Overlooked Movies: Guns of Hate (1948)

I really like the series of B-Westerns that Tim Holt and Richard Martin made for RKO in the late Forties and early Fifties. In GUNS OF HATE, which I watched recently, Holt and Martin play drifting cowpokes Bob Banning and Chito Rafferty. I'm not sure why the filmmakers didn't just let Holt play Tim Holt, just as Roy Rogers' character name was nearly always Roy Rogers and Gene Autry was always Gene Autry. I mean, Holt has a different name in every picture, but his sidekick Chito is always the same. Makes no sense.

But I digress. In this one, they befriend an old prospector (played by Jason Robards Sr.), who has found the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine. It will come as no surprise that the old-timer has a beautiful granddaughter, played by Nan Leslie. The old codger winds up dead, Tim and Chito are framed for his murder, and we're off on an action-packed chase to round up the bad guys (led by crooked saloon owner Steve Brodie, who often played the villain in these Tim Holt movies), protect the granddaughter, find the lost mine, and clear our heroes' names.

GUNS OF HATE doesn't belong in the top rank of this series, because when you get right down to it, the plot (based on a story by and co-scripted by Western pulpster Ed Earl Repp) is pretty darned thin and lacks the epic scope of some of the other entries. But it's still an awful lot of fun. The action scenes are good, and these movies always had great outdoor photography. Myrna Dell, as a saloon girl with a heart of gold who pursues Chito and helps out with the plot, is very good, and Richard Martin, as always, is entertaining as Chito. Politically correct reviewers on IMDB seem to hate Martin, but I think they're missing the forest for the proverbial trees. Chito Rafferty is a great sidekick. Yes, he's the comedy relief, but along with his eccentricities, his character is also as smart and tough and competent as Tim Holt's.

Holt himself is a very likable hero, not tall, a little on the stocky side, and not the least bit flashy, just a mature, down to earth cowboy with a strong sense of right and wrong. In his early movies, he always seemed a little too much like a kid to me. By the time he was making these B-Westerns for RKO, he was perfect for the role. GUNS OF HATE is well worth watching.