Best Western Movies of 1945

Rancher Clay Hardin arrives in San Antonio to search for and capture Roy Stuart, notorious leader of a gang of cattle rustlers. The vicious outlaw is indeed in the Texan town, intent on winning the affections of a beautiful chanteuse named Jeanne Starr. When the lovely lady meets and falls in love with the charismatic Hardin, the stakes for both men become higher.

An easy-going cowboy is mistaken by the townsfolk for a notorious gunman. The cowboy decides it would be best to leave town, until he meets the gunman's girlfriend.

An opportunistic Texas gambler and the exiled Creole daughter of an aristocratic family join forces to achieve justice from the society that has ostracized them.

Yosemite Sam is trying to rob the train that Bugs Bunny is riding on, and the two face off in several different ways.

Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.

In this western, a young cowboy rides out to avenge his father's killer. Eventually, he finds the scoundrel, but by this time opts not to kill him for the cowboy has fallen in love with the outlaw's niece. Later, the killer ends up killed and the hero is blamed for the crime.

In 1871, professional gambler John Devlin elopes with Sandra "Sandy" Poli, daughter of Marko Poli, an immigrant who has risen to railroad tycoon. Sandy, knowing that the railroad is to be extended into Dakota, plans to use their $20,000 nest egg to buy land options to sell to the railroad at a profit. On the stage trip to Ft. Abercrombie, their fellow passengers are Jim Bender and Bigtree Collins, who practically own the town of Fargo and Devlin is aware that they are prepared to protect the little empire... trying to drive out the farmers by burning their property, destroying their wheat, and blaming the devastation on the Indians. Continuing their journey north on the river aboard the "River Bird', Sandy and John meet Captain Bounce, an irascible old seafarer. Two of Bendender's henchmen, Slagin and Carp, board the boat and relieve John of his $20,000 at gunpoint. Captain Bounce, chasing the robber's dinghy..

Droopy chases the wolf, a dangerous outlaw, after he kidnaps Lou, a sexy female singer, from the saloon.

Stage line owner Brent has his men robbing Halliday stages and when his manager Waring learns of it, Brent has him killed. Jeff Waring arrives and takes his uncle's job. He soon learns what's happening and the Durango Kid goes into action. This keeps Halliday going and gives them a chance to get the mail contract by winning the stagecoach race.

Porky leads a wagon train into "Injun Joe Territory," and finally comes up against the fearsome Superchief. But Sloppy Moe, a survivor of a previous Injun Joe attack, knows something about him he won't tell... until the very end.

An Arizona teacher (Noah Beery Jr.) saves a vaudeville star (Martha O'Driscoll) and her troupe from a bandit (Leo Carrillo).

Sue Farnum inherits a circus, but her dead father's partner is trying to take it away from her. Roy and Bob Nolan are filming a movie on location at the circus. They and a number of other western movie stars come to Sue's aid, putting on a show and catching the bad guys.

In this western, Red Ryder leads a wagon train of homesteaders into a ghost town and discovers that it has become an outlaw's hideout.

In time-honored fashion, a couple of supporting players -- George Dolenz and Bill Kennedy -- found themselves elevated to starring roles in this minor Universal serial. They played Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers investigating the murder of a miner. The story, of course, was less important than speed and action, which directors Ray Taylor and Lewis D. Collins delivered in typical slap-dash Universal style. Starlet Daun Kennedy did not make much of an impression as the imperiled leading lady, and former star Robert Armstrong (of King Kong fame) was wasted in a subordinate role. Rondo Hatton, a non-actor whose grotesque appearance (caused by acromegaly, the so-called "Elephant Man" disease) was tastelessly exploited by Universal in the '40s, appeared as one of the outlaws.

When a group of gunmen are running sharecroppers off their land, rancher Andy Jones sends for his friend Billy Carson to organise the sharecroppers to fight. Andy is soon mortally wounded by the gunmen, but before his death schemes for his no good twin brother Fuzzy to be sent for to impersonate him. The gunmen, witnessing Andy's funeral fear that Fuzzy is Andy's avenging ghost.

The outlaw gangs are robbing the railroads and the Rangers cannot follow them when they move to New Mexico. So Kip decides to take a vacation to New Mexico and, as the Durango Kid, bring Cass and his gang back to justice. But Cass and his gang are killed at the bank in a double cross and Kip must still find the loot. For this, he enlists the help of Tex and Grubstake, although Grubstake does not know it.

