Felice Ingersoll in Range Justice (1949)

Sometimes one cannot help wonder why the old B Western producers felt obliged to have a pretty girl in their productions. Well, outside of the obvious. Because usually the girls were given very little to do other than perhaps get in the way of the action in a scene or two and wave goodbye to the hero as he rides into the sunset - alone. Always alone, or with a male sidekick. In the case of Johnny Mack Brown's latter day RANGE JUSTICE (1949), the girl, Felice Ingersoll, isn't even present to say the obligatory god's speed but leaves that entirely up to her brother, Riley Hill. In fact, Miss Ingersoll has only two very brief scenes and why she is even in the picture is anyone's guess. Was she the girlfriend of someone? Probably. Meanwhile, that old battle ax Sarah Padden takes care of the female acting glory with her usual aplomb as an ornery lady rancher who hires Mack Brown to help her with a nestler problem. But as Johnny quickly learns, the criminal element isn't the nestlers but instead townie Tristram Coffin, who of course is after Sarah's valuable water rights.  And so it goes.

Felice Ingersoll, meanwhile, had earlier been under contract to 20th Century-Fox, where she had cooled her heels alongside an equally misused pre-stardom Marilyn Monroe, but she was really better known as a chorus girl and band singer. RANGE JUSTICE was her only film of any importance. If you could call it that. And a Monogram Western was hardly the Big League, even though this one in particular is quite well written and moves swiftly from point A to point B. 

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A Johnny Mack Brown serial double-bill

Flaming Frontiers (Universal, 1938)
Indian scout Tex Houston (Johnny Mack Brown) helps Mary Grant (Eleanor Hansen) locate her brother Tom (Ralph Bowman and later known as John Archer), who has been kidnapped by a gang of outlaws desiring his rich mining property. Their leader, Bart Eaton (James Blaine), plans to force Mary into marrying him to get control over her inheritance, but another faction lead by Ace Daggett (Chas. Middleton) also wants the mine.

The Oregon Trail (Universal, 1939)
Famous scout Jeff Scott (Johnny Mack Brown) is assigned by Colonel Custer (yep, that Custer!) to safeguard an Oregon-bound wagon train that has become the target of a certain Eastern syndicate. Headed by Sam Morgan (James Blaine), the latter is determined to keep outsiders away from lucrative but illegal fur trade with the Indians.

Eleanor Hansen
Under contract to first RKO and then (due to her marriage; see below) 20th Century-Fox, Eleanor Hansen did her only work of any importance in Flaming Frontiers. Yet she did become part of Hollywood Royalty by extension. In early 1939, gossip maven Walter Winchell revealed that Eleanor Hansen was dating 20th Century-Fox musical star Alice Faye's brother and manager Bill. Or in Walter's inimitable way: “Alice Faye's brother Bill and Eleanor Hansen, a west coast tidbit, are impersonating the equator.” By April of 1939 there were marriage rumors and on May 10, the rumors were confirmed: Eleanor had become Mrs. Bill Faye at Tijuana, Mexico a month or so earlier. The couple apparently spent the honeymoon at Alice Faye and husband Tony Martin's Beverly Hills mansion, Alice and Tony being away on a personal appearance tour. Eleanor ended her screen career in 1942.

The wagon trains in both Flaming Frontiers and The Oregon Trail are attacked by silent era stock footage Indians – the very same Indians striking out from a picturesque settlement in Red Rock Canyon that had imperiled wagon trains in a host of Universal and other studio Westerns since Hoot Gibson’s The Flaming Frontier (1926). But what may be a bit disconcerting to a modern viewer was par for the course in the 1930s; the very obvious stock footage in Columbia’s Lost Horizon (1937), as film restoration expert Robert Gitt notes, never deterred anyone from calling that film a near-masterpiece, and moviegoers at the time, especially in rural areas, became immune to grainy and sometimes splotchy copies of even current releases. It was really less a matter of ignorance than simple convention.

