Ransom - Crooked Ranger
Filmed at Palmdale, California, this Tex Ritter Western continued a recent trend of limiting Ritter's trademark music numbers in favor of rather ill staged fisticuffs and other action scenes. Ritter, who was never very lucky with his ever changing comic sidekicks, was here saddled with one Frank Mitchell, a New Yorker visibly ill at ease on the celluloid range. Tex and Shorty (Mitchell) ride into Cinco Valley, a gold rich area terrorized by marauders ostensibly lead by one Pablo (Martin Garralaga). Tex, however, recognizes Blackie (Earl Douglas), whose boss is Bannister (Warner Richmond), an American. Suspecting that Bannister and his henchmen are trying to drive the settlers off their potentially valuable land by posing as Mexican banditos, Tex convinces Pablo to help him set a trap for the marauders.
