Monogram Matinee Volume 3
Under Arizona Skies (1946) Dir. Lambert Hillyer
Range Justice (1949) Dir. Ray Taylor
60/57 min. / B&W / 1.37:1 / DTS-HD MA 2.0 MONO / SDH
Warner Archive BD $24.98
Available from our partner Movie Zyng
And here we are with the third volume of programmers from the vaults of Monogram Pictures, curated by with love and care by the Warner Archive, and happily so. No singin’ cowboys this outing, and we miss the “burst into a song about the prairie, the open range, and the saddle” every five minutes of the previous volume, but we’ll make do.
Our star in both of these films is Johnny Mack Brown (1904-1974), college football legend at Alabama who parlayed his looks and athleticism into a lengthy Hollywood career, briefly at MGM and then for many years doing westerns and serials for Universal before settling in at Monogram, where he played “Nevada Jack McKenzie” in a long series of films, alternating with various other roles but all basically the same character (you’re never going to find him as the shifty villain) until settling in billed under his real name.
We have a couple of typical installments here; in Under Arizona Skies he plays Dusty Smith, a wandering cowboy who helps rid the town of a gang of mysterious rustlers who can make stolen cattle disappear into thin air. His sidekick is Raymond Hatton, one of those popular character actors who seemed to always play an old man and who eventually grew into the part. Lambert Hillyer directed, and despite his long career with westerns and serials, this is the lesser of the two offerings in this set, not least of all because when you have a townsman named Blacky and he’s portrayed by a moustache with oily Tristam Coffin behind it, you think the star and his friends are idiots for not figuring out who the criminal mastermind is a lot earlier.
Our co-feature today is Range Justice, and we’ve got Max “Alibi” Terhune and his dummy, Elmer Sneezeweed, as the sidekick to laugh at, which helps a lot. Johnny Mack Brown plays Johnny Mack Brown, who’s helping a crotchety old lady deal with the gang that’s trying to put her farm out of business, and guess what? Oily Tris Coffin and his moustache are in town. Say no more, eh? Republic serial stalwart Ray Taylor keeps the action non-stop (except for when Elmer is giving out with wheezy jokes or Alibi is doing card tricks) in a fun Monogram offering.
A couple of things about these films… note that the titles could be anything. Under Arizona Skies could be On the Colorado Trail and Range Justice could be The Man from Danger Pass and nobody would know the difference. You could just swap the two titles, in fact, same thing. Titles were pre-sold and booking exchanges never noticed. Deliver the films, advertise ‘em for weekend matinees with several cartoons and a serial chapter, and you had a dynamite show and a packed house, pardner.
We hope to see the Monogram Matinees continue coming, and while we love the westerns, we wouldn’t complain if we got some of the studio’s Mantan Moreland comedies or haunted house thrillers in future installments.
