Star of Texas (1953)

• 60%
• 1953
• Western
• Thomas Carr
• Wayne Morris
• Paul Fix
• Frank Ferguson

Most of the trade reviewers of the time gave this oater high marks for originality, evidently based on the "Dragnet"-style narration, since there was nothing original about the story Dan Ullman slapped his name on as it is just a remake of "Flaming Bullets, PRC, 1945", "Wanted: Dead or Alive, Monogram, 1952" and Monogram, PRC and Republic also had other offerings based on this plot, while Ullman sold it again in 1957 for George Montgomery's "Last of the Badmen." Two bad things happened to the western genre following "High Noon" and TV's "Dragnet"; a majority of the westerns made from that point onward in the 50s and 60s either had a narrative theme song (usually bad and giving away the plot under the opening credits) or an off-screen narrator or, sometimes, both. The plot has a gang of outlaws springing prisoners from jails in 1879 Texas, robbing banks and holding up stagecoaches with the blame being pinned on the escapees, and then knocking them off to collect the ever-increasing reward money. Texas Ranger Ed Ryan comes ridin' along and soon puts an end to the racket and gang headed by Luke Andrews. The viewer has to take the narrator's word for some of how he manages this, and cynics might get the idea that the use of a narrator was just a way of not spending the money to shoot some explanatory scenes.