With that said, however, it does take away a bit of the excitement when stock footage of a huge wagon train, cattle and all, fleeing from a blazing prairie fire suddenly turns into a few covered wagons and Johnny Mack Brown, or when a large band of “Redskins” swoops down on a Western town that looks nothing like Trail’s main backlot street. It is difficult to date most of the stock, but Ken Maynard is clearly seen on his famous horse Tarzan in both serials and pernicious Universal didn’t even bother matching Johnny Mack Brown’s shirt with Maynard’s in Trail. In operation at the same place since 1914 and churning out scores of Westerns every year, Universal owned a large amount of spectacular footage to choose from. Not that the studio stinted on the budget for extras or that the new stuff isn’t thrilling enough, what with Johnny Mack Brown duking it out with every renegade in sight, saving damsels in distress and surviving the sharing of scenes with both a pooch (Frontiers) and a tow-headed boy actor (Trail).

Flaming Frontiers, which opens with more story than action, remains perhaps the better of the two serials, but it is a close call. The attention to story content should not be all that surprising considering that the chapter play was one of the few Western serials "suggested" by a literary work, in this case pulp favorite Peter B. Kyne's "The Tie That Binds." Not that the subsequent chapters were all that "literary"; once the conflict has been established it is more or less down to business as usual.

But what surprising business it sometimes is, what with an Indian attack on a deserted shack during a windstorm interrupted only by the arrival of a cyclone. Said cyclone constitutes chapter 2's cliffhanger, a rare occasion where the second chapter is more exiting and better composed than the opener. Later, in chapters 9-10, the entire town is flooded when a damn breaks in yet another prairie storm, with hero Johnny Mack Brown seemingly trapped in a shack after a terrific fight with henchmen Charlie King and Charles Stevens.

Yet despite Peter B. Kyne, and good performances by the Universal stock company, including Roy Barcroft as Custer, of all people, in Trail, both serials come with the same problems that plagued several Universal and Columbia Western chapter plays of the 1930s: too much familiar footage, under-cranked fights that reminds a viewer of silent film comedies, and stories that simply cannot sustain 15 chapters.

Louise Stanley
A brunette starlet and B-Western heroine, Louise Stanley (1915-1982)married two of her leading men: Dennis O'Keefe and Jack Randall (aka Addison Randall). Born Louisa Todd Keys, Stanley began her screen career under contract to Paramount and later to Warner Bros., both of whom mainly farmed her out to independent companies. She subsequently went on to work for most of the B-Western producers, including Universal, Republic, and Monogram, starring opposite everyone from Johnny Mack Brown to Tex Ritter to Jack Randall, who became the second of her three husbands. Stanley appeared in a total of 15 B-Westerns before leaving films for good in 1944. She later married a navy pilot and resettled in Florida. (This essay appeared originally under my byline on the All-Movie Guide.)

About the productions
Although very similar in concept and execution Flaming Frontiers and The Oregon Trail (1939) were not actually filmed simultaneously (the latter went into production in early 1939 while Frontiers were still doing the rounds), but to Mack Brown they tended to blend together: "I'd do a scene for one,” he would remember in a late interview, “then get on my horse and ride over a hill and do a scene for the other. Back and forth I went every day until one or the other was finished. And I never once changed hats."

Next to Mack Brown, the most memorable player in both serials is Charles Stevens (1893-1964), reportedly a grandson of Geronimo and a prominent supporting player in the silent epics of Douglas Fairbanks. Reduced to smaller roles in sound films, usually as “half-breeds,” Stevens earned his best chances to shine in these two serials, promptly stealing every scene he is in with performances much more modern in tone than you have come to expect.

Locations:
Universal City and Kernville.

Publicity:
According to an uncredited news item planted by the Universal publicity department, Johnny Mack Brown rescued his Flaming Frontiers leading lady Eleanor Hansen for real during filming:

“The film star, former all-American'football player Johnny Mack Brown, and Miss Hansen were riding horses through a crowd of movie Indians on an outdoor set of the picture Flaming Frontier.

“An Indian chief's war bonnet frightened the actress' horse and it bolted for a rocky ravine. Brown galloped his horse after her and pulled Miss Hansen from the saddle before her mount plunged into the ravine.”

