Tim Holt's place in film history is assured by his fine performances in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons and John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, not to mention smaller parts in John Ford's Stagecoach and My Darling Clementine. The son of matinee idol Jack Holt, Tim became an actor straight from military school. When actor George O'Brien quit his series of westerns at RKO, young Holt was promoted as his replacement, but at one third of the established star's salary. Holt's inexperience was evident in the first series entry (Wagon Train, 1940) but audiences soon responded to his fresh, youthful appeal. The simple plots invariably arranged for Holt and his Irish-Mexican comic sidekick 'Chito' Rafferty (Richard Martin) to encounter a local dispute, make friends and help justice prevail, all in about sixty minutes. The formula worked: Holt spent the next twelve years making 46 of these series westerns. The penultimate entry Target (1952) sees Holt and Chito hiring on as cowboys, only to find that crook Walter Reed's gang of outlaws is forcing local ranchers to sell out, so that he can profit when the railroad arrives. Holt wires for the U.S. Marshall, who is too sick to travel and sends his daughter (Linda Douglas) in his place. She wastes no time appointing the pair as deputies. Our heroes rout the bad guys on schedule, but not before the feisty Linda escapes Reed's thugs and rides to the rescue just like one of the boys. More than one reviewer noted this positive development: series western heroines were usually given just long enough screen time to be introduced, threatened and then kissed by the hero at the fade-out. Target's advertising tagline? 'Dealing out Frontier Justice with Swinging Fists... and Smoking Six-Guns!'

By Glenn Erickson