Stagecoach Buckaroo
Cast & Crew
Ray Taylor
Johnny Mack Brown
Fuzzy Knight
Nell O'day
Anne Nagel
Herbert Rawlinson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Out on the range, saddle tramps Steve and Clem witness a stagecoach robbery. After stealing its strong box, the highwaymen set the stage loose without its driver, but Steve stops the runaway coach, saving its female passenger. After arriving in Cottonwood, the lady in question, Nina Kincaid, mistakenly identifies Steve as the leader of the highwaymen, and he is thrown in jail. Clem arrives in town a bit later, looking for "the hero of Cottonwood," only to be arrested as Steve's accomplice. At the Silver Owl Saloon, the real highwaymen, who are led by Braddock, form a lynch mob. There, Nina is shocked to learn that her father, Bill Kincaid, is the owner of the saloon, not, as she had been told, a banker. Though initially pleased to see her, Kincaid soon realizes the West is no place for his daughter and insists she return to the East. When she refuses to leave, he arranges her room and board with stage line owner Joseph Denton and his daughter Molly. As the lynch mob prepares to hang Steve, Edward Simpson, who was wounded in the holdup, sees Steve's horse and realizes his innocence. Molly stops the mob from hanging Steve, though the unlucky Clem is stuck by a falling beehive in the process. Later that night, Braddock and his gang meet with Kincaid, and make plans to use the unsuspecting Nina to get information about upcoming stagecoach shipments. The Dentons, meanwhile, offer Steve and Clem jobs driving their stagecoach. The cowboys decline, and the next morning, the stage is discovered in a gully with the murdered Denton inside. Steve and Clem then accept the driving jobs from Molly, and Steve devises a plan to protect the next gold shipment. In Redwood City, Steve has metal linings applied to the inside of the stagecoach, then hires two gunmen, disguised as women, to ride inside. As expected, the highwaymen attack the stagecoach, but are easily defeated by its armored coating and "female" passengers. Steve then devises a new plan to protect prospector Higgins' gold shipment to Redwood City: Molly and Nina, pretending to be on a picnic, will transport the gold in their wagon, while he drives an empty stagecoach. The unsuspecting Nina tells her father about the plan, and she and Molly are captured by Braddock and company. At the bandits' hideout, Nina learns that Kincaid is actually her stepfather and discovers his duplicity in the holdups. Molly escapes, with the gang in hot pursuit. Steve and Clem, realizing that something is wrong, head back to town, only to run into Molly, Braddock and the gang. In the ensuing shootout, Steve wounds Braddock and the gang surrenders. Learning of Nina's plight, Steve rides off to the hideout. Kincaid, in turn, has left with Nina and the wagon of gold. Taking a short-cut, Steve gets ahead of Kincaid, jumps the villain from a tree limb as he passes beneath and defeats him in a fistfight. Back in town, Steve becomes the manager of the stageline, with Clem his chief driver. As Clem prepares to leave on his first solo drive, however, he forgets to hitch the horses to the stage and ends up being pulled through town by them.
Director
Ray Taylor
Cast
Johnny Mack Brown
Fuzzy Knight
Nell O'day
Anne Nagel
Herbert Rawlinson
Glenn Strange
Ernie Adams
Henry Hall
Lloyd Ingraham
Frank Brownlee
Jack C. Smith
Harry Tenbrook
Blackie Whiteford
Jack Casey
Crew
Jerome Ash
Bernard B. Brown
Hal Bumbaugh
Everett Carter
Will Cowan
Ralph M. Delacy
R. A. Gausman
Charles Gould
Kay Kellogg
Al Martin
Jack Otterson
Milton Rosen
H. J. Salter
Arthur St. Claire
Vera West
Maurice Wright
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working titles of this film were Shotgun Messenger and Ghost Town Buckaroo. While the onscreen credits state that the screenplay was based on the original story "Shotgun Messenger" by Arthur St. Claire, a memo from Universal to the AMPAS library stated that the story was unpublished and that the author had retained the right to publish it at a later date. The actual character names for actors Harry Tenbrook and "Blackie" Whiteford were unreadable on the viewed print, while contemporary reviews list them as "henchmen." Actor Henry Hall's character was misidentified as "MacSwain" by CBCS. Modern sources include Kermit Maynard, Frank Ellis, Hank Bell, Ray Jones, Jim Corey, William Nestell, Carl Sepulveda and The Guardsmen Quartet in the cast.