Uncredited appearances:
Scores of familiar faces turn up without credit in both serials, including Hank Bell, Dick Botiller, Ed Brady, Budd Buster, Horace B. Carpenter, Lane Chandler, Jim Corey, Frank Ellis, Helen Gibson, Herman Hack, Kenneth Harlan, Frank LaRue, Tom London, Cactus Mack, Bud McClure, J. P. McGowan, Lafe McKee, Artie Ortego, Warner P. Richmond (as General Sherman, no less), Harry Tenbrook, Blackjack Ward, and Charles “Slim” Whitaker.

Virginia Belmont (Monogram westerns & Dangers of the Canadian Mounted)

Nee Virginia Schupp and originally from Boston (born 1921), San Diego-raised Virginia Belmont was a cigarette girl at famed Hollywood nitery The Mocambo before signing a starlet contract with RKO. She did little actual acting for that studio but decorated their patented crime series and performed the usual legwork. The 1948 Republic serial Dangers of the Canadian Mounted was a breakthrough of sorts (she had earlier, very briefly, graced the 1944 Columbia chapterplay Black Arrow) but she was going nowhere fast – and "nowhere" included co-starring in no less than three Monogram Jimmy Wakely oaters: Oklahoma Bullets , The Rangers Ride, and Courtin' Trouble (all 1948), and one each opposite Johnny Mack Brown and post-Harry Sherman William Boyd – when deciding to relocate to Italy with a new husband in tow. Adding the necessary vowel to her name and becoming Virginia Belmonte, she went on to appear in several Italian films until at least 1957.

Dangers of the Canadian Mounted (Republic, 1948)

In the Canadian Journal of Communication (volume 23. no. 4. 1998), University of Alberta professor Christopher Giddings writes: "The manifest destiny or cultural imperialism of [serials] such as Dangers of the Canadian Mounted and The Royal Mounted Rides Again [see earlier post]is apparent in the hybridized American/Canadian territories in which the films are set, Alcana and Canaska respectively." Warming up to his subject, the good professor continues:

“This annexing reinvention of the Canadian landscape, whether intentional or just the product of sloppy thinking, has political implications. A redrawing of the map harmonizes Canada with the U.S. Yet there is in this cinematic transformation an odd paradox. These U.S. producers and directors obviously thought of Canada as "other"; they recognize a Canadian difference to America by making a conscious choice to set their plots in a foreign location, a location of otherness which they then proceed to fill with American landscapes and the people and values of America's dominant white culture …”

Leave it to an academic to politicize action serials! But no one at Republic or Universal obviously thought of Canada as “other” but simply chose the location to frame stories around the colorful Canadian Mounties, always a popular subject for pulp fiction. And what could be more topical in 1947 than the building of the Alaska-Canadian Highway, a project that soon led to Alaska becoming the 49th state of the union? If anything, in Dangers it is American gangsters who are "other" and not Jim Bannon's heroic Canadian Mountie. It really is amazing what you can achieve with an expensive education if only you apply yourself! Yes, Dangers does reflect "the people and values of America's dominant white culture" – as though that in itself is somewhat suspect and as opposed to exactly what? – but America’s “dominant white culture” really doesn't do all that well considering Anthony Warde’s ultimate lack of success.

Academic theory aside, Dangers remains one of Republic's better post-war serials with some very interesting ideas in the original script. Including the character of Skagway Kate, an American mind you, although exactly how interesting we shall never know due to a bit of censorship trouble (see below). Another unusual touch that did make it through to the finished serial is the very physical use of the border between the territory of Alaska and Canada. With no jurisdiction on the Alaskan side, forceful Sgt. Royal picks a fight with Warde’s Mort Fowler at Skagway Kate's, beating the blackguard straight across the border and right into his own bailiwick. (Chapter 8.) While we get the usual amount of stock footage, including cliffhangers, it is well incorporated and Jim Bannon heads a game cast that includes such veteran stuntmen as Eddie Parker and Bud Wolfe. Nothing to get too excited about, Dangers of the Canadian Mounted is pure escapist entertainment, 1948 Republic style. Nothing more, nothing less.

