The Kid from Broken Gun is not without interest, and the video transfer is superb, though as I noted in my review of Laramie Mountains, who but the die-hardest B-Western buff is going to plunk down $19.95 for a movie that's as long as and which plays a lot like a one-hour television episode? I think Sony would make more money in the long run packaging these in a manner similar to Warner Bros'. "Archive Collection" of Tim Holt Westerns, a superior 10-film set that retails for $39.95. For myself, $3.99 per movie sounds pretty reasonable; $19.95 for just one isn't, not for this.

Jack Mahoney (Jock Mahoney), a one-time prizefighter known as "The Kid from Broken Gun," is on trial for the murder of Matt Fallon (Chris Alcaide). Jack's chances of being acquitted, already pretty slim, are further dimmed by sexist prejudice against his counsel, Gail Kingston (Angela Stevens), also coincidentally the woman Jack supposedly killed Matt over. (The character is suggested, perhaps, by "Lady Lawyer" Clara Foltz, who in 1878 became the country's first practicing woman attorney, though in light of how things turn out it's not exactly a flattering portrait.)

Steve Reynolds (Starrett), whose alter ego is the heroic (if mysteriously masked) character known as the Durango Kid, testifies on Jack's behalf. Steve theorizes Matt's killing has something to do with a strongbox loaded with rare gold coins. Steve then tells a long-winded tale from years before, of a Gabby-esque old prospector, Cimarron Dobbs (Emmett Lynn), who first found the gold in an abandoned mine, and who got mixed up with saloon girl Dixie King (Helen Mowery) and went missing.

This is an odd one. About one-third of the film, including all the business with Cimarron and Dixie, is stock footage from an earlier Durango Kid movie, The Fighting Frontiersman (1946). "I object!" argues prosecuting attorney Kiefer (Myron Healey), "This story has nothing whatsoever to do with the charge of murder against Jack Mahoney!" You said it. Other than gold, the two story threads are completely unrelated - with one weird exception, that is. It's obvious to the audience that Jack is completely innocent (Steve/Durango testifies to his good character, after all), but as it happens Jock Mahoney also turns up in the stock scenes playing Waco, a henchman to that film's villain. Probably many in the audience wouldn't have noticed this, but I bet a few were rightly confused.

The rest of the picture mainly alternates between long, dreary courtroom scenes, not exactly classical B-Western material, and flashbacks to Jack's dealings with shady Martin Donohugh (Tristram Coffin). As a result Steve/Durango is absent for much of his own movie, and he's hardly in it at all the first third of the picture. Sidekick Smiley Burnette (Smiley Burnette) likewise spends almost the entire picture sitting in court, his comedy relief and novelty songs hamstrung by the setting. He does get to sit next to the great silent comedian Snub Pollard in one reasonably funny scene, but his single song is not memorable, awkwardly framed as a dream sequence shoehorned into the proceedings.

All this makes The Kid from Broken Gun play depressingly cheap and uncaring. Considering about 20 minutes of the running time is eaten up by stock footage while most of the rest of the film takes place in court, the entire picture couldn't have taken more than three days to shoot. Even the titles are threadbare, which are superimposed over an absurdly cheap-looking painting of a wispy campfire.

Video & Audio

The Kid from Broken Gun is presented in a crisp black and white, full-frame transfer on par with the high standards of Sony's "Columbia Classics" line. There are no menu screens or options at all: insert the disc and away you go. The region-free DVD-R disc's mono audio (English only, with no subtitle options) is acceptable. There are the usual chapter stops every ten minutes but no Extra Features at all.

Parting Thoughts

It's odd Sony would see fit to not only release these as pricey, single-disc titles but also that they would concentrate their Durango Kid releases on later entries like this one, clearly far from the series best and which incorporate stock footage from earlier and presumably better entries. For the B-Western series completists, I suppose, but of little interest to anyone else, this is a "Rent It" if you can.

Stuart Galbraith IV's audio commentary for AnimEigo's Tora-san, a DVD boxed set, is on sale now.