the dimming of their star wattage, Monogram banked on the name value of its headliners by casting Maynard and Gibson as themselves, albeit time-warped back to the Old West. Playing aging lawmen righting wrongs on the trail, the pair first rode together in Wild Horse Stampede, which they followed with The Law Rides Again and Blazing Guns (all 1943). The third film in the franchise finds marshals Maynard and Gibson accepting a gubernatorial commission to ankle an outlaw gang that has been tearing up cattle country. The script for Blazing Guns was the work of Frances Kavanaugh, a one-time drama student of theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, who went on to become one of the few women writing Hollywood B-westerns, an accomplishment that earned her the nickname The Cowgirl of the Typewriter.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Blazing Guns (1943) -
A western hero of silent films who made the transition to talkies as a singing cowboy, Ken Maynard had fallen on hard times by the 1940s, a victim as much of his own tempestuous personality as of encroaching age and a decline in the demand for big studio shoot-em-ups. Maynard had been away from Hollywood for a few years, touring as a traveling circus act, when the Poverty Row outfit Monogram Pictures lured him back into the saddle for a run of B-westerns costarring his old Universal Pictures compadre Hoot Gibson. (Conspicuous in his absence from the Monogram westerns was Maynard's palomino "Tarzan, the Wonder Horse," who had died in 1940.) Despite the dimming of their star wattage, Monogram banked on the name value of its headliners by casting Maynard and Gibson as themselves, albeit time-warped back to the Old West. Playing aging lawmen righting wrongs on the trail, the pair first rode together in Wild Horse Stampede, which they followed with The Law Rides Again and Blazing Guns (all 1943). The third film in the franchise finds marshals Maynard and Gibson accepting a gubernatorial commission to ankle an outlaw gang that has been tearing up cattle country. The script for Blazing Guns was the work of Frances Kavanaugh, a one-time drama student of theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, who went on to become one of the few women writing Hollywood B-westerns, an accomplishment that earned her the nickname The Cowgirl of the Typewriter.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Actress Cay Forester's name was misspelled as "Kay Forrester" in the opening credits. For further information on "The Trail Blazers" series, consult the Series Index, and see the entry below for Wild Horse Stampede.
