The Gallant Legion

When power-hungry Faulkner and Laroux want to divide Texas into smaller sections, instead of allowing it to enter the Union as a single state, Gary Conway and the Texas Rangers must step in to thwart their chicanery.

The Gallant Legion is the kind of solid big budget western that John Wayne was making, and it's a surprise he didn't star here, however that is not too bad as we get B-western legend Wild Bill Elliott playing the hero- a Texas Ranger. It's action all the way, but augmented with a strong plot, an interesting depiction of politics and a really nasty villain, a crooked politician called Beau Leroux. He is played by Bruce Cabot, who is in cahoots with an equally slimy Senator Faulkner (Joseph Schildkraut). They want to partition Texas into separate states, hiving off West Texas as their personal domain, and they will stop at nothing to achieve this horrid aim.

It all climaxes in a Vasquez Rocks shoot-out involving a Gatling gun with which Bruce Cabot is planning to slaughter Comanches and lay the blame at the feet of the Rangers.