Censorship troubles

The character of Skagway Kate was conceived by the writers as running a gambling hall complete with dancing girls but the censors objected to what could be misinterpreted as a brothel and Kate became a rather more sedate operator of a boarding house. Veteran comedienne Dorothy Granger (1914-1995), who plays Skagway Kate with a Mae Westian swagger, also lost he opportunity to sing in a late rewrite. Today, Granger is best remembered for having worked with such Hal Roach comedians as Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase, not to mention co-starring in 2-reelers with Harry Langdon, The Three Stooges, W.C. Fields, and Edgar Kennedy. She eventually retired from the screen to run a Hollywood upholstery store with her husband.

All in the family:

In the opening chapter of Dangers of the Canadian Mounted little Dan Page surreptitiously listens to henchmen Dale and Scott plan their next move. The boy is played by young Bill Van Sickel, the son of stuntman Dale Van Sickel who, in this scene, portrays the villainous Scott. In chapter 4, the elder Van Sickel, now playing a henchman named Steele, actually knocks junior over in his attempt to flee the Mounties.

Uncredited appearance department I

In another example of cost-cutting, ubiquitous B-movie actor Marshall Reed (1917-1980) plays no less than four different Mounties: Dave (chapter 3), Douglas (5), Jim (7) and Williams (8). As handsome as the leading men he supported Reed later assumed the starring role in the 1954 Columbia serial, Riding with Buffalo Bill, but it was too little too late for an attempt at genre stardom. Off-screen, Reed ran into some trouble that no serial hero would encounter, including a December 1956 arrest for drunk driving. The actor was stopped on Pico Blvd. and Missouri St. in West Los Angeles but then refused to take a sobriety test. At the time of his arrest, Reed was appearing on the television crime show The Lineup.

Uncredited appearance department II

The voices of Don "Red" Barry and Roy Barcroft are heard in telephone conversations, in chapters 4 and 11 respectively. All in a day's work when under contract to a studio like Republic.

Jan Bryant (Shadows of the Range)

A virtual Rosie the Riveter, a welder to be precise, Jan Bryant was discovered in 1945 by a scout from 20th Century Fox who happened to spot her in newsreel footage of girls waiting in line for their termination papers at Douglas Aircraft. Or at least that was what her publicity claimed. (Another "news" item, dated Hollywood, February 2, 1946 suggested that "New verification of the old saw that 'there's no accounting for taste,' is to be found in pretty Jan Bryant who gave up the luxurious life of a socialite to work eight hours per day as a showgirl in Warner Brothers' comedy, "Cinderella Jones" [1946].") In reality, Jan had ushered at Grauman's Chinese, been kicking around the Hollywood chorus lines since at least 1943 and had even been a Goldwyn Girl in Up in Arms (44). She seems to have abandoned her screen and later television career in 1954. Some of her erstwhile Rosie the Riveter chutzpah carried over into Bryant's first Western, Johnny Mack Brown's Shadows of the Range (Monogram, 1946), where she witnesses the murder of her father in the very first scene. Someone, it seems, wants his land and only Johnny Mack Brown can prevent more carnage. Jan, meanwhile, has little left to do than mourn her father's sudden passing. Unfortunately, her thespian abilities does not allow for much depth of feeling so the sadness is solely depicted in dialogue. She does, however, confront the would-be killers in a well-played saloon scene.

Helen Ericson (Courageous Avenger)

Helen Ericson actually sees quite of bit of action for a no-budget western heroine in Courageous Avenger (1935). The fiance of hero Johnny Mack Brown, Helen can only watch as her brother (stuntman Wally West) is killed by Warner Richmond and his gang before suffering the indignity of actually being kidnapped herself by said Mr. Richmond. Johnny saves her, of course, but it is touch and go for a moment there -- what with the endless riding to and fro endemic to these cheezy independents -- before the happy couple can get to the altar and then off on their long-awaited honeymoon.

