Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The legendary lawmen known as The Texas Rangers are called in when thousands of cattle are disappearing from the White Sage Ranch owned by the Dangerfield family. An outlaw known as The Pecos Kid (John Howard) is taken on as a ranch hand, and he meets cute with the lovely young Ellen 'Slats' Dangerfield (Ellen Drew), a family member just recently returned to the old homestead."The Texas Rangers Ride Again" is no more and no less than lightly entertaining, fun, routine B western fare. There's not much of a story here, but there is good atmosphere, and a healthy amount of humour. There are enough genuinely funny moments - especially when The Pecos Kid pretends that he's got a gunshot wound - to make this pleasant (if forgettable) entertainment.The cast is full of solid actors: Akim Tamiroff, Broderick Crawford, John Miljan, Anthony Quinn, Monte Blue, Donald Curtis, Charles Lane, Tom Tyler, and a young, uncredited Robert Ryan. But the show is stolen by feisty old May Robson as Ellens' live wire grandmother Cecilia and Charley Grapewin as aged Ranger Ben Caldwalder. Howard is a charming and engaging lead, and Ms. Drew is quite cute and amiable. Some of the humour derives from 'Slats' being such a tenderfoot.These 68 minutes pass by in likable enough fashion.Six out of 10.

An old lady rancher with a cattle rustling problem calls in the Texas Rangers, who in turn send undercover agents John Howard and Broderick Crawford to infiltrate the rustlers, led by Anthony Quinn, while also putting up with the ranch owner's spoiled granddaughter.A supposed sequel to the king Vidor/Fred MacMurray classic, this has too much talking, not enough action, and an inept climax, with too much modern technology on display, ruining the western atmosphere. Neither a gun is fired, nor a horse ridden faster than a trot until forty-seven minutes into this sixty-eight minute movie! You'd be better off skipping this slow-moving studio B-picture and watching a poverty-row cheapie instead.Crawford should have made like he did in All The King's Men and got all liquored up, before telling off the rustlers. now that would have been entertaining!

"The Texas Rangers Ride Again" is a contemporary western about cattle rustling on a sprawling ranch in the Lone Star State. "Arrest Bulldog Drummond" director James Hogan and "Million Dollar Ransom" scenarist William R. Lipman and "Gentleman Jim" scribe Horace McCoy have fashioned an undercover oater with a Texas Ranger masquerading as a wanted man. The gigantic White Sage Ranch is losing steers by the hundreds to rustler. An elderly matriarch demands that the Rangers intervene. What she doesn't know is that some of her own people are behind the rustling. The supporting cast contains two familiar faces that would receive Oscars for their performances in other films. You'll also spot Robert Ryan in an early role. Anthony Quinn and Broderick Crawford appear in supporting roles. When our hero isn't lurking on the fringe of the rustling outfit, he enjoys some encounters with Ellen 'Slats' Dangerfield (Ellen Drew) who has just returned to the ranch after having been gone for a decade. Ellen and Jim Kingston, aka Pecos Kid (John Howard) get involved in a relationship.

I'm sure Paramount could not possibly have released what the end would be in the careers in the cast of Texas Rangers Ride Again. You've got the unusual situation where the nominal leads, John Howard and Ellen Drew, are overshadowed by the incredible supporting cast. Two of them, Anthony Quinn and Broderick Crawford went on to win Oscars. The rest of the cast included such worthies as May Robson, Akim Tamiroff, Eddie Foy, Jr., and Charley Grapewin probably all better known to the average movie buff than the leads.The leads deem it a B film. But Paramount in shooting on location in Arizona gave it some A production values. Ellen Drew was best known as Hugette in If I Were King and John Howard's career role was as George Kittridge in The Philadelphia Story. Drew is the granddaughter of May Robson who is essentially reprising her role from The Texans. Howard and Crawford are Texas Rangers working undercover a cattle hijacking operation.Well by any other name, it's rustling. And this is a modern day western so the Rangers are equipped with shortwave radios to aid in crime fighting and automobiles to supplement the horses.One line really disturbed me though. From the gitgo it's clear that Anthony Quinn playing Indian cowboy Joe Yuma who's involved with the rustlers. But he's dismissed as the possible big boss with the line, "no Indian could possibly be clever enough to be behind this operation." I'm sure Anthony Quinn with his mestizo heritage got a real charge out of that. Actually his character is quite shrewd and that line doesn't gibe with the plot at all.The supporting cast is classic, but this nothing to stay home on Saturday afternoon for.