Cowboy star Rod Cameron got his start in Hollywood as a bit player and stuntman, making do with limited screen time until Republic Pictures on Poverty Row gave him his first starring role -not as a western hero but as a federal agent ankling Axis rats. The success of the 1943 serial G-Men vs the Black Dragon led to a like-minded follow-up, Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943), in which Cameron returned as two-fisted Yankee counterspy Rex Bennett. The big studios took notice of Cameron's rough-hewn handsomeness and impressive physical prowess, with Universal tapping the strapping Canadian as a replacement for its departing matinee star Johnny Mack Brown. At Universal, Cameron appeared in both shoot-em-ups and such prestige pictures as Mrs. Parkington (1944) with Greer Garson and Salome Where She Danced (1945) with Yvonne De Carlo until a regime change in 1947 left him a free agent. Cameron returned to Poverty Row, working for both Monogram and Republic, taking the lead for the latter in the Technicolor western The Plunderers (1948). Anticipating Raoul Walsh's White Heat (1949), the film tells the tale of a government agent who poses as a wanted man to infiltrate Forrest Tucker's outlaw gang. If leading lady Ilona Massey looks familiar, fans of Universal horror may remember her as the Baroness Frankenstein of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) while future Lone Ranger star Clayton Moore appears in a small role.

By Richard Harland Smith