It's not uncommon for "B" Westerns to have titles that bear no relationship to the story. "Bandit King of Texas" at least nominally describes the film's bad guy, town boss Dan McCabe (Jim Nolan), but a king he's not. McCabe's gimmick is to sell government land to unsuspecting buyers, assign phony deeds, and then retrieve the deeds and eliminate the victims. When McCabe steals a brooch belonging to Emily Baldwin, he has shop keeper Nugget Clark (Eddy Waller) make it into a stick pin for himself. As Nugget studies the brooch, he sees an inscription with the names "Emily and Rocky", so when Rocky Lane arrives in the town of Elko, Nugget finds he may have an ally in ridding the town's bully bad boy.
"Bandit King" manages to find ways to rise above the standard "B" Western fare of the day, beginning with a fairly innovative early scene when a covered wagon flips over. We see a notice from the phony Jewel Land Company framed by the spokes of a spinning wagon wheel; it's quite creatively done. Later on,with Rocky Lane aboard Black Jack, horse and rider make a nice leap over another disabled wagon while a bad guy posse can only pull up short. Though the story winds up being fairly typical, the players pull it off with a decent semblance of credibility. Followers of these early films will recognize the likes of John Hamilton, Harry Lauter, I. Stanford Jolley and Lane Bradford.
There's one scene to keep an eye on as hero Rocky takes after McCabe on horseback. On an open trail, as Lane catches up to McCabe and takes him down, they wind up duking it out between two large boulders that weren't there a split second ago.
I also got a kick out of the movie's finale when Rocky Lane winds up clearing his name after being framed by the bad guys more than once. Remember the brooch from the beginning of the story? Well Rocky re-gifts it to the wife of Harry Lauter's character, her name was Cynthia. Won't she be surprised to see Emily's name inside!
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