When I say "independent," I probably should clarify that Supreme Pictures, the producer of Courageous Avenger, was an A.W. Hackel company that would merge with Republic Pictures later that year. From 1936 onwards, the Bob Steele and Johnny Mack Brown westerns would thus be released by Herbert Yates' upstart Republic, awarding these films a perceived veneer that they could not really live up to.

Helen Ericson (1915-1984), meanwhile, had worked in a five and dime store in her hometown of Worcester, MA, when her actor brother, Frank, persuaded the producers of the New York revival of “Of Thee I Sing” (1933) to put her in the chorus of that successful show. She appeared in the original Broadway production of “As Thousands Cheer” before casting director Max Arnow brought her to the attention of first Warner Bros. then Fox, who signed her to a contract. After playing mostly the typical starlet roles, she was chosen as “Light” in the Shirley Temple version of The Blue Bird (1940), but that Wizard of Oz wannabe proved less than popular and she retired to marry Chicago fur magnate Philip Berman, with whom she would become a mother of two and a grandmother of five.

Lynn Gilbert (Universal serials)

Lynn Gilbert, nee Helen McHale (b. Chicago 1913), was Mrs. Gilbert E. Keebler, a Chicago socialite matron when she reportedly mailed a photo of herself to Universal. The result: a role as a nasty gun-moll in the 1937 serial Secret Agent X-9, where she menaced the studio's premiere serial queen, Jean Rogers; and the Johnny Mack Brown Western chapterplay Wild West Days (1937), where she actually replaced Miss Rogers, who was on to bigger and better things at the studio. The Western serial offered the usual, prominent heroine billing but very little screen time. And that, as they say, was that for Lynn Gilbert's screen career. At one point, she divorced Mr. Keebler, an attorney, and in 1939 wed prominent Hollywood producer, and erstwhile head of Paramount Pictures, B.P. Schulberg. Their elopement made headlines but we don't know how long Miss Gilbert was Mrs. Schulberg and thus the stepmother of writer Budd Schulberg.

Kathy Frye (Crossed Trails)

Five-year-old Kathryn Frey was a member of Hollywood's legendary children troupe the Meglin Kiddies (Shirley Temple was, famously, one of the graduates of the group) when she was picked to play the Indian Prince in Max Reinhardt's lavish A Midsummer Night's Dream (Warner Bros., 1935). She became Kathy Frye and performed a Spanish dance in Gene Autry's Mexicali Rose (Republic, 1939), one of Gene's very best New Deal Westerns. She was one of the children in Luana Walters' orphanage, a nearly bankrupt institution threatened by William Royle and his nasty oil company. During the ensuing melee, little Kathy and her friend Hardie Albright get themselves both kidnapped and teargassed in a fiery finale. Fast forward a decade and a nearly grown Kathy turns up at Monogram in Johnny Mack Brown's Crossed Trail (1948), perhaps no match for Gene Autry in his heyday but pleasant nonetheless. The distaff side is very well represented in Crossed Trails (1948),which has former MGM contract starlet Lynne Carver decked out as a spirited prairie version of Lillian Russell and utilizing every trick in the book to persuade Johnny to use his influence over teenage landowner Kathy, whose land Lynne's boss (Douglas Evans) desires. Despite the period trappings, Frye plays her part like a typical 1940s movie brat, much in the style of Paramount's teenyboppers Diana Lynn or Mona Freeman, or David Selznick's equally adolescent Shirley Temple. A bit tomboy, a bit coquette, and quite a bit irritating. It was, of course, a stock character on its way out in a post war era of teenagers beginning to find the voice that would eventually lead to the Blackboard Jungles and the Rebels Without a Cause of the mid-1950s. Frye also did the low-budget wartime drama Women in the Night (Film Classics, 1948), as Virginia Christine's doomed daughter (the film is in public domain and available everywhere), and then retired.

NOTE: Playing a small part as William Royle's secretary in Mexicali Rose is Kaaren Verne, a glamorous supporting player and sometimes leading lady who, late in life, became a huge thorn in the side of Donald Trump.