Forbidden Trails (1941)

Absolutely Brilliant!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In this third installment of the Rough Riders series, we have nearly the same situation as the other two stories. As one of the Marshals will be himself while the other two work undercover to help a local a business owner deal with the thugs that want to put him out of business. But with all the Rough Riders scripts. they throw in lots of action to keep the Saturday matinee kids happy.It begins in a prison where two convicts vow to get Marshal Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) for locking them up. And when they get out they contact Jones and even believe they have killed him. But thinks to his white horse, Silver, help arrives and Marshal Roberts will recover from his injuries. Meanwhile, Marshal McCall (Tim McCoy) is posing as a card shark and Marshal 'Killer' Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) is posing as a delivery driver that also was put in prison by Roberts. They also throw in a young gentleman named Jim Cramer, the general store owner, that at one time was arrest by Marshal Jones and release all because the Marshal had a soft spot of the young man that was responsible for two small children. Cramer was now on the straight and narrow and about to be married. And he is the owner that villains are trying to put out of business. .There is much action in this film. As with all 'B' westerns there is lots of shooting, fighting and horse-back riding. There is one action scene that stands out about others which involves a stuntman being dragged supposedly by a horse. Due to the speed of the man being pulled, it was more than likely a motorized vehicle. And I am sure, from the footage, that the stuntman received some nasty injuries due to the dragging. It looked frightening. Overall a nice performance by all. And one that never slowed in action.

When Charles King and Bud Osborne are released from prison they've got some unfinished business to attend to, namely US Marshal Buck Jones. Buck only escapes wounded from a blazing cabin fire by the grace of God and the trustiness of his steed Silver. It's why cowboys love their horses. But what these two geniuses do is put the Rough Riders on their trail as King and Osborne join saloon owner Tris Coffin in a scheme to extort a partnership from freight line owner Dave O'Brien. With Buck Jones out of action for a bit Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton start their own investigation and decide to play a long to see what Coffin is up to as he seems like the brains. In fact when Jones arrives he nearly kills his companion's scheme.Forbidden Trails again with a title that makes no sense to the story, the hallmark of the B western is a fast moving western with a bit more plot than normal in one of these type films. Fans of the B western and the stars will like it.

Late in their film careers, Buck Jones and Tim McCoy got together to make a string of 'Rough Rider' westerns--pleasant but rather unremarkable B-movies. Unlike most of this films, suddenly McCoy was getting second billing--and perhaps this will explain why he was pretty much retired (with a few exceptions) after this short series was complete. McCoy is THE reason I watched this movie--he is my favorite of the B-western stars, though Buck Jones is pretty good as well since neither was pretty nor sang in the films--definite pluses for me. Now Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were more famous and WERE pretty and sang, so what do I know?! In "Forbidden Trails", the film begins in prison. Some inmates are grumbling how they hate Buck and want to track him down and kill him since he was responsible for putting them in prison. This seems a bit spiteful, as this sheriff has announced he's retiring to work his ranch. Their plan in somewhat successful, as they do shoot Buck but not fatally. Tim comes to Buck's aid and goes undercover as a professional gambler--a familiar sort of plot for Tim McCoy. Eventually, Buck is able to join his friends and together, naturally, they kick butt and save the day.Overall, this is a very pleasant very typical sort of western for Jones and McCoy--though it also not especially distinguished as well. The pluses are a few decent stunts and restrained acting from the leads, though a few of the actors did seem to have trouble with their lines (particularly the little girl). It lacked polish but was enjoyable nevertheless.

"Forbidden Trails" was the third of the Rough Riders films from Monogram, all of the first three released in 1941. It always amazes me how the lawman trio could get together so quickly with only horseback as their transportation, and the boys coming in from Arizona (Buck Jones), Wyoming (Tim McCoy) and Texas (Ray Hatton). I guess as a movie goer you weren't supposed to wonder about such things back in the Forties, and since most viewers were young kids at the matinée, I'm sure it didn't bother them much either.This one's a pretty good romp for the heroes though, decent action with a bunch of gimmicks I haven't seen before. Like Silver's rescue of Buck from the cabin he was trapped in by the bad guys. Buck lassos his horse and drags behind Silver while the villains think he's a goner in the burned out shack. Speaking of fancy rope work, catch that scene later on when Tim McCoy lassos a gun right out of a villain's hand, while giving chase on horseback! Those guys were good.As was standard for the Rough Rider films, Buck Roberts (Jones), Tim McCall (McCoy) and Sandy Hopkins (Hatton) all work the same case while appearing to be strangers to each other. I never really noticed it before, but Buck likes to call Sandy 'Killer', and in this one he did it a lot. For his part, Sandy was saved from walking down the aisle just in the nick of time when Buck's message arrived asking for his help. I had to do a quick rewind in that scene when Sandy smacked Buck in the face with his ten gallon, that looked like it might have hurt!For me, the story is almost always secondary to watching these cowboy greats get together. The adventures are pretty predictable, so the fun comes from seeing the boys have a genuinely good time. Each was over fifty years old when they got together to do the Rough Rider films, and it appears that they had long gotten past the point of taking it all too seriously.