The Man from Tumbleweeds

The Man from Tumbleweeds (1940)

The claim to fame here is slight--it's directed by Joseph H. Lewis, later famous for some inventive, raw low budget movies like "Gun Crazy" (1951). It is directed with his usual fast, visual panache, though he's inexperienced here and it shows. The script is pretty routine, too, and so when the dialog intrudes, it intrudes.

But it's fast, there are several turns of events, one of the main characters is a woman sheriff, and there are lots of gun fights, horse chases, double crossing, and broad black and white landscape. I liked it more than I should have, and it's partly how really well it was directed. With better actors and better dialog, this would easily be memorable.

This is one in a series of one hour Westerns starring actor Bill Elliott, a sheriff who loved to be violent to bring in the bad guys, and would say, "Some folks call me Wild Bill. But I'm a peaceable man." It's the only Elliott film Lewis directed.

Elliott was an Old West kind of character himself, and was the lead in several movie (low budget) serials, playing detective Gordon Elliott in some 28 of them, then a turning point came when Elliott (as Gordon Elliott) played Wild Bill Hickcok, the historical figure as portrayed in the 1938 movie. After this he played in Westerns for two decades. In the first four in the series, he played Wild Bill Saunders, and this is the third of them, all for Columbia Pictures. Then he switched to the more famous Wild Bill Hickcock himself for 12 films. When he moved to Republic pictures he starred as himself, Wild Bill Elliott.

Should you see this? Why not? It's nothing much, but it's not bad, if you like Westerns of this sort. Any John Ford movie is better, of course, but this short and exciting. Oh, and don't be fooled by the opening credit that says Hygo Television Films--that was added for the 1953 re-release for t.v.