"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.
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.
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.
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.
The arrival of the telegraph put Pony Express riders like John Blair and his pal Smoky out of work. A race will decide whether they or stageline owner Drake get the government mail contract.
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.
Scientist-explorer David Lynd leaves wealthy bride-to-be June Claymore at the altar to join photographer Andy Parker and British secret service agent Leo Marzeli in search of rare minerals.
A girl reporter is trying to tack down the lady-in-the-title, as a key witness in a graft trial, which involves three murder and that many failed attempts.
"The Heavenly Play" - Mats Ersson is engaged to Marit and they plan to get married in the spring. But when the plague comes, the people accuse Marit of witchcraft.
A counterfeiting gang implicate a bank employee in their crimes, but their cover-story about a ghost in the house where they do their printing backfires on them.
In this western, a ranch foreman and the bosses son go to a saloon to slake their thirst and find themselves in the midst of a battle started by the feisty saloon owner's wicked ex-husband who loots the safe in the ensuing scuffle.
