Arizona Legion (1939)

Directed by David Howard with a screenplay by Oliver Drake from a story by Bernard McConville this George O’Brien B Western also features Laraine Day using her birth last name Johnson for the fourth and final time in the credits and appearing in her third consecutive (and last) RKO oater with O’Brien who appears in his 60th film.

The film’s beginning is unusual in that O’Brien as Boone Yeager appears to be an obnoxious ruffian that shoots up the town and hangs out with other likeminded hoodlums. He even helps ‘Whiskey’ Joe (Harry Cording) avoid a conviction for stagecoach robbery even though his and his fiancée Letty Meade’s (Day) friend Cavalry Lieutenant Bob Ives (Carlyle Moore) was a witness that had testified against Joe. This unacceptable behavior causes Letty daughter of Judge Clayton Meade’s (Edward LeSaint) to break off their engagement. We then learn that Boone has been secretly sworn in by the Judge as the leader of the Arizona Rangers who are charged with working covertly to disrupt the operations of the bandits in order to expose and arrest (them and) their leader.

Chill Wills plays the tall tale telling ‘Whopper’ Hatch O’Brien’s sidekick (and comic relief) in this one. Tom Chatterton plays Commissioner Teagle William Royle plays corrupt bar owner Jim Dutton Glenn Strange plays the equally corrupt Express Agent George Kirby Monte Montague plays Henchman Buck Dawson and Bobby Burns plays ‘Tucson’ Jones.