Challenge of the Range

This time the Durango Kid confronts an expert gambler.

Starrett tries to prevent a range war between settlers and the Native Americans. Blue and his fellow scoundrels think they can profit from the bloodshed,but the Durango Kid along with a couple of precocious youngsters put an end to Blue's terrorism.

Markham and his men have found gold on the Indian reservation and are trying to get rid of them by starting an Indian war. Dressed as Indians they are attacking the soldiers. Steve Holden is the Indian agent sent to prevent a war. After finding proof that white men posing as Indians were responsible, he is able to locate the gang's hideout but quickly becomes a prisoner slated to be killed. - Written by Maurice VanAuken

Filmed at the Providencia Ranch (today's Forrest Lawn in Burbank, CA), this typical "Durango Kid" Western featured the Cass County Boys performing "Go West Young Lady" by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, in addition to series regular Smiley Burnette singing his own "It's My Turn" and "The Yodeler. This time, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) is chasing down a gang of outlaws shipping stolen gold in crates marked "ring bolts," ably assisted by Smiley, a treasury agent working undercover as a house painter. Virginia Maxey supplies female interest and little Tommy Ivo, in one of his six appearances in the Durango Kid series, also gets in the way of the action.

The outlaw gangs are robbing the railroads and the Rangers cannot follow them when they move to New Mexico. So Kip decides to take a vacation to New Mexico and, as the Durango Kid, bring Cass and his gang back to justice. But Cass and his gang are killed at the bank in a double cross and Kip must still find the loot. For this, he enlists the help of Tex and Grubstake, although Grubstake does not know it.

Western star Charles Starrett was amazing; he kept making the same film over and over, but always made it seem as if it was for the first time. In West of Sonora, Starrett once again plays a frontier good-guy named Steve (Steve Rollins, to be exact), who, when the need arises, disguises himself as The Durango Kid, masked righter of wrongs. This time, Steve/Durango champions the cause of 10-year-old Penelope Clinton (Anita Castle), who has spent her short life as the focus of a feud between her grandfathers, suspected outlaw Black Murphy (Steve Darrell) and Sheriff Jack Clinton (George Cheseboro).

Mahoney is a sheep man who's framed for the murder of a rancher. It's all part of a scheme by a dishonest cattleman who hopes to extenuate a range war for his own profit. The Durango Kid helps clear Mahoney's name.

Quick on the Trigger was Charles Starrett's second "Durango Kid" picture for 1949. It all begins when ousted sheriff Steve Warren (Starrett) is put on trial for the murder of heroine Nora Reed's (Helen Parrish) brother. Steve is innocent, of course, but he doesn't stand a chance against prosecuting attorney Garvey Yager (Lyle Talbot) -- especially since Yager is the real killer.

It's 1873 and the disbanded Texas Rangers have been replaced by the corrupt Texas State Police. Steve Lanning arrives posing as a wanted outlaw to get in with them in his attempt to have them replaced. His inside work helps the Durango Kid break up the State Police raids but he is in trouble when his secret identity as Durango becomes known to them.

Using marked bills, Steve is looking for the supposedly dead Henry Hardison. Coming to Bonanza Town he gets a job with the town boss Crag Bozeman and gets paid with marked bills. He suspects Hardison is Boseman's boss and he is right as Hardison and his men are now planning to get rid of both him and the Durango kid.

In Prairie Roundup, Fred F. Sears' direction brings a welcome jolt of vitality to Columbia's aging "Durango Kid" western series. Once again, Charles Starrett stars as Steve Carson, a lawman who is forced to assume the identity of masked do-gooder Durango. Framed for murder, Carson escapes to locate the real killer. It turns out that he was set up by cattle baron Buck Prescott, who eliminates competition by stealing livestock from other ranchers.

Steve is a Government Agent looking for the gang that stole the U.S. Mail. He goes undercover...