Rangers of Fortune (1940)

Fred MacMurray is Gil Farra, Albert Dekker is George Bird and Gilbert Roland is Antonio Sierra in this story of three buddies who escape a firing squad for running guns into Mexico.

They cross the border into California, squat on a water hole and wind up meeting fiesty 12-year-old Mary “Squib” Clayborn, who refuses to pay a penny for water, let alone the $1 per bucket the three men are asking.

“Squib” is the granddaughter of a newspaperman who’s been beaten and run out of Santa Marta. But he’s determined to return, and the young girl is determined to return with him.

Gil, George and Antonio decide to follow and find a town build around a grand hacienda inhabited by a strange, piano playing owner, Col. Lewis Redstock.

It’s also a town where the windmill built by Johnny Cash keeps being destroyed and where blood-thirsty gunman Tod Shelby and his band of ruffians seem quite welcome in Redstock’s saloon.

Two things keep Gil, George and Antonio around.

First, they’re concern about the well-being of the young girl, whose grandfather dies of his injuries and is orphaned as a result.

Second, there’s a pretty storekeeper named Sharon McCloud all three of the men would like to court.

Though Gil seems to have the inside track since he’s able to teach her how to play that new piano that’s been delivered to her store.

Review:

Cute little Western that benefits greatly from the presence of child actress Betty Brewer in her first feature film.

She’s terribly smitten with tall, handsome Gil Farra and initially perturbed with the attention he pays to shop owner Sharon McCloud.

But, eventually, she comes to decide that she must step aside and even comes up with a scheme that will allow Gil to propose to Sharon.

As for our three heroes, Gil is the lady’s man, Antonio is the fast gun and George is the strong man, who also provides most of the comic relief.

The film’s biggest fault is that so much time screen time is spent on the romantic antics of the trio, villain Redstock doesn’t start acting very villainous until the film’s final 20 minutes.

It’s even later that viewers learn his motive: He views the whites who have moved into Santa Marta as riff-raff and land grabbers who have tarnished land that was in his family for generations.

Directed by:
Sam Wood

Cast:
Fred MacMurray … Gil Farra
Patricia Morison .. Sharon McCloud
Betty Brewer … Mary Elizabeth “Squib” Clayborn
Albert Dekker … George Bird
Gilbert Roland … Antonio Hernandez Sierra
Joseph Schildkraut … Col. Lewis Redstock
Dick Foran … Johnny Cash
Arthur B. Allen … Mr. Prout
Bernard Nedell … Tod Shelby
Brandon Tynan … Homer Granville Clayborn
Minor Watson … Clem Bowdry
Rosa Turich … Caressa

Runtime: 80 min.

Memorable lines:

Mr. Clayborn: “Who are these men?”
Squib Clayborn: “Ssh. I think they’re pretty desperate characters. But nice.”

Sharon McCloud: “Mr. Farra, haven’t you any conscience at all?”
Gil Farra: “Precise little.”
Sharon: “Dreadful person.”
Gil: “A rat, most definitely.”
Sharon: “Tricky?”
Gil: “Shiftless.”
Sharon: “But clever?”
Gil: “No, not so clever. Because I’m going to say something I never figured I’d say. Something I shouldn’t say and something you shouldn’t listen to. Ms. Sharon, if you were to marry me the day after tomorrow, it’d be a very foolish but a very wonderful thing for you to do.”

Squib Clayborn: “Colonel Bird, have you ever been up on the roof with a girl in the moonlight?”
George Bird: “Yeah, once I was. But she pushed me off.”

Bernard Nedell as Tod Shelby, the fast gun who terrorizes Santa Marta in Rangers of Fortune (1940)

Brandon Tynan as injured newspaper publisher Homer Granville Clayborn in Rangers of Fortune (1940)