Oklahoma Badlands (1948) Allan Lane, Black Jack, Rocky's Stallion Black Jack, Eddy Waller, Mildred Coles Movie Review

Oklahoma Badlands (1948)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Allan Lane and Eddy Waller in Oklahoma Badlands (1948)

Looking for Leslie

Whilst on his way to visit old friend Ken Rawlins (Jay Kirby), Allan Rocky Lane (Allan Lane) comes across a group of men hold up a stagecoach, not for money but to scare of Leslie Rawlins (Mildred Coles) except these men don't realise Leslie is a woman and put the frighteners on the wrong man. Having dealt with the trouble Allan learns that Ken has been killed and Leslie has inherited his ranch which he quickly deduces is what someone wants enough to not only kill Ken but scare of Leslie. With no one the wiser Allan talk Leslie into letting him masquerade as Leslie Rawlins with her acting as his maid so that he can get to the bottom of who is after the ranch and deal with them.

Well I have to say that whilst I have watched more westerns about businessmen trying to steal land than I care to remember I don't remember coming across one which uses a generic name as a source of confusion between the sexes. And it is a nice gimmick which unsurprisingly has some sexism attached to it remembering we are talking about a movie which as I write is just short of 70s years old.

Mildred Coles in Oklahoma Badlands (1948)

But the thing is that whilst we have name confusion set up almost everything else in this oater is typical with Allan Lane playing the handsome hero, Eddy Waller giving as wiley humour in a 'Gabby' Hayes sort of way as Nugget. And then there is Mildred Coles who finds herself having to go along with the pretence of being a housemaid which is in itself is funny when she has to put up with Nugget being bossy. But it is all incredibly typical with Allan delivering the heroics until it builds to a big action packed climax. The one thing which stands out when it comes to the action is that it is legendary stunt man Yakima Canutt in the director's chair and the action scenes are generally a little more impressive than you would get in other oaters.

What this all boils down to is that "Oklahoma Badlands" is an entertaining 60 minute western from the late 40s. But beyond the name confusion gimmick and some nice action scenes it doesn't have anything to make it stand out from the huge crowd of other 60 minute westerns.


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