When Tim Holt returned to Hollywood following World War II, in which he flew fifty missions as a B-29 bomber pilot, he picked up where he had left off. He took a part as Virgil Earp in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), then went right back to RKO and resumed making his beloved hour-long B westerns. Before the war, too, he had occasionally dipped into major A-level features while establishing himself as a top western star of B movies. Gun Smugglers (1948) was the eighth such western he made after the war and the fifth to be released in 1948 alone. (Holt also played a memorable part that year in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [1948].) The success and popularity of these films catapulted Holt in 1948 back into the top ten rankings of cowboy stars, a position he maintained through 1952, when he stopped making them.

Holt had a new sidekick for these films, Richard Martin, who would appear alongside Holt, as the Irish-Mexican "Chito Gonzalez Rafferty," for all 29 of his postwar B westerns. Holt, meanwhile, would often (though not always) play characters named "Tim Holt": Gun Smugglers was the first such instance.

In this film, Holt and Martin play Rangers who become involved in the search for a gang that steals guns from the Army and sells them to an unnamed foreign power. Douglas Fowley plays the dastardly villain, and eleven-year-old Gary Gray, a significant child star of the era, plays his brother. 1948 was a breakthrough year for Gray, who also had roles in the major productions Return of the Bad Men (1948) and Rachel and the Stranger (1948). Critics took notice, with The Hollywood Reporter observing, "Likeable young Gary Gray does a neat job as the bad boy turning good -- he's always realistic... Frank McDonald's direction, particularly of Gary Gray, is first-rate... Martha Hyer acts well and looks great in her part."

The trade paper went on to call Gun Smugglers "a peak for the series" of Holt westerns, "throwing in continuous action, an expert screenplay and a highly palatable handling of frontier juvenile delinquency." Variety echoed this reaction: "Rolls along at a headlong pace," it declared. "Holt's as noble an hombre as ever rode the range."

Critics also lauded the cinematography of J. Roy Hunt, which captures the striking landscape of the perennially popular Lone Pine, Calif., shooting location -- a site for many a Holt western of this era.

By Jeremy Arnold

SOURCES:
James Robert Parish, Great Western Stars
Buck Rainey, Heroes of the Range
David Rothel, Tim Holt