A cowboy and his sidekick fight evil guys who want to rustle cattle in order to get hold of land.

Old Ma Conway champions statehood for Wyoming, believing the measure would put an end to the territory's lawlessness; but the elderly woman is opposed by cattle buyer and tax assessor Lee Landow and greedy banker Dixon. When Ma offers her opinion in a newspaper article, Landow sends his henchman Ringo to put the fear of God in the woman.

With the railroad coming to Red Rock, trouble is expected and Billy has been sent to help his friend Fuzzy who is the town's sheriff, judge, and barber. When the man that sent Billy is murdered and the railroad location map stolen, broken match sticks point to Vic Landreau. While Billy tries to find the missing map, Landreau suspects Billy is on to him and plans to have him killed.

Fuzzy purchases a saloon with a large sack of gold from the mine he owns with his partner Billy. When a crooked lawyer uses underhanded methods to try taking over the saloon, Billy works to bring the lawyer and his no-good gang to justice.

Rancher Rusty Williams is away at agricultural college and leaves his spread in the hands of his older cousin Shorty. Shorty wants to do more than run a ranch, however -- he wants to prospect for gold, but he has no money. He recruits a pair of partners in the guise of two runaway vagrants and a pair of backers in two stranded singers. But then Rusty shows up, and his four somewhat bumbling hired hands manage to compound Larry and Curly's deep ineptitude, and Rusty wants them all out of his hair.

Sunset Carson is a wandering cavalier who rides into the Badlands. Hallie Wayne is bedeviled by bandits who've been raiding the livestock of her ranch.

Heading west for his health, Colonel Lambeth takes his daughter Rill along. Lost on the desert they are saved by Pecos and Chito. The Colonel hires the two and the Lambeths soon find themselves mixed up in Pecos' trouble. Pecos has killed Sawtelle's brother and Sawtelle as head of the vigilantes is after him.

Mountie Matt O'Brien is assigned to escort Miss Owens to a remote outpost. But when he finds an illegal mining operation there that is smuggling gold across the border, his superior Sgt. Means orders him to leave.

Wildcat Kelly has been dead and buried for years. Or has he? Dale is a reporter for an Eastern magazine who comes West to find out the true story of Kelly, of whom Gabby seems to have mysterious knowledge.

A singing ranch foreman (Roy Rogers) and his friend (George "Gabby" Hayes) urge a chorus-girl heiress (Dale Evans) not to sell the property.

Johnny Hart (Rod Cameron) is on the run from the law after killing one of the men who shot his partner. He passes through a town and stops at a saloon owned by singer Lorena Dumont (Yvonne de Carlo). The two seem a good, albeit tempestuous match, although Johnny has no plans to marry -- Lorena has other ideas and a shotgun wedding ensues.

The story involves a rather odd flashback by Dale who is visiting El Dorado, home of her grandmother. She dreams about her grandmother's adventures including a romance with a cowboy who looks very much like Roy. Roy, of course, also exists in the present for Dale.

In this western, the Texas Rangers must stop a range war between sheepherders and cattle ranchers from erupting.

Jimmy and partner Dusty have bought a ghost town in the Cherokee strip. When they arrive they find their other partner Lasses has sold 51% to four crooks.

During the Austrian-Prussian war, Anna Marie is a dancer who is forced to flee her country after she is accused of being a spy. She ends up in a lawless western town in Arizona, where she uses her charms and dancing skills to transform herself into "Salome" during her dance routines.

The notorious Dalton Boys have decided to go straight and move to Argentina. Just before they leave, they learn of a friend whose land is about to be seized by a greedy land company. Before they can help, the man is killed by a company assassin. The brothers do manage to rescue his widow and head for the hills. There, they decide to revert back to outlaw life. Meanwhile, a newspaper publisher's daughter falls for one of the brothers.

Sal comes to the Barbary Coast from New England to find out who murdered her brother. She gets a job signing in Dude's saloon, falls in love with Dude, then wonders if he might be involved in the murder.

U.S. Marshal Clay Stacy brings law and order to a frontier community terrorized by an old Nemesis.

Steve Holden and his men successfully raid a wagon train. Among the local ranchers who decide to stop the raiding are Virgil Trent and his daughter Gail. At a meeting, Sidney Padgett, Cannonball and other townspeople conclude that someone is tipping the gang off on important shipments. Trent volunteers to contact the outlaws. He meets Steve and persuades him to cross to the side of the law and protect the ranchers. Steve soon suspects Padgett and tricks him into revealing his identity as the secret leader of the bandits, and in a furious battle between Steve's men and the outlaws, the former win.

Lawyer Butler, wanting Jeff Carson's ranch, has the Sheriff and his gang frame the bank holdup on him. Then they kill a witness that could free Carson and blame the murder on his son Sunset. But Sunset escapes, frees his father, and then sets a trap to catch the real killers.

Governor Price sends Sunset Carson to investigate a smuggling ring which is baffling the Border Patrol. Newspaper woman Ann Morton is working incognito in the saloon waiting for a break on ...

Sunset returns to find the Carson-Sterling feud still going. Sterling has been killed and it's not long before Andrew Carson is murdered. To end the feud Sunset challenges Martin Sterling to a shootout. Unknown to Sunset, Martin's sister Melinda has waylaid her brother and now appears for the shootout disguised in her brother's clothes.

Hoping to find a fortune in stolen gold bullion, railroad detective Sunset Carson (Sunset Carson) goes undercover as an outlaw to infiltrate the gang responsible, but winds up being hired as the sheriff of Gunsight by town founder George Layton (Frank Jaquet).

After several years' dormancy, the "Cisco Kid" western-film series returned to the screen with Monogram's The Cisco Kid Returns. Duncan Renaldo, actually Rumanian, starred as the Mexican "Robin Hood of the Old West", with Martin Garralaga as his corpulent sidekick Pancho. In the tradition of 20th Century-Fox's earlier "Cisco" efforts, our hero comes to the aid of an orphaned child, clears himself of a kidnapping charge, and proves that a "solid citizen" is in fact a criminal mastermind.

In this western, Red Ryder tries to be a good example for a young man who idolizes his father, an outlaw. The boy wants to follow in his father's footsteps when the hero intervenes.

Peggy Barlou is a young rancher who refuses to sell her spread to greedy stage-line proprietor John Rankin. Tex Haines, meanwhile, is accused of killing Bill Dugan, Rankin's bodyguard, but eludes capture long enough to hook up with Dave Wyatt and Panhandle Perkins, a couple of rangers in disguise.

Joan Wingate's wealthy father doesn't want his daughter to go into show business. As they vacation in the west she gets a job with Dan Tyler's show and uses Wingate money to keep him afloat. Sandwiched in between the numerous musical numbers they try to keep her father away from the show. But he eventually finds out and decides they will return east

A wildcat oil outfit is seeking to take over the ranch belonging to Pop Martin and his son Bob and daughter Helen. Bob sends his ex-army pals a "stay-way" message, which brings them on the double. The WW II vets use their jeeps, first for a cattle roundup, and then to round up the gang of crooks, including the crooked family-lawyer Thatcher, brains of the gang.

Kirby sends his henchmen to break killer Matt Brawley out of jail. But Brawley has already broken out and they return with Fuzzy instead. Realizing they think he's Brawley, Fuzzy plays the part. He and Bill plan to round up the gang but Fuzzy is in trouble when the real Brawley shows up to expose the hoax.

The Kid (Duncan Renaldo) masquerades as a government inspector in this pleasant, and pleasantly tuneful, Cisco Kid series entry. Learning that his old friends have been killed and Manuel Gonzales (Tito Renaldo) wrongly accused of cattle rustling by corrupt district officer Miguel Sanchez (George J. Lewis), the Kid assumes the identity of the murdered government official.

In the lawless town of Dusty Gulch, the Durango Kid comes to the aid of Reverend Harding in his fight against Blaze Howard and his henchman. When Durango foils all bad guy's plans, Blaze's boss Doc Weston realizes Cannonball it tipping off Durango. Weston then lets Cannonball overhear false information that will send Durango into a fatal trap.

The feuding Lanes and Whittakers are brought together with the help of Roy Rogers, when a business tycoon tries to play one family against the other.

U.S. Deputy Marshal Roy investigates the disappearance of a government agent who has come to Dale's father's Ladder A Ranch. The bad guys want the land the ranch sits on because they know an oil pipeline is planned through this location.