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Oath of Vengeance

Oath of Vengeance (1944)

December. 09,1944
|
5.7
|
NR
| Western

Steve Kinney and his henchman, Mort, are trying to stir up trouble between the local ranchers and farmers, behind a wave of rustling and lawlessness. Mort kills Vic, a Kirby cowhand, and lays the blame on Dan Harper, the leader of the farmers faction. Storekeeper Fuzzy Q. Jones, fearful of losing the outstanding charge-accounts he has on his books, drags his reluctant pal, Billy Carson, into the fray, and the two soon prove Kinney and his henchmen to be behind the valley's troubles.

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Lovesusti
1944/12/09

The Worst Film Ever

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Voxitype
1944/12/10

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

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Griff Lees
1944/12/11

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

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Guillelmina
1944/12/12

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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weezeralfalfa
1944/12/13

Fuzzy(Al St. John) is unusually useless to Billy Carson in this PRC film of the Billy the Kid series of B westerns. After demonstrating how not to tie down a calf, in a humorous scene, he decided to give up cow punching, and try his hand at running a general store. He discovered that this has its problems too. For one thing, he wasn't expecting the post office to be housed in his store. Among other things, he wasn't expecting to encounter the rat traps that the postmistress(Marin Sais, as Ma) set around her area. They had the occasional verbal fights. However, she was a physically strong woman, thus was useful in lifting heavy items that Fuzzy couldn't handle. Soon a physical fight between several men broke out in his store, and he got involved in trying to push them out to prevent destroying things. Bythe way,as a poor cowpoke, where did he get the money to start his store?? Perhaps he had saved some gold dust from a previous episode? Equally problematic was the fact that nearly all his customers were buying on credit, either because their cattle had been stolen or their crops weren't ready for harvest. This meant that Fuzzy had little cashflow to pay his supplier bills. If their crops failed, Fuzzy's store too would fail.........Meanwhile, when not standing around gabbing with Fuzzy, Billy is getting nosey about why cattle are disappearing, and why the ranchers and dirt farmers hate each other. The ranchers, such as Dale Kirby(Mady Lawrence) blame the farmers, without proof, because rustling seldom happened before they started showing up. Eventually, Billy figures out that the real rustlers are henchmen of the town money lender Steve Kinney(Jack Ingram). His scheme is to rustle some cattle, causing the rancher to come to him for money to make up the loss. He would put a lien on their property, and eventually he would foreclose on their property. (What scheme he had to make the dirt farmers lose their crops is not dealt with). This is a familiar plot in this film series...... Rancher Dale Kirby is incensed by Billy's persistent delving into the question of who is actually doing the rustling, and how to eliminate the animosity between the ranchers and farmers. She is sure who is doing the rustling, although they haven't been caught red handed. It's never established why Steve Kinney started his rustling when the dirt farmers began showing up. Perhaps he felt he needed them as a scapegoat. Or perhaps he didn't arrive in town until they did?........Farmer Dan Harper(Karl Hackett) is arrested on suspicion of rustling cattle, without proof. and put in jail. Steve and chief henchman Mort(Charles King) decide to break Dan out of jail. They hope the farmers will think the ranchers did it to possibly lynch him, while the ranchers will think the farmers did it to free their fellow farmer. This is, in fact , what happens. Meanwhile, Billy goes looking for where they took Dan. He meets one of Steve's men on the trail and bullies him into telling where Dan is being kept. Upon arriving at the old miner's shack, Billy burst through the door, ready for a fist fight, but not ready for a gun response. He lucked out, and beat up Mort and another henchman((John Caron, as Bart) who was recuperating from a bullet wound. He untied Dan and took him to town(along with 3 other riders whose identities I'm not sure of, but probably included Mort and Bart). Seeing Dan diffused the immediate problem that the ranchers were about to attack a group of farmers outside of Fuzzy's store. Sizing up the situation, Steve prepared to leave town, stuffing his money and lending notes in a bag, but running into Billy at the door. Time for the formulistic fight to the finish, then time for Dale to apologize to Billy for being so unappreciative.....The main plus for this film is Fuzzy's more than usual antics. The story is very familiar to anyone who has seen a few films in this series, and leaves a number of loose ends.

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JohnHowardReid
1944/12/14

Average PRC Billy Carson western in which Al St John buys a store in cattlewoman versus nester country. The cattlewoman is played, none too attractively, by Mady Lawrence and the chief nester by Karl Hackett, a not particularly dynamic sample of the breed. Still it's always nice to see such old friends as those partners in villainy, Jack Ingram and Charles King (with both of whom Buster has the customary fist tussle, though Jack's role is mainly confined to registering reaction shots). Buster also has two tussles with our old friend, Kermit Maynard (in the first of which Maynard is partnered by another old buddy, Al Ferguson). Marin Sais figures in some comic encounters with Fuzzy who is at his acrobatic best (or worst if you prefer it that way). The direction of Sigmund Neufeld is no more desultory than usual, the photography is its usual flat and washed-out, and the musical background contains all the familiar stand-bys of this series, including "Home On the Range" played jerkily underneath the typical forties-style credits. Mr. Crabbe is his usual self. The dialogue is as clichéd as all get- out and the plot is as familiar as beef on the hoof (only of course we don't see any beef in this film — or cabbages either for that matter — we just have to take their word for it that they are ranchers and nesters). We are so used to this series now that we don't get very excited at the prospect of a big shoot-em-out climax for we know Buster is going to arrive in time to prevent it. He does!

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bkoganbing
1944/12/15

Buster Crabbe and Al St. John find themselves in the middle of an arranged range war in Oath Of Vengeance. Everybody is swearing blood oaths in this one. It's homesteaders versus cowboys here.Of course in reality the whole thing is being arranged with a series of well planned incidents by villain Jack Ingram. He's looking to pick up some cheap land and this plot has been used a gazillion times in westerns both A and B.Al St. John going under the name Fuzzy in most films had a remarkable rubber face that he could contort into all kinds of funny expressions. Note when Crabbe is having his climatic fight with Ingram, St. John puts a kind of minor key climax to the whole affair. The expression afterward is priceless.No new trails blazed in

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Spuzzlightyear
1944/12/16

Pretty amusing movie for such a standard storyline. AKA, a bad guy in town sets up the ranchers and the settlers to go against each other, and the middleman can profiteer of all of the cattle he steals from them too1 New man in town, Billy Carson, along with his ever present side kick Fuzzy, have suspicions about the origins of this feud, so they do a little investigating. Unfortunately, one of the female ranchers, thoroughly disagrees with this reasoning, and rips a new one into Carson every chance she gets. Fuzzy, for good reason stands back while all of this is happening. Pretty soon, Carson tries to stand back and tries to let the feuders realize who is setting them up. But will Carson be forced to intervene again? You know, the more I watch the Buster Crabbe westerns, the more I like them. They're quite lightweight, have plenty of action, and have a great pairing of Crabbe and Al St John sure make a good team. As a matter of fact, John often steals the movie from Crabbe. He's quite funny with his facial expressions and what not. Predictable, but yet entertaining!

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