Bandits of the West

There is little depth to the stock characters, but this still makes for entertaining viewing.

I've watched a fair few westerns in my time, but I've never seen one before that involved natural gas! 'Joanne' (Cathy Downs) is determined to tap into the gas field on her land, but local grandee 'Chadwick' (Trevor Bardette) is having none of that and so his unscrupulous ranch manager 'Galloway' (Roy Barcroft) sets out to sabotage the pipeline. When that leads to a death, marshal 'Rocky Lane' (Allan Lane) starts to investigate and discovers that there is much more to this that originally met his eye; that there is a bit of framing going on; some back-story duplicity and of course, a clearly telegraphed message that guns and gas don't mix! It's all a bit basic to look at, but Lane brings some cheeky charisma to the screen, Eddy Waller livens things up, albeit somewhat predictably, with his amiable 'Nugget' and the sheer pace of this hour long adventure carries it along entertainingly enough in a sort of Dan-dare fashion. It is standard afternoon stuff that you'll never remember, but it is a perfectly watchable vehicle for Lane and 'Black Jack'.

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