Best Western Movies of 1942

Two peanut vendors at a rodeo show get in trouble with their boss and hide out on a railroad train heading west. They get jobs as cowboys on a dude ranch, despite the fact that neither of them knows anything about cowboys, horses, or anything else.

Dusty Gardner, and other Texas ranchers, are driving a herd of cattle to Abilene, Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. Desperate need of water takes them to the Turner ranch, where Belle Turner demands exorbitant prices for the water. Dusty learns that Belle is also trying to oust Mary Lee and Montana Smith from the trading post Mary operates. The sheriff sides with Belle following a fight between the two women. Belle knows there is artesian springs under the land the trading post occupies and intends to get the property by any means.

As foreman of a dude ranch, Gene has two problems. One is a guest, the spoiled daughter of a millioniare, and the other is the disgruntled ex-foreman that Gene replaced, now just a ranch hand. Gene eventually gets the daughter straightened out but has to fire the ex-foreman and this leads to trouble when he returns intent on revenge.

Sergeant MacLane of the Mounties investigates the disruptive activities of a bunch of troublemakers.

Boston pharmacist Tom Craig comes to Sacramento, where he runs afoul of local political boss Britt Dawson, who exacts protection payment from the citizenry. Dawson frames Craig with poisoned medicine, but Craig redeems himself during a Gold Rush epidemic.

In Hoyt City, a statue of founder Ethan Hoyt is dedicated, and 100 year old Hannah Sempler Hoyt (who lives in the last residence among skyscrapers) is at last persuaded to tell her story to a 'girl biographer'. Flashback: in 1848, teenage Hannah meets and flirts with pioneer Ethan; on a sudden impulse, they elope. We follow their struggle to found a city in the wilderness, hampered by the Gold Rush, star-crossed love, peril, and heartbreak. The star "ages" 80 years.

The Range Busters are together again to try and stop a swindle.

A radio saleswoman (Ruth Terry) helps a singing cattleman (Gene Autry) trap a shady meat buyer with a bogus broadcast.

Romance on the Range is a 1942 American film. Fur theives are looting the traps on the ranch where Roy is foreman and they have murdered one of Roy's friends.

An unknowing orphan idolizes the horse thief/mail robber who has shot his father.

When two of their Marshal friends are killed, the Rough Riders are sent to investigate. They have to find the killers in a ghost town where the houses and an old mine are interconnected by secret passages and tunnels.

The stooges are living with their mother who persuades them its time to leave home and seek their fortune. After a con man sells them a phony deed to a lost gold mine, the boys head west to find the treasure. After some mishaps with Curly's gold finding invention, they locate the mine and strike it rich. When two crooked miners try to take their gold they hole up in an abandoned hotel and, although they get bombarded by dynamite, triumph over the crooks.

Rancher Clay Travers finds and brings in the body of ranger Frank Mattison, murdered on the road to Trail City, where he had been sent to deal with an outbreak of cattle rustling. Businessman Art Kenyon, who has hired gunman Ed Martin to impersonate Mattison to further his rustling schemes, quickly changes Martin's story and has Travers framed for the ranger's murder. Managing to escape, Travers must come up with proof to clear his name and bring the true killers to justice.

American cowboy Goofy gets taken mysteriously to the Argentine pampas to learn the ways of the native gaucho.

A bandit who robs both Americans and Mexicans is causing each side of the border to blame the other. Hoppy has to settle matters.

Bad guys plot to trick a newly arrived Eastern girl out of a ranch which belongs to her infant ward. Roy, of course, saves the ranch for the girl. Songs include "I'm Headin's for the Home Corral," "He's a No Good Son of a Gun," "Sandman Lullaby," "Song of the San Joaquin," and "I'm a Cowboy Rockefeller."

The coming of the railroad to the West triggers an Indian war.

