Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Macdonald Carey is Pete Carver, a young man tossed in prison following a botched train robbery. The posse caught the outlaws, but they didn’t recover the loot from the labyrinth of caves the outlaws fled to.

So, 15 years later, when Carver is released from prison, everyone in Copper Bend assumes he’ll recover the gold and become a rich man.

That means everyone’s willing to extend him a line of credit, for everything from clothing to booze.

Heck, they’ll even give him the money to reopen a newspaper for pretty Elizabeth Trent (Alexis Smith), whose husband has gone missing.

She’s not sure he’s dead, but she knows he was obsessed with the lost fortune in those caves.

Victor Jory plays Ben Cross, a rich copper miner who loves Trent and isn’t fond of Carver’s interference.

And Edgar Buchanan is Dobbs, the Wells Fargo agent on the trail of Carver and the missing gold.

Macdonald Carey as Pete Carver, arriving in Copper Bend and realizing he has an almost limitless amount of credit in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Alexis Smith as Elizabeth Trent, the pretty widow who convinces Pete Carver to invest in her newspaper in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Review:

Not too bad after a ridiculously hokey start in which a Mexican bandit rides a horse along a moving train, miraculously flings two knives into the hearts of the train’s engineers. At which point the train stops on the dime, and dynamite placed near the baggage car neatly blows just the door off the train car.

Unfortunately, Castle’s unique plot doesn’t have a Grade A cast to pull it off … well, other than Buchanan, who is solid as always. Hugh O’Brian, the future Wyatt Earp on TV, gets one of his biggest roles to that point as a henchman working for Ben Cross.

The cave scenes were filmed in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which explains the silly line at the end of the film.

Edgar Buchanan, the federal agent sent to Copper Bend to keep an eye on Pete Carver in case he recovers the stolen loot in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Victor Jory as Ben Cross, the rich owner of copper mines, meeting Pete Carver for the first time in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Directed by:
William Castle

Cast:
Macdonald Carey … Pete Carver
Alexis Smith … Elizabeth Trent
Edgar Buchanan … Dobbs
Victor Jory … Ben Cross
Hugh O’Brien … Garth
Houseley Stevenson … Cooley
Charles Horvath … Job Delancey
James Van Horn … Jed Delancey
Tim Graham … Jones
Johnny Carpenter … Whitney
Hugh Sanders .. Sheriff
Raymond Bond … Doc
Robert Osterloh … Blackhawk

Runtime: 75 min.

Hugh O’Brien as Garth, chief henchman for Ben Cross, the money man in Cooper Bend in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Houseley Stevenson as Cooley, the printer convinced to return to work for Elizabeth Trent’s newspaper in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Memorable lines:

Ben Cross, handing a stack of receipts to Pete Carver: “These are some of the debts you’ve rolled up since you’ve been in town. You’ve been living on credit. That means you’re living on me.”
Carver: “Am I?”
Cross: “Yes. That’s the penalty of having money, Mr. Carver … I’ve been carrying most of Copper Bend on my back. Just recently the load became a little heavier, and I found I was carrying you too. I’ve decided it would cost me less in the long run so you can pay off your debts and leave town.”

Elizabeth Trent: to Pete Carver “Ed (her late husband) was right. He said the gold in the cave corrupts us all. It killed him. It will kill you, too. Alright, go and die for it since that’s what you’ve been living for.”

Pete Carver, nursing a wounded arm, to Dobbs, nursing a wounded leg: “My arm, your leg. Between us, we almost make one whole man.”

Aforementioned silliness at end:
Elizabeth Trent: “We’ll leave this place and never come back.”
Pete Carver: “We’ll be back, along with all the other people who come and find it beautiful.”

Russ Tamblyn in an early uncredited role as the young Pete Carver in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Hugh Sanders as the sheriff who catches the men who stole a large payroll, but who can’t recover the loot in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

Edgar Buchanan as federal agent Dobbs, at Pete Carver’s mercy after falling and injuring his leg in Cave of Outlaws (1951)

MacDonald Carey as Pete Carver and Alexis Smith as Elizabeth Trent, out for a buggy ride in Cave of Outlaws (1951)