"Last fortnight, at the second-run Ritz Theatre in Los Angeles, audiences chuckled good-naturedly at producer Buell's novelty horse opera, but only once did they really howl: when three-foot-nine hero Billy Curtis, pursuing three-foot-nine villain Little Billy, galloped off on a black pony, was soon scooting along on a white pony, finished the chase on the black. Trouble with The Terror of Tiny Town, producer Buell was soon to realize, was that without a few normal-sized folks for contrast, midgets appear much like other people. Next time out, producer Buell's half-pint stock company will have something to stack up against. They will act out the legend of the mighty lumber man, Paul Bunyan, with a burly upper case actor in the lead."
Time, August 1, 1938.

"Contrived. Doll-like personalities...sling mean six-guns in battles between hero and villains, indulge in miniature romance, promote the triumph of virtue over heavy odds and carry on all the other antics of the Western meller."
Variety

"Wild West drama played entirely by midgets...As all the cast are midgets, the element of surprise is lost and the film tends to be just another Western....Everybody seems to be riding everywhere."
Monthly Film Bulletin

"Quaint... Performed by the first all-midget cast ever to make a feature... The hard-riding, two gun boys go buckety-buck on Shetland ponies. The heroine escapes the villain by running under the furniture instead of around it...The formula drama has been given pint-sized treatment."
The Hollywood Reporter

"[Rating: *1/2] If you're looking for a midget musical Western, look no further. A typical sagebrush plot is enacted (pretty badly) by a cast of little people, and the indelible impression is that of characters sauntering into the saloon under those swinging doors!"
Leonard Maltin, Classic Movie Guide.

"What can we really say about a troupe of midgets whose acting ability is exceeded only by their height. At times, the viewer has the uncanny sensation that he is watching a Western in which Truman Capote acts, sings, dances, and plays all the major parts. The director, Sam Newfield, apparently gave his cast no other direction than 'Look cute and act midgety!' And that they do. At times, the film resembles a below-average Our Gang comedy, in which the children try to talk after sucking on helium balloons all day...As these little people waddle through the film spewing high-pitched, garbled dialogue, it seems that the actors are intended to be retarded as well as minuscule."
Harry Medved, The 50 Worst Films of All Time.

"To be honest, The Terror of Tiny Town is not a great movie. But in fairness, it's not all that bad either. It's just a typical low-budget Western with an atypical cast who averaged 3'8" in height...Amidst the commotion are the usual suspects in these quickie oaters: a comic relief cook, a sultry saloon singer, a Stepin Fetchit-type black servant, and plenty of cowboys who don't seem to have any visible source of income yet have plenty of funds to spend ordering beers at the local watering hole. There's also a penguin, although his presence here is never quite clear...Yet The Terror of Tiny Town is so patently weird and spirited that it actually becomes very funny (albeit in a perverse and politically incorrect way). The midget cast isn't especially talented and a lot of the dialogue reading comes across as hilariously stilted (the fight sequences are priceless in their clumsiness - obviously stunt doubles were out of the question here). And Nita Krebs, as the Dietricheseque saloon singer, is so wildly over-the-top (or under-the-top, in her case), that her musical siren call is priceless in its warped eroticism. This is a fun curio, to be certain. If anything, the old axiom 'they don't make 'em like this anymore' clearly applies here!"
Phil Hall, filmthreat.com

"It holds up as a curio for those parties who are just curious to see midget cowboys in action. It's certainly not one of the worst films of all-time as stated by some shortsighted critics, nor is it a rancid exploitation film despite being politically incorrect. But it's also nothing special outside of the midget cast, who are awful actors and their speech is stilted--which adds to the camp feeling. Buell's film differs from Tod Browning's 1932 Freaks because it treats its midgets as if they were normal people while Browning showered them with compassion."
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

"Aside from a couple of puns about smallpox, and being a "big man" around town, this script could have been lifted from any of the hundreds of westerns Hollywood was cranking out at this time. Seeing a midget smoke a cigar and drink a beer loses its novelty after a few scenes, and the screenplay is less than enthralling. The acting is awful across the board. The songs all sound the same, and the recording is very difficult to understand."
Charles Tatum, efilmcritic.com

"Some indications of the cast's height do appear. The sets are normal sized, just maybe not so much that you'd notice, except for the swinging saloon doors that the cowboys walk under, and the midgets ride Shetland ponies. Once in a while there will be a size-ist joke, such as the band's double bass needing two people to play it, or the thirsty barman drinking beer out of a huge glass. Uninspiring comedy scenes include the chef, Otto (Charles Becker) chasing a duck around, or a singalong that includes a penguin for no apparent reason, but mostly this is played straight, unless you find the idea of short people inherently funny."
Graeme Clark, thespinningimage.co.uk

Compiled by John M. Miller