"BULLETS BLAST THE BADLANDS!...as a two-gun terror blazes the Western trail of the Telegraph!"21 August 1942Western58 mins
It is now an accepted fact that the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns were directed by the talented Joseph H. Lewis. Boss of Hangtown Mesa may not be in the same league as the Brown-Lewis classic Arizona Cyclone, but it comes awfully close. This time around, hero Steve Collins (Brown) comes to the aid of Betty Wilkins (Helen Deverell), who has taken over the telegraph-line business established by her uncle John (Henry Hall). The latter was murdered by outlaws who don't cotton to having the territory linked up electronically with the rest of the world.
Marshall Jed Cooper survives a hanging, vowing revenge on the lynch mob that left him dangling. To carry out his oath for vengeance, he returns to his former job as a lawman.
The Mesquiteers capture a horse thief who escapes justice through a crooked judge. They gather signatures urging the governor to investigate but a friend with the petition is murdered.
After arriving at his new, remote Army outpost, Capt. John Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.
A circuit judge in the old west attempts to bring a suspected killer to justice. The judge runs afoul of the killer's rich cattle baron father in the process.
Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.
Tim McGuerin and Eddie Corbett operates a big taxi-fleet company together and because of a misunderstanding Tim's wife Sadie thinks he is having an affair with his secretary, Ms.
Hoping to increase its box-office allure by adopting the title of a popular song, Deep in the Heart of Texas (clap!clap!clap!clap!) was the first Johnny Mack Brown western of the 1942-43 season.
J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the classics and won't allow him to replace Professor Bistell and his symphonic orchestra.
Carmelita and Uncle Matt find themselves in a haunted house, but the "ghosts" are actually enemy agents who are trying to frighten away visitors in order to develop a nitroglycerin bomb.
Comments
Have you watched Boss of Hangtown Mesa yet? What did you think about it?
