Marshal of Amarillo (1945) Allan Lane, Black Jack, Eddy Waller, Mildred Coles, Clayton Moore Movie Review

Marshal of Amarillo (1945)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Eddy Waller and Allan Lane in Marshal of Amarillo (1945)

Haunting of the Halfway House

When Nugget (Eddy Waller) flags down the stage he finds himself sharing the carriage with businessman Mr. Underwood (Tom Chatterton) and purveyor of novelty items Hiram Short (Charles Williams). What Nugget doesn't know is that he has walked in on an elaborate plan to rob Mr. Underwood with the driver of the stage deliberately crashing it so that the three passengers walk to the Halfway House, an inn on the way to Amarillo. But Nugget gets spooked and flees bumping in to Marshal Rocky Lane (Allan Lane) as he starts walking to Amarillo. When Rocky and Nugget return to the Halfway House Rocky suspects something a miss is afoot as Short is dead, Underwood is missing and so is his $50,000.

Whilst "Marshal of Amarillo" is not the first western I have seen to feature a haunted house set-up it is the oldest one with it coming from the era when one hour westerns were churned out like candy in a factory. And to be honest it is an amusing set up thanks to Eddy Waller delivering some wiry comedy as Nugget, easily getting spooked by some nonsense. Sadly once the set-up is in place things become a little more typical as we have Allan Lane delivering handsome, upright heroics whilst Eddy Waller takes on the comedy sidekick position and come the half way mar there is a young lady show up for Rocky to save, it is that typical.

What this all boils down to is that despite a fun set up "Marshal of Amarillo" ends up another routine one hour western with all the ingredients which went in to these factory line movies. In fairness it isn't terrible but at the same time it isn't overly memorable either as a creative set up ends up squeezed into the western formula.


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