Bad Men of Thunder Gap
Cast & Crew
Albert Herman
Dave "tex" O'brien
Jim Newill
Guy Wilkerson
Janet Shaw
Jack Ingraham
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
As Ed Ransom and Pete Holman steal the Hard Rock mine company's food fund, killing the owner in the process, Texas Ranger Tex Wyatt catches them in the act. They knock him out, and Holman escapes with the money, but Ransom stays behind and pretends that he encountered the robbery by chance. Before he arrives with the sheriff, Tex awakens and escapes through a window, and Ransom blames the robbery and murder on him. Ransom and Holman later go after Tex and try to kill him so he cannot identify them, but they unwittingly shoot only his hat. Tex and his partners, Jim Steele and Panhandle Perkins, are then sent undercover to Thunder Gap as members of a medicