Synopsis
A troop of horsemen ride along a steep-sided mesa; a voice-over intones a laudatory description of the Texas Rangers.
The story opens on the hold-up of a stage coach driven by Henry B.
Wahoo
Jones (Oakie). Wahoo vows to capture the bandits.
That night Wahoo meets with Jim Hawkins (MacMurray) and Sam McGee (Nolan) to divide the money from the hold-up. Out of the dark, voices order them to raise their hands. Jim kicks out the fire, and they scatter.
Some time later, Jim and Wahoo, riding through an open country, are looking for Sam who probably went to stay with his girlfriend, Maria. They have met a lot of Marias and are still looking.
Broke and hungry in a Texas border town, Jim and Wahoo decide to take an occupation that will provide money, food and lodging. They sign up for the Texas Rangers. Their first assignment is to stop a band of cattle rustlers. The Rangers separate to search for the rustlers. Once alone, Jim and Wahoo drift along a river bank and rest in the shade. They see a herd of stolen cattle and identify the thief as Sam. After a hearty greeting, the three friends go to Maria’s place where they agree to work together on robberies, Jim and Wahoo will clue Sam into the rich takings they learn about as members of the Rangers.
On their way back to headquarters, the duo come upon a lonely ranch being attacked by Indians. After running off the attackers, Jim and Wahoo find a dead woman with her dying husband mourning over her. Their deaths orphan their son, David (Bennett), a boy of about 10 or 11. Jim and Wahoo take David to Ranger headquarters.
David, living with the Rangers’ commander Captain Bailey (Ellis) and his daughter Amanda (Parker), complains to Jim and Wahoo that Amanda insists he brush his teeth, clean his nails, wash his face and hands, and cut his hair. Jim and Wahoo agree to talk to her about these unmanly activities. At the Bailey home, they meet a pretty young woman who is determined that the boy will be raised properly. She invites them for dinner, but Jim says he can’t stay. He tells Wahoo that he will not get tied up with a woman.
The Rangers ride out to put down an Indian uprising. The Indians greatly outnumber the Rangers. Bravely the Rangers charge and fight from horseback. Many are killed, and the survivors climb the canyon walls to fight from above. Three indians go above and push rocks down upon them. Jim and Wahoo climb the walls toward the attackers. Wahoo is injured, and Jim goes on alone. He kills the Indians and rides for help. The surviving Rangers are nearly out of ammunition when Jim arrives with a relief troop, and the Indians flee.
Texas is troubled with outlaws who extort and control towns and counties. Major Bailey wants to end Jess Higgins control of Kemble County. Jim asks Major Bailey to let him handle it and notifies Sam to take over as soon as Higgins is eliminated. Wahoo, who has become a loyal Ranger, uses the growing affection between Jim and Amanda to change Jim’s mind about his deal with Sam. Wahoo tells Amanda that Jim loves her. She talks sweetly to Jim, and he weakens about betraying his Ranger oath. In Kemble, Jim has Higgins (Fred Kohler, Sr.) arrested for murder and presses the frightened witnesses to testify against him. A pair of Higgins’ henchmen attempt to kill Jim, but Sam, who is present, shoots them. Jim, profusely thanked by the townsmen, cannot turn the town over to Sam. He asks Sam to leave. Sam goes, assuring Jim that he can find other places to rob.
Time passes; Jim is doing well as a Ranger. Sam is also doing well, and has become
the notorious polka-dot bandit,
who wears a colorful scarf during his
hold-ups. Major Bailey asks Jim to capture the bandit, but Jim refuses and
resigns. The major, who knows of Jim’s relationship to Sam, has Jim arrested.
Wahoo decides to capture Sam and get Jim released. Wahoo rides to Maria’s. David
follows him. Wahoo gives David a note for the Rangers, but David is captured by
Sam’s men. Sam reads the note and shoots Wahoo.
Sam sends Wahoo’s body back to the Rangers. Jim vows to get Sam and is released to capture him. At Maria’s Jim confronts Sam. Their gunfight rages through rugged buttes, until Jim kills Sam. Kneeling by Sam’s body, Jim asks God to forgive him.
Back at headquarters, Jim and Amanda become engaged. Wahoo, who died a Ranger, is buried with honors.
In the final scene, the troop of Texas Rangers ride along the scenic butte as a voice over states a final tribute.
Discussion
The Western was not a popular genre for big budget productions in the 1930s. The major studios seldom committed their stars to roles as westerners. In the five years from 1934 through 1938, fewer than twenty A-level features had Western settings. Four films from this period that can be considerered major Westerns are The Plainsman (1936), directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Wells Fargo (1937), directed by Frank Lloyd, The Texans (1938), directed by James Hogan, and King Vidor's The Texas Rangers (1936). The first three of these films star leading Western actors Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and Randolph Scott, respectively. Fred MacMurray was never a major Western actor, and his role in The Texas Rangers had been intended for Cooper.
These films share similar plot structues and thematic approaches. The main characters have their personal stories running through the film, but their stories are embedded in an encompassing framework depicting one of the major themes of Western expansion. The Plainsman’s characters were well-known participants in the struggles between Native Americans and the settlers moving onto their homelands. Wells Fargo was a pioneering company in moving people and goods and in establishing banks in newly-founded towns. The Texans concerns the first cattle drive from Texas to the new railheads in Kansas. The Texas Centennial of 1936 is honored by the story of The Texas Rangers. The Rangers are one of the oldest law enforcement agencies in the country.
The Texas Rangers episodic story line consists of one formulaic event after another. The Rangers fight maurading Indians, prevent cattle rustling and remove bad men from their control of small towns. On the personal level, the plot and the characters are equally clichéd: the rogue hero is reformed by the ennobling conduct of the Rangers and the love of a good woman; the orphan boy adopts the hero as his role model; after one friend shoots the other, the reformed hero reluctantly hunts down and kills his murderous friend. This final shoot out is a disappointment, lacking vigor and intensity.
The action scenes are nicely framed, filmed among rocky outcrops and steep-sided buttes. The film’s handsome scenery includes open dry plains, narrow valleys, steep-sided buttes, and vistas of distant mountain ranges.
The acting is bland; the characters are conventional versions of the men and women who lived on the rough edges of 19th century life. Fred MacMurray is acceptable, if unexciting, in a role originally intended for Gary Cooper. Jack Oakie, more a comedian than a Westerner, is surprisingly adaptable and does not look out of place in the saddle. Lloyd Nolan’s speech pattern is more appropriate for a city gangster than a western bandit.
King Vidor, a native Texan, was a logical choice to direct a film honoring the Rangers on the occasion of the Texas Centennial. However, he was not a natural director of Westerns. He had made only one talking Western, Billy the Kid (1930), prior to 1936, and directed only four in his entire career. He was excellent at handling actors and some scenes are well-presented, but Vidor did not have any insight into or interesting statements to make about the the settlling of the West in general or the activities of the Rangers in particular.
The reviewer (J.T.M.) of The New York Times described the film as
maudlin stuff
made with an archaic formula
and
decadent cinema form,
namely cops and robbers.
He praised the
bright characterization
by Jack Oakie and the
pleasing sinister one of Lloyd Nolan,
more a reference to a gangster
characterization than a Western badman. This review does not discuss or describe
any Western conventions in the film, indicating that the reviewer may have lacked
knowledge of the conventions of Westerns, confirming the general neglect of the
Western genre and low level of interest in Westerns at the time.
After World War II, the period when Westerns were making a strong comeback, the film was remade as Streets of Laredo (1948).
Further Reading