The brother of a notorious outlaw is put in a charge of a stagecoach line way station in dangerous Apache territory. A stagecoach arrives at the station with a valuable box of cargo, and the outlaw brother soon shows up, though denying that he's planning to take the cargo box. Soon, however, rampaging Apaches attack the station, and the station manager, his brother and a disparate group of passengers and employees must fight them off.

An honest cowpoke (Tim Holt) comes to the rescue when the ranchers of Red River, AZ have their property seized by a greedy businessman (Eddie Dew). This 1942 B-western, directed by Lesley Selander, also stars Barbara Moffett, Cliff Edwards, Otto Hoffman and Russell Wade.

Bolton's men blow up the wagon carrying the mine payroll and Marshal Crash Corrigan is supposedly killed in the explosion. A man finds his badge and gives it to Bolton. Thinking Crash dead, Bolton gives the badge away and it ends up with the Sheriff. Crash is OK and the Range Busters know Bolton is the head of the gang but that he gets his orders from someone else and that is the man they want.

This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress appropriated the money to build the school, but opponents who believed it to be an illegitimate expansion of the powers of the federal government decided to sabotage the school. They put the hard-as-nails Major Sam Carter in charge of the academy, and he ruthlessly put the recruits through grueling training -- until only ten prospective soldiers remained. They include Dawson, a patriotic farm boy and Howard Shelton, a selfish playboy who has come to West Point only because of its prestige. The two vie for Carolyn Bainbridge, while they, along with the other eight, try convince Carter that the school is worth keeping.

Jim Steele spots Pete Dawson taking horses over the Mexico-Texas border, but Dawson has an alibi. A new group of recruits arrives at the Ranger station, among them Tex Wyatt, the son of Ranger Captain John Wyatt, whom he hasn't seen for many years. Captain Wyatt tells Tex that he is in the Rangers strictly on his own merit and there will be no favors played. He assigns Tex to pick up Dawson's trail, but orders that no arrest be made without proof.

Buck Roberts is leading a wagon train of railroad supplies and Jim Corkle and his henchman Loder are out to stop them by using white men dressed as Indians for the attacks.

Billy and his pals, on the run from the law again, travel to Sage Valley where Billy is made Sheriff. The local outlaw gang is run by Kansas Ed who closely resembles Billy. Ed captures Billy and changing clothes with him, now plans to run the town as Sheriff.

Uneven version of Wyatt Earp vs. the Clanton Gang with a little romance thrown in haphazardly.

Knowing the Army is arriving to establish a post. Doc Hagan and his gang and the crooked Sheriff are trying to drive the ranchers off the land. When the gang wound a rancher, the Doc finishes him off with his needle. Running from the law again, Billy and his pals arrive and take up the ranchers fight. But when Billy's pal Jeff is wounded, Fuzzy unknowningly takes him to Doc Hagan.

A beautiful heiress is an excellent poker player. Her comfortable life changes when her father and his fortune die during market crash of the 1800's.

An Arizona frontiersman (James Craig) steals an Indian agent's girlfriend (Lucille Ball), followed by trouble.

Saved from a lynching party by a pair of young women, an itinerant cowpuncher signs on as a stagecoach guard to protect a shipment of gold.

Sagebrush site gags depicting wild west wackiness.

Billy the Kid and his pal Fuzzy escape from the Marshal and find themselves in the ghost town of Laramy. The city was abandoned because of Sykes and his gang, who are in search of a gold mine.

The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend.

Stanton breaks Billy and his two friends Fuzzy and Jeff out of jail. He wants them free so three of his men can impersonate them for the robberies and murders he has planned.

Working undercover, Allen and sidekick Mendoza are out to stop the mail train robberies. Rivers and his gang are the culprits and by joining up with them, they hope to get the evidence they need.

Tom Kenyon and his sidekick Pierre La Farge are hired by rancher Mike O'Day who, with his daughters Toni and Sugar, provides wild horses for the government remount station.

A singing cowboy and his sidekick rescue miners from a bad deal.

