Arizona Gunfighter (1937)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

After watching several Bob Steele movies in a row, I realize I will never get tired of them. He himself was a good actor who just got better and better as his career went on. He was able to steal a scene without saying a word, and did so in later features where he was just a with, sometimes even without screen credit.When Bob Steele had a script by the prolific George Plympton, he was even better. Plympton wrote this screenplay, adapted from an unusual story by Harry F. Olmstead.Directing was OK, but nothing special was needed with this superlative cast and good camera work. As Shakespeare said, "The play's the thing."Among the many stand-outs in this cast, Ernie Adams again surprised me: He played the kind of almost-comic character he just is not noted for. His main claim to fame, and I'm discovering that claim is false, is the sniveling bad guy. Here he is so watchable, so strong in his characterization, I was just dumbfounded in awe.Another Adams, Ted, gets here what might have been his own best role. I've not seen him in anything before that I even remember, but, here, his character is strong, likable, even admirable, and he handles it all with superlative ability.Many of the other players seem to be part of a stock company, a stock company of perfect Western performers who should have made hundreds more movies. Yes, in my opinion they're that good.The print I saw at YouTube is terrible. Sometimes too dark to be able to tell just what is happening. Sometimes it's dark for night scenes, sometimes perhaps because the print is too many generations old. Still for a movie this good, I could put up with the lousy print, and I hope you do too.

The title role in Arizona Gunfighter is played by Bob Steele who kills a couple of guys who had bushwhacked his father, but then gets badly wounded himself. Rescue comes in the form of an old an philosophical outlaw played by Ted Adams who is tired of the outlaw game and sees in Steele a young version of himself. He breaks up the gang and decides to take Steele to live on his ranch in an obscure part of the territory where he made sure the gang never operated. Adams also gives himself up and goes to prison.However henchman Lew Meehan figures he's got a lot of good years left in him for the outlaw trade and he reactivates the gang. It's up to Steele and Adams to bring justice to the territory and make sure the gang doesn't ride again.The plot is a bit silly and elements of that plot are taken from the James Cagney classic G-Men where an old gangster sends Cagney on the straight and narrow to the FBI and henchmen keep the old gang going. Still the film is sincerely done and the players look comfortable out on the range.

Finally a 'B' Western that doesn't have anything to do with land rights, water rights, mining rights, railroad right of way, or a town boss too big for his britches. "Arizona Gunfighter" is also unusual in other ways as well, not the least of which is cowboy star Bob Steele portraying both a hero and an outlaw. When Colt Ferron (Steele) attempts to avenge his father's murder at the hands of a rancher named Durkin, he shoots both Durkin and his man Farley, invoking the name of the legendary gunman. However he takes a bullet himself, collapsing with loss of blood and saved by Wolf Whitson (Ted Adams) and his band of Jack Pine Mountain Outlaws. Reared back to health by Whitson, Colt decides to stay on to repay that debt and to escape the law for the deaths of two men.Wolf heads up a veritable menagerie of outlaws with names like Grizzly Barr (Ernie Adams) and Snake Bralt (Lew Meehan), and when his gang rustles cattle from the local ranchers, Whitson winds up returning them to the unfortunate victims - this is not your normal bandit. Eventually, Wolf disbands his gang, heading out of the territory with his now loyal friend Colt. In other parts of the territory, Wolf's known as Pop Whitaker, harboring other secrets as well.Trouble ensues when Snake reunites the Pine Mountain Outlaws once again, this time raiding local ranchers. Imagine Colt's surprise when he learns that Wolf is now in prison, having given himself up for his criminal past. As a common citizen, Colt gets the governor to go along with a plan to allow two outlaws, Wolf and the Arizona Gunfighter, to bring the Pine Mountain gang to justice. When the governor agrees, Colt Ferron changes his outfit to all black, as befitting his reputation.It seems a bit more thought than usual went into this oater, with original dialog and an interesting story that puts to shame all the John Wayne Lone Star Westerns of the same era. Even the film's romantic lead, Jean Carmen as Beth Lorimer, picks up a six gun in a final showdown between the good guys and bad guys. It also turns out that Wolf/Pop Whitaker is really Beth's father, another plot element that takes you by surprise. Until that was mentioned though, I had some queasy moments throughout the film when Colt and the much older Wolf exchanged furtive glances and smiles in a Brokeback Mountain sort of way.Westerns wound up being good to Bob Steele, he performed in nearly two hundred of them spanning half a century, even performing in some classic TV Westerns like "Colt .45" and "Have Gun Will Travel". The young Steele resembled Gene Autry a bit, with a confident and professional approach to his craft, as evidenced by his turn as the "Arizona Gunfighter".

This Republic western is an interesting work, well-directed by Sam Newfield, starring glacial-eyed Bob Steele with a solid supporting cast, a well-constructed scenario featuring a goodly amount of fresh dialogue and situations, and an obviously more than competent crew which covers its assignments well as apparent from the excellent sound, cinematography and editing, not a presumption within this normally low-budget genre. Steele portrays Colt Ferron, a cowboy who avenges his father's murder by slaying, albeit in self-defense, the two responsible and, as an outlaw, rides with a gang headed by Wolf Whitson (Ted Adams), a type of western Robin Hood who steals back rustled cattle in order to return them to their proper owners, remaining with the riders until Whitson dissolves his group because dissidents, impatient of their less than lucrative criminal activity, have begun to branch out into bank robbery and murder. The relationship between Colt and his mentor Wolf becomes absorbing, especially as both men eventually face juridical punishment for their crimes; the acting throughout is quite good as is fitting from such an assemblage of old hands, particularly from Ernie Adams as a sidekick of Colt and Wolf, and the horsemanship is superb, indeed silk-like from the centaurish Steele aboard Flambow, one of his favourite, and most intelligent, mounts.