The Cowboy and the Bandit

When a land-grabbing varmint sets his sights on the struggling Bar X Ranch, "Range Rider" Rex Lease comes to the rescue -- with the help of an outlaw gang!

Cowhand Bill Bodie, wrongly labeled a killer and horse thief, is about to dance on the end of a lynch mob's rope, but he is saved by renegade Scarface and his men. The grateful Bill rides on, soon taking an interest in the plight of the careworn Mrs. Barton, whose husband was fleeced and killed by land-hungry crooks. Bill becomes her new foreman and, with the help of her young son Bobbie, stands up to the local polecats. But with impossible odds stacked against Bill, he soon finds himself in danger of dying of lead poisoning -- lead from the guns of a second outlaw gang.

This offbeat western is so uniquely upside-down that weak and corrupt lawmen wear the black hats and outlaws wear the white ones. Like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Scarface and his gang have a sense of right and wrong that compels them to use their outlaw guns to bring some needed justice to a territory betrayed by its men with badges.

Louis Weiss (of Poverty Row's Weiss Bros.) produced this commonplace B-Western starring one of the lesser names of the genre, Rex Lease. Falsely accused of horse-thieving and saved in the nick of time from a lynching party by decent gang leader Scarface (Dick Alexander), cowboy Bill (Lease) hightails it to the Texas Panhandle, where he obtains the job of foreman on the Barton ranch. The spread is about to be taken over by vicious Larkin (George Chesebro), who claims to have won it in a poker game with the late, lamented Pa Barton. With the help of Larkin's erstwhile girlfriend, saloon hostess Alice (Janet Morgan), Bill gets the goods on the villain, thus saving the ranch for Ma Barton (Adabelle Driver) (whose fine cooking is much discussed) and spirited young Bobby Barton (Bobby Nelson). Released by Poverty Row company Stage and Screen, THE COWBOY AND THE BANDIT was a reunion of sorts for several once-popular silent screen performers, including former cowboy heroes William Desmond, Bill Patton, Franklyn Farnum, Art Mix, and Wally Wales. Another survivor of silent films, leading lady Blanche Mehaffey, was so distressed at the downward turn her career was taking that she insisted on using a pseudonym, the aforementioned Janet Morgan. No one was fooled, however, and Mehaffey's career quickly came to an end.