Although he won his place in movie history in famous films for John Ford, Orson Welles and John Huston, Tim Holt spent most of his film career riding the range as the star of a series of popular low-budget RKO westerns. In each new show Tim comes to aid of yet another frontier community threatened by crooks, often land swindlers. In this entry a corrupt judge enables a land-grabbing scheme by invoking phony Spanish documents, kicking off an hour of double crosses, fast riding and six-gun shootouts. Unlike most series western stars Holt used a different character name for each story. Not so his comic sidekick in six films straight, former Vaudeville performer Cliff Edwards. Known as 'Ukelele Ike', Edwards is credited with popularizing the ukelele, and is noted for his performance of "Singing in the Rain" in MGM's The Hollywood Revue of 1929. But he found immortality as the speaking and singing voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940). In this second pairing, Jim Carey (Holt) spurs his neighbors to vigilante action by posing as a masked rider called "Mr. Justice". His loyal pal Ike (Edwards) likewise disguises himself for various charades, at one point improvising an injury by spilling red ink on his head. The sagebrush Robin Hoods of course save the day, and the heroic Carey wins the thanks of a newspaperman's beautiful daughter. In 1943 Holt left RKO to serve in the Army Air Corps as a B-29 bombardier. He'd return to films three years later in John Ford's My Darling Clementine. Cliff Edwards' film career more or less ended with the interruption in the series. He would continue to provide Jiminy Cricket's voice for Disney short subjects, before moving on to television work.

By Glenn Erickson