Trail Guide (1952)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely Fantastic

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

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

I always get a kick out of lines in a Western like the one in my summary above, they take me back to the wonderful days of Yosemite Sam in the Warner Brothers cartoons of the era. I can just see Yosemite looking down the barrel of his six-guns while drawing a bead on Elmer Fudd. Actually, the line was delivered by Silver Springs town villain Regan (Frank Wilcox) to young Kenny Masters (Robert Sherwood) on the way out of town, with Regan intending to keep Masters quiet about all the skulduggery the baddies are trying to pull off.For Tim Holt and Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) this is a pretty standard outing, with all the usual elements present in their relationship. Tim has to keep Chito on the straight and narrow so he doesn't get waylaid by every pretty face he comes across. Trail gal Maria (Wendy Waldron) was pretty persistent in the romance department, so Chito had to be just as nimble to stay a step ahead of her.The story itself presents the age old rivalry between cattle men and homesteaders, with Tim angling for a way both sides can live in harmony with each other. Cattle rancher Peg Masters (Linda Douglas) functions as the go-between once she finds out her brother is done in by the outlaws. Standard horse chase scenes and shoot-outs complement the on screen action, but there's never any doubt the good guys will come out on top.

Tim Holt turns in a workmanlike job in this run-of-the-mill entry in his long-running series of "B" westerns for RKO. The story about cattlemen vs. homesteaders has been done countless times before, and there's nothing new to be found in the script. The action scenes are OK, the production values are good--as they usually were in this series--and there's a better-than- average supporting cast of veteran western players: John Pickard, Kenneth MacDonald, John Merton, Frank Wilcox. Pretty, but wooden, Linda Douglas is the female interest, and the picture moves along at a satisfactory pace. Tim Holt's westerns were always a bit too cut-and-dried for my tastes and Richard Martin's irritating Chito Rafferty has grated on me from the first time I saw him--the patently phony Mexican "accent" and the "devil-may-care" attitude that he was never able to quite pull off--but on the whole they were better than most of the series westerns at the time, especially the awful Whip Wilson ones from Monogram, and this is no better or no worse than others in Holt's series.

Tim Holt, son of actor Jack Holt and brother to Jennifer Holt, played in such movie classics as "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." He brought his acting talents to the B western beginning in the early 40's and then made a series for RKO with Richard Martin, another fine actor, as Chito Jose Gonzalez Bustamonte Rafferty, an Irish-Mexican role, as his womanizing comical sidekick. Martin had already played the role of Chito Rafferty for others before joining with Tim Holt. A Tim Holt western was always a good one to watch for action and adventure. "Trail Guide" is typical of the series. Tim and Chito are out to help homesteaders led by character actor Kenneth MacDonald against outlaws pretending to be protectors of the open range but really out for their own personal gain. The outlaws have suckered young Kenny Masters (Robert E. Sherwood) into helping them. His sister, Peg Masters (Mary Jo Tarola aka Linda Douglas) at first suspects Tim and Chito as being the outlaws but eventually learns the truth about what is really happening.By 1952, the singing cowboy was virtually history. There were a few hangers on such as Rex Allen, Eddie Dean, and Jimmy Wakely. Gene, Roy, and Hoppy were going into television production which is where the B western would shortly end up. The main Saturday matinée cowboys of the early 1950's were non-singers such as Tim Holt, The Durango Kid, Allan Rocky Lane, Whip Wilson, Lash LaRue, and Johnny Mack Brown. The only music usually provided was background for the action that took place. This meant that movies such as "Trail Guide" were action packed with no musical numbers to slow things down.If you are a Tim Holt fan, you should enjoy "Trail Guide." If you've never seen a Tim Holt western before and enjoy action and adventure, this is a good film to watch.

Tim Holt and Richard Martin starred in a long series of RKO B westerns from the early 1940s through the mid 1950s. Production values were good, stories generally were fine, but the directors were people like Lesley Selander, director of this effort, who knew how to shoot the scenes very well but wasn't much on directing the actors. Good actors like Holt and Martin could usually manage, although they occasionally made bad acting choices, but the leading ladies, usually up-and-coming starlets, often gave wooden readings of their lines, like Linda Douglas in this.This is a typical entry. It is, by all means, satisfactory except for one or two performances. It is well worth your time.