BELLE STARR'S DAUGHTER (1948)

New Mexico, the 1880s. A truce has been called between Cherokee Flats, a town ruled by bandit queen Belle Starr, and Antioch, a town that Starr and her men frequently plunder. No one from Cherokee Flats is supposed to be in Antioch's city limits while carrying a gun, but the marshal finds Bittercreek Bob and his sidekick Yuma in town and armed, and the two shoot him dead, an incident which threatens to stir up tensions again. Bob is sweet on Belle's daughter Rose and has been teaching her to use guns, but when Belle finds out what happened in Antioch, she confronts the two men, leading to Bob shooting her and Rose's uncle, setting fire to their cabin, and trying to lay the blame on Tom Jackson, Antioch's new marshal. Rafe, Belle's sidekick, suspects Bob, but Rose is led by Bob to think it was Tom, so she heads into Antioch, angling for revenge. She's hired as a saloon worker and, though Tom gets interested in her, she is soon outed as Belle's daughter. Their relationship is stilted at first but starts to thaw a bit until Bittercreek Bob comes to town, afraid that Rafe, who has accompanied Rose to Antioch, will voice his suspicions about Belle's death. There's a rousing barfight in which Rafe is shot dead, and Bob takes Rose, now sure that Tom killed her mother, into his gang and she joins in on some robberies. Tom goes after them, and during a chase, Yuma is badly wounded. Rose wants to bring him on the run with them, but Bob, knowing his chances of recovery are nil, wants to leave him to die. When Yuma admits to Rose that it was Bob who killed her mother, she redirects her need for revenge. You can look up information about the real Belle Starr and the real Rose (who was not Belle's daughter), but this movie is much less about those women than about the conflict between Tom (George Montgomery) and Bob (Rod Cameron). Both actors are fine here, with Cameron perhaps getting the edge just because his character is a little more layered and developed; we learn very little about Tom and he becomes basically a good guy stick figure. Also, Bittercreek Bob is based on a real outlaw, Bittercreek George. Ruth Roman (Rose, pictured with Montgomery) had been in several movies, but this was her first lead. She is third billed behind Montgomery and Cameron, and frankly, her character is only third in importance. She's out of the action at times, though she plays a large part in the climax. Wallace Ford is Rafe and William Phipps is Yuma. This is probably a B-film but it's a notch above average for the era. [TCM]