Relentless (1948)

Robert Young is Nick Buckley, a cowpoke with a love for horses. And he’s convinced the mare he owns is going to give birth to a champion race horse.

Problem is, he has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seems two old-timers have hit a bonanza mine. They’re murdered by Jim Rupple (Frank Fenton) and Tex Brandow (Barton MacLane), who immediately decide to double cross one another.

Rupple’s horse is shot, so he steals Buckley’s mare, who’s just given birth. Rupple runs her to death, leaving the colt motherless.

Buckley tracks Rupple down and kills him in self defense; Brandow witnesses the shooting and agrees to deliver word to the sheriff that Buckley will turn himself in. First, Buckley wants to do everything possible to help the colt survive.

Next thing he knows, Brandow is back in town, blaming him for three murders.

Meanwhile, there’s a charming young woman named Luella Purdy (Marguerite Chapman), who owns a traveling general store of sorts.

She helps Buckley save his prize colt by finding a burro who will adopt it. From that point on, the burro and colt are inseparable.

But from that point on, Sheriff Jeff Moyer (Willard Parker) is forever tracking Nick, partly to make sure Luella doesn’t wind up with the wrong kind of man.

And Buckley sets out on the trail of Brandow, knowing he’s the one man who can clear his name.

Akim Tamiroff plays Joe Faringo, who rescues Nick from one of his many jams in return for half a gold mine Buckley knows nothing about.

Robert Young as Nick Buckley, desperate in his search for the man who killed his horse and the man who framed him for murder in Relentless (1948)

Marguerite Chapman as Luella Purdy, meeting Nick Buckley and finding straw in his vest in Relentless (1948)

Review:

Entertaining and nicely done, even if the blossoming romance between Nick Buckley and Luella Purdy is easy to predict. He’s a wanderer of the west who finds comfort in the fact that she isn’t looking for a husband. She dreams of making enough money from her late father’s business to move east.

Of course, all that changes once they become chaperones to Storm, the colt Buckley owns, and Sappho, the donkey who adopts the colt as her own. Oh, and Buckley returns from one of his brushes with the law to discover that Luella has renamed his colt “Breeze.” He goes along with the switch.

This marked the first Western for Marguerite Chapman, though she would star in two more — “Coroner Creek” with Randolph Scott and “Kansas Raiders” with Audie Murphy — before turning mostly to TV work in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Hank Patterson and Paul Burns play the old prospectors; Mike Mazurki is Faringo’s hired gun.

Barton MacLane as Tex Brandow, the man who pins the murder of two miners on Nick Buckley in Relentless (1948)

Akim Tamiroff as Joe Faringo, the man who expects Nick Buckley to lead him to a fortune in gold in Relentless (1948)

Directed by:
George Sherman

Cast:
Robert Young … Nick Buckley
Marguerite Chapman … Luella Purdy
Willard Parker … Jeff Moyer
Akim Tamiroff … Joe Faringo
Barton MacLane … Tex Brandow
Mike Mazurki … Jake
Robert Barrat … Ed Simpson
Clem Bevans … Dad
Frank Fenton … Jim Rupple
Hank Patterson … Bob Pliny
Paul E. Burns … Len Briggs
Emmett Lynn … Nester
Will Wright … Sam, horse dealer

Runtime: 93 min.

Willard Parker as Jeff Moyer, the lawman convinced Nick Buckley has murdered three men in Relentless (1948)

Frank Fenton as Jim Rupple, getting ideas from listening to two old-timers talk about their gold strike in Relentless (1948)

Memorable lines:

Storekeeper to Luella Purdy, about her lack of a man: “Don’t get too man fussy. You ain’t gettin’ any younger.”

Nick Buckley to Storm as the horse follows around a burro: “You know, if your old man could see you, he’d die of shame.”

Luella Purdy, rather incredulously: “All you’ve got to do is find one man in a hundred miles of burned out sand.”

Nick Buckley, forcing the desperately thirsty Tex Brandow to stand in the blazing sun: “You’re going to stand there and fry til you’re ready to talk.”

Joe Faringo: “Never try to make a fool of a man with a logical mind, Mr. Buckley.”

Hank Patterson as Bob Pliny and Paul E. Burns as Len Briggs, the old-timers who make a rich strike in Relentless (1948)

Clem Bevans as Dad, the old-timer who watches over the ghost town that serves as one of Faringo’s bases of operations in Relentless (1948)

Marguerite Chapman as Luella Purdy, overhearing a key piece of information in Relentless (1948)

Robert Young as Nick Buckley with his prized mare, getting help from Luella Purdy for the first time in Relentless (1948)