Richard Dix as Dan Taylor and Preston S. Foster as Paxton Bryce are two longtime friends seeking their fortune in Texas after the war. The two men decide, not without problems, to establish a cattle empire. Paxton becoming too ambitious, distances himself from Dan and Abby, Paxton's wife. It will only be after a personal tragedy that he will come back to his senses.

In the midst of some friendly horseplay on their "Flying R" ranch, the Range Busters, Crash Corrigan, Dusty King and Alibi Terhune, are sobered by the arrival of a buckboard bearing their old friend Larry Meadows and his niece Dorrie Willard. Meadows seeks their aid against a gang of outlaws terrorizing his town. Ernie Willard, Dorrie's brother, has been taken in by Tex Laughlin who is using the Willard ranch as an undercover for his real occupation as a member of a gang of outlaws led by Tim Douglas, a supposed friend of the Willards.

A cowboy heads for the town where his father was murdered to find out who was responsible.

Shadows on the Sage is a 1942 American Western "Three Mesquiteers" B-movie directed by Lester Orlebeck. The Three Mesquiteers, Tucson, Stony, and Lullaby arrive to help Sheriff Lippy fight the outlaws. But when the gang leader Curly Joe captures Tucson and notices the resemblance, he assumes Tucson's identity.

After a payroll robbery the Mesquiteers catch up with the gang. But the members escape, the gang leader is killed, and they end up with only the leaders young son who is quickly sent to a work farm. They adopt the boy hoping to learn where the money is. Just as their kindness is about to pay off a gang member takes the boy away forcing him to retrieve the money. - Written by Maurice VanAuken

Tom Cameron and Fuzzy Q. Jones come to the aid of their old friend Smoky, who is having trouble with power hungry cattle rancher Huxley.

Though Don "Red" Barry is the star of Jesse James, Jr., he plays a character named Johnny Barrett. The scene is a small western town, lacking telegraph service. Every time the locals try to set up communications with the Outside World, they are thwarted by an outlaw gang.

In 1937 the life in out West has not changed much. The boys are working at the Wyoming ranch of Captain Marvin herding horses which he sells to Kurt Redman. Marvin will not sell any horses to any army, but the boys find out that Redman is a German agent shipping the horses directly to the Third Reich. When Marvin tries to stop Redman, his son Tad, who is studying medicine in Germany, is arrested and held hostage. Marvin must fire the boys as the sneaky German agents take over the ranch, but the boys will not give up their attempt to stop them.

Fugitive Nazis threaten to take over the Wyoming range in this Three Mesqueteers outing, which also warns about the danger of blithely assuming that every German-American is a fifth columnist. Which is exactly what rancher Clem Parker (Hal Price) does when learning that a couple of escaped Axis war criminals may be heading towards the local valley.

Bill Underwood falls out with his father and chooses the life of a cowhand rather than take charge of his father's stage line.

The Rough Riders arrive to fight Rand, Ludlow and their gang. Buck poses as a preacher, Tim as a preacher, and Sandy as an undertaker. Buck not only wants the outlaws, but also their unknown boss.

A would-be prospector becomes involved in a plot to deceive an old prospector of his cache, but falls in love with his daughter instead.

Ma Turner of Red Bluff sends for U.S.Marshal Buck Roberts to investigate a series of wide-spread rustling in the area. Town banker Miller, saloon-owner Duke Mason and the crooked sheriff are in cahoots with rancher John Holt, but they double-cross and kill him. His son Steve witnesses the murder and kills the sheriff. Buck arrives and arrests Steve. Marshal Tim McCall, posing as an outlaw, gains the confidence of the gang and engineers the escape, with Buck's knowledge, of Steve from the jail. Sandy Hopkins, the third Marshal of the trio, poses as a peddler and learns that the gang intends to do away with Buck and rides to the Turner ranch to warn him. Red, a Turner ranch hand but also a member of the gang, overhears Buck telling Ma that Tim is really a U.S. Marshal, and he has Miller and Mason informed. Written by Les Adams