Forbidden Trails

This is one of the better entries from the pleasing Rough Riders series, as it benefits from a startlingly intricate script and some capable acting, with precious few verbal clinkers appearing in a film in which there are no budget gobbling retakes, while maintaining a successful formula of three United States Marshals: Buck Roberts (Buck Jones), Tim McCall (Tim McCoy), and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton), none apparently knowing the others while they maneuver their way inside a felonious enemy's ramparts. Dave O'Brien plays a struggling mine owner who is being pressured into signing a partnership agreement that he does not want in order to safely transport his high-grade ore, with the principal villain of this piece being the cunning Ed Nelson (Tristram Coffin), assisted by a pair of henchmen performed by old file Western culprits Charles King and Bud Osborne, and there is a fine turn from Christine McIntyre who is cast in her second of the four Rough Rider adventures in which she appears, this item being perfectly paced by Robert Bradbury in his final stint as a director.