Conflict of the Western Father-Son Type
Bob Morgan (Tim Holt) returns home with some friends from serving in the army and finds himself immediately in a fight when he spots local badman Quirt Butler (Steve Brodie) attacking his own wife Laura (Nan Leslie) with a whip. But it is not the only trouble which Bob finds himself in back home as his father Rawhide Morgan (Jack Holt) is an old fashioned cowboy who is use to taking the law in to his own hands and when Bob says he is off to head up the local peace keeping Rangers they have a falling out. Things get worse when between Bob and Laura starting to fall for each other and Quirt escaping from Bob's custody it leads to Bob going it alone to bring him in.
If I cut "The Arizona Ranger" back to its basics and what you have is a familiar western where we have a lawman falling for the woman who is married to an outlaw, some misunderstandings over the woman's motivations when the outlaw escapes and of course an action packed climax. But what is good about "The Arizona Ranger" is on those familiar western bones it creates an interesting drama with conflicts, crossovers and more all packed in to just 64 minutes.
What that means is we have an interesting family conflict as Bob and his father disagree with Bob wanting to be an Arizona Ranger, not only because Rawhide had hoped he would take on the running of the ranch one day but also because Rawhide believes in old fashioned, take it into his own hands brand of justice. On top of that we have the romantic conflict and more significantly misunderstanding as we have Laura falling for Bob but in trying to keep him and her husband Quirt apart in fear that Quirt will kill him people start to suspect she has ulterior motives. There are other things but it is the nicely written storyline which makes "The Arizona Ranger" more than just another western.
Of course there is the acting and we have Tim Holt delivering what was a typical good guy performance from the young western star. But what makes this western a bit more interesting or at least novel is that Holt's father Jack stars as his father Rawhide which makes some of the dialogue a bit more humorous but doesn't really make the acting anything more than regular through out.
What this all boils down to is that "The Arizona Ranger" is an entertaining little Tim Holt western which not only has the novelty of his father starring alongside him but also features a nicely written storyline with a decent mixture of subplots.
