The Great Stagecoach Robbery

Francis McDonald is coming out of prison and his son and daughter are looking forward to excitement and prosperity when he returns to being a desperado. McDonald, however, says if he put as much work into being a farmer as an outlaw, they'd all be better off. Bill Elliott -- as Red Ryder -- is willing to give him a chance, but when a stagecoach is robbed and the money turns up at McDonald's place, who will believe him?

Red Ryder, based on Fred Harman's comic strip, was used as the basis for 28 movies from Republic. With Robert Blake as Little Beaver, and Alice Fleming as the Duchess, there was plenty of familiar material for the Saturday matinee crowd. If occasionally, as in this one, a child is killed -- offscreen -- it offered a rare glimpse ito a world where the stakes were high.

Elliott moved on to other, lower-rent B westerns, and Harman continued drawing the comic strip until 1964, twenty-five years, and then handed it over to others. He spent the remainder of his life doing fine, western-themed paintings. Harman was the brother of animation artist Hugh Harman. He died in 1982, age 79.