Border G-Man (1938)

Directed by David Howard with a screenplay by Oliver Drake from the story by Bernard McConville this George O’Brien B Western also features Laraine Day (aka Johnson) who was still a high school student at the time in her third picture (second credited); her next film was RKO’s Painted Desert (1938). One departure from earlier (and later) O’Brien westerns is that this one is set in the year the film was made and not the days of the “Old West”. Hence there are automobiles trucks and ‘modern’ weapons. The film’s plot assumes that its audience knows the particulars of the Neutrality Act. O’Brien plays Jim Galloway the titled agent who goes undercover to catch persons suspected of being in violation of the act e.g. as smugglers of arms horses and men.

Working with a rancher – Hugh Sothern as Matt Rathburn – that wouldn’t sell horses to Louis Rankin (John Miljan) Galloway poses as Rathburn’s foreman in order to gain the trust of this “shaky” rancher that’s buying up all the horses in the area and hiring dozens of gunfighters. Day plays Rathburn’s niece Betty Holden who’s also Leslie Holden’s (William Stelling) sister. Their father is a Senator which was the primary motivation for Rankin’s sister Rita Browning (Rita LaRoy) a partner in her brother’s dealings to employ her charms on Leslie (to have use of the Senator’s name by proxy and for blackmail). Edgar Dearing plays Rankin’s right-hand man Smoky Joslin while Edward Keane plays Colonel Christie who’d been hired to train the surly lot of men like Curly (Ethan Laidlaw) in breaking the horses before the pending sale. Bob Burns plays the Sheriff who rounds up the posse that helps save the day in the end.

The only noteworthy fact about this movie (with its overly complicated story for a sub-hour B picture) is that it features the first onscreen singing of the cowboy classic “Back in the Saddle Again” which is sung by its author Ray Whitley who plays Rathburn ranch-hand Luke Jones. Whitley and Gene Autry later adapted the song which would become the Republic Pictures B cowboy’s signature number; Autry first sang it in his feature Rovin’ Tumbleweeds (1939).