Best Western Movies of 1949

Bob Ford murders his best friend Jesse James in order to obtain a pardon that will free him to marry his girlfriend Cynthy. The guilt-stricken Ford soon finds himself greeted with derision and open mockery throughout town. He travels to Colorado to try his hand at prospecting in hopes that marriage with Cynthy is still in the cards.

John Breen (John Wayne), a Kentucky militiaman falls in love with French exile Fleurette De Marchand (Vera Ralston). He discovers a plot to steal the land that Fleurette's exiles plan to settle on and aims to foil it.

In Roy Rogers' Down Dakota Way, the deadly hoof-and-mouth disease has struck the herd owned by evil rancher H. T. McKenzie (Roy Barcroft). To avoid an expensive quarantine on his stock, McKenzie plans to murder the local veterinarian (Emmet Vogan) before the latter can report his findings to the government. Rogers manages to straighten out the situation by appealing to the sensibilities of the aunt (Elizabeth Risdon) of McKenzie's hotheaded hired assassin (Byron Barr). The film also bears several musical numbers from Roy, Dale Evans, and Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage.

A marshal goes up against a collection of vicious outlaws terrorizing his own.

Texas, 1878: cheerful outlaw-buddies Jim, Lorn and Wahoo rescue spunky orphan Rannie Carter from rustling racketeers, then are forced to separate. Lorn goes on to bigger and better robberies, while Jim and Wahoo are (at first reluctantly) maneuvered into joining the Texas Rangers. For friendship's sake, the three try to keep out of direct conflict, but a showdown begins to look inevitable. And Rannie, now grown into lovely young womanhood, must choose between Lorn and Jim

Diamonds are being smuggled across the border from Mexico in a specially made shoe of a palomino mare. One of the smugglers is killed when the mare runs off. The sheriff blames Trigger for the death. To keep his horse from being destroyed, Roy confesses and goes to jail. The smugglers buy Trigger and put him to work smuggling diamonds. The mare, who had earlier heard a trist with Trigger, foals Trigger, Jr. who Roy, finally out of jail, uses to help capture the smugglers.

A young man with a love of horses, Scott Jordan (Roddy McDowall) lives on the family ranch with his uncle Bill (Damian O’Flynn). When he buys a wild stallion from his black-sheep cousin Daniel (Rand Brooks), Scott names the horse Midnight and does his best to tame him. But when the sheriff (Sky King’s Kirby Grant) suspects the stallion was stolen and Daniel’s plan to get rid of the horse ends with a man being trampled, Scott must prove Midnight acted in self-defense before his uncle destroys him. The fourth of six films McDowall coproduced and starred in for Monogram Pictures, Black Midnight was directed by Oscar “Budd” Boetticher, whose seven Westerns with Randolph Scott are considered classics of the genre.

Red Ryder gets a telegram from his old friend Dan O'Connor asking for help in his fight against Faro Savage and his gang of rustlers. A gun dropped by Faro during a rustling raid makes Red and Sheila O'Connor, Dan's daughter, think they have ample proof against Faro but they are stymied by the law. Buckskin Blodgett and the Duchess, Red's aunt, find the body of O'Connor who was killed when Faro's men sent the sheriff out on a ruse. Sheila, discovered while rifling Faros office for evidence, escapes but not before she is recognized. Faro kills one of his own henchmen and then frames Sheila for the murder. Red and Little Beaver set out to clear Sheila and to try to find evidence against Faro and his gang. Written by Les Adams

A Dutch miner (Glenn Ford) and an Old West couple (Ida Lupino, Gig Young) die fighting over an Arizona gold mine lost in an earthquake.