Frontier Crusader (1940)

• 65%
• 1940
• Western
• Sam Newfield
• Tim McCoy
• Dorothy Short
• Lou Fulton

The first Producers Releasing Corporation western as the first few 1939-40 entries (from the same production people) were made as Producers Pictures Corporation films distributed by Producers Distributing Corporation, and from this point on were Producers Releasing Corporation (P.R.C.) films also distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation. This one, actually the second film in this series with Tim McCoy following the inital PPC entry, finds that a bandit gang whose ranks include experts in claim-jumping, high-grading and other specialities, has created a reign of terror in Monument City, a Mexican border mining and cattle town. Saloon owner Barney Bronson (Karl Hackett, billed in the film, the posters and the pressbook as (a typo) Carl Hackett, leading some sources to think he actually used that as an AKA name) is suspected of being the ringleader but, behind Bronson, is the real leader, the local express agent, a traitor to the company which employs him. Sheriff Sam Dolan (Hal Price) enlists the aid of Trigger Tim Rand (Tim McCoy), famous gunman and Marshal. The gang sends The Mesa Kid (Kenne Duncan as Ken Duncan) to get rid of Trigger Tim, but Trigger makes short work of dispatching the Kid and begins his quest to clean up the town.