The name The Durango Kid means nothing except to the small contingent of aging Western fans who fondly remember the masked avenger righting wrongs in some 65 films made when they were children. Sixty-four of the films were produced over seven short years, from 1945-52 -- an incredible nine movies per year! The Durango Kid himself, Charles Starrett, was a Top Ten cowboy star at the box office during this period, but unlike Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, neither the character nor the films ever made the transition to television, either as a series or as a package of syndicated movies. Reportedly, except for a handful of titles shown at Cowboy retrospectives, the vast majority of Durango Kid movies haven't been seen in any form since their original theatrical release.

Blazing Across the Pecos was something like the 32nd Durango Kid movie, and possibly an odd choice to introduce the series on DVD. The short, 54-minute feature is built around several timeworn standbys of the genre. In Pecos Flats, conniving Mayor Ace Brockway (Charles C. Wilson) conspires with gunslinger henchman Buckshot Thomas (Jack Ingram) to disrupt the efforts of a trading post company run by Matt Carter (Thomas E. Jackson), and to prevent it from delivering supplies to honest settlers.

Investigating the matter is Steve Blake (Starrett) who, hiding his identity behind a dark mask a la The Lone Ranger, leads a double life as the mysterious Durango Kid. (At 45 though, Starrett was long past being a "Kid.") When Buckshot trashes a local saloon, Steve steps in and saves the day, prompting the townspeople to nominate him deputy to the town's useless sheriff, Smiley Burnette (Smiley Burnette), appointed strictly "for laughs" by the dishonest mayor.

With the help of Carter's daughter, Lola (Patricia Barry, in one of her earliest roles), and her newspaper publisher boyfriend, Jim Traynor (Paul Campbell), Steve/Durango learns of Brockway's plans to arm local Indians in an elaborate plot to take control of the territory.

Blazing Across the Pecos is a fast-paced, action-packed formula Western. There are few surprises, but it delivers the goods, and kids watching the film when it was new doubtlessly got their weekly fix of cowboy action. Indeed, this entry puts shoot-outs and fisticuffs ahead of the low-key camaraderie that made the Hoppy films so special. But it's also easy to recognize the series' appeal: Starrett's warm smile and energetic heroics (where he was often doubled by Jock Mahoney, who also has a small onscreen role here). Smiley Burnette's lowbrow comedy is an acquired taste (me, I'll take George "Gabby" Hayes any day), but he's somehow less abrasive here than he was for years as Gene Autry's sidekick. Burnette sings two inoffensive novelty numbers, while Red Arnall and The Western Aces sing a charming pair of cowboy songs: "Goin' Back to Texas" and (what I'll assume is titled) "Crawdad Song."

The film falls squarely in B-budget range, though most of the time that's adequate considering its limited ambitions. Common to cheapskate Columbia's pictures of the era, there is a good deal of stock footage from other films, including one night sequence shot day-for-night and printed rather dark. In one scene Durango is chasing a stagecoach with "Butterfield Stagecoach Express" written across its carriage. Midway through the chase the name on the carriage changes to the "Overland Stage," only with the letters flipped in a mirror image since the negative was obviously flopped to keep the stagecoach moving in the same direction.

Video & Audio

Columbia TriStar's suggested retail price of $19.94 is steep for one 54-minute movie, but at least the transfer is a stunner, with an exceptionally sharp image and good contrast. Of course, the bitrate is not a problem on a black and white feature this short, especially when the disc has a plain-wrap mono soundtrack with no subtitle options. Note to Columbia TriStar Home Video: If you decide to release any more of these pictures, and I hope you do, how about giving consumers (at the very least) double feature discs, like Image's Hoppy titles?

Extra Features

The only extra, such as it is, is a collection of three trailers: Ron Howard's The Missing (16:9), Cowboy (4:3 full frame), and that great American Western, Bridge on the River Kwai (4:3 letterboxed).

Parting Thoughts

Blazing Across the Pecos isn't going to give The Searchers or Rio Bravo a run for its money, but based on this single DVD release, this reviewer would enjoy seeing more adventures of The Durango Kid, that long-lost hero of the B-Western.

(Columbia/TriStar Home Video released a new Durango Kid movie, Bonanza Town, in March 2005.)

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf -- The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. His new book, Cinema Nippon will be published by Taschen in 2005.