Red River Robin Hood (1942)

Directed by Lesley Selander and scripted by Bennett R. Cohen from the Whitney J. Stanton story this Tim Holt B Western was the last until after World War II. It features Cliff ‘Ukulele Ike’ Edwards as (the singing comic relief and) Holt’s sidekick Barbara Moffett as the attractive woman he eventually falls for Eddie Dew as the villain Otto Hoffman Russell Wade Tom London Earl Hodgins Bud McTaggart Reed Howes and Kenneth Duncan.

More of a Zorro than a Robin Hood tale the plot involves a land grab by Scott Yager (Dew) who uses a forged Spanish land grant and a crooked judge (Robert McKenzie uncredited) to lay claim to the entire settled community of Red River. The existing ranchers need to either clear out or pay rent – $1 per acre per year – to Yager’s henchmen (McTaggart Howes and Duncan).

Returning to town from horse-breaking work Jim Carey (Holt) and his sidekick Ike (Edwards) discover that their friend and co-landowner Chet (Wade) is in jail for resisting Yager’s takeover. After a brief scuffle with Yager’s henchmen themselves the friends conspire with the local newspaper editor Sam Sterling (Hoffman) and his daughter Carol (Moffett) to stop Yager from the inside-out. Jim and Ike join Yager as henchmen. At the same time the two don black capes and masks to become “Mr. Justice” helping to unite the ranchers to acquiesce to Yager long enough to have the land grant re-examined and proved a forgery … since the Sheriff (London) and his bumbling Deputy (Hodgins) are ineffectual.

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