The popularity of Republic Pictures' Three Mesquiteers buddy westerns (which featured, at one time or another, John Wayne, Bob Steele, and Ray "Crash" Corrigan) spawned their fair share of imitators, among them Monogram Pictures' Range Busters (which drafted Corrigan to lead its trio of Wild West do-righters). When the Range Busters headed off into the cinematic sunset after two dozen films, Monogram producer-director Robert Tansey was put in charge of drafting a replacement to keep the hot lead flying at Saturday matinees. To staff The Trail Blazers, Tansey reached out to former silent and early sound film cowboys Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson and took the novel tack of allowing his stars to keep their real names on the big screen. Playing retired lawmen deputized into the service of protecting the Southwestern Railroad from marauders, the Trail Blazers first rode into action in Wild Horse Stampede (1943). The script by Range Busters alumna Elizabeth Beecher (from an original story by Frances Kavanaugh, Poverty Row's "Cowgirl of the Typewriter") partners the old timers with younger, less experienced peacekeeper played by Bob Baker (like his costars, a former singing cowboy). Baker clashed behind the scenes with the notoriously temperamental Maynard and did not return for The Law Rides Again (1943). Monogram would eventually saddle their aging headliners with the younger Bob Steele, who made his series debut in the fourth installment, Death Valley Rangers (1943).

By Richard Harland Smith