Two B-Westerns

LAND BEYOND THE LAW (1937)
I watched this out of curiosity about the "singing cowboy" subgenre (in this one, the musical hero is Dick Foran) and because it has Wayne Morris in a supporting role, and I wound up enjoying this much more that I thought I would. The opening is pure bliss, as Dick and his men come riding into town singing about being the Circle Bar Boys and how they're gonna raise a little playful hell. It reminded me of something out of OKLAHOMA! There's only one other major number ("Whisper While You’re Waltzing") and a short song at the very end, so the singing part did not predominate. The film is set in Bitter Creek, a frontier town in New Mexico, which is largely a lawless state. The plot starts out as something out of LADY FOR A DAY, with the bar owner (Irene Franklin) cleaning things up and changing her establishment to a cafe (spelt "cafay" on her temporary sign) because her daughter (Linda Perry), who thinks her mother runs a respectable place, is arriving for a visit. But soon, a more traditional western plot, with rustlers trying to start a range war, takes over. Foran's father is killed and Foran enlists as sheriff to right the rustlers. Cy Kendall is the main bad guy. Foran is fine, and Wayne Morris is as handsome as he's ever been. At only an hour, this B-western was well worth the time. I'll have to catch some more of these the next time TCM airs them.

VALLEY OF HUNTED MEN (1942)
This is actually a WWII spy movie done up as a western. It's one entry in a long series of B-films featuring the Three Mesquiteers, WWI buddies who work together on a ranch in Wyoming. The line-up over some fifty movies varied; here, it's Tucson Smith (Bob Steele), Stony Brooke (Tom Tyler) and Lullaby Joslin (Jimmie Dodd). Kindly German scientist Edward Van Sloan is conducting experiments to help expand the rubber crop for the Allied war effort. Some ranchers are suspicious of him, especially after three Nazi spies escape from a Canadian jail and wreck havoc in the area, trying to sabotage the experiments. There is death and disguise and heroism, along with a lesson about not being able to tell loyalty by a person's ethnic background. Jimmie Dodd was later better known as a regular on "The Mickey Mouse Club." [TCM]