Blazing Guns...

Blazing Guns (1943)

The Trail Blazers series wasn’t one of the longest running b-western series around, but what it lacked in volume, it more than made up for in audacity. These movies were action packed and downright full of fun.

Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson play Marshal Maynard and Marshal Gibson, the Governor sends them to the town of Willow Springs to clean it up. A gang has taken total control of the town and Ken and Hoot’s predecessors have already been killed by the ruthless gang. So, how do you fight vicious killers? Very simple, convince the Governor to release a handful of criminals that you’ve already taken into custody, and use them in your fight against the latest threat.

Despite the fact that our heroes are beginning to look either long in the tooth, or fairly round in the gut, this movie still manages to work. The story is rather secondary, it’s designed to build up just enough tension to make the final shootout really exciting. Which is exactly what the final shootout is; it’s exciting, action packed, and more than a little violent. This climax would have made Sam Peckinpah proud, sure, by today’s standards it may seem a bit tame, but to a 1943 crowd of children this was probably one of the most violent shootouts they’d ever seen, a lot of them probably walked out of that theater with a look resembling some the first crowds that saw the Wild Bunch.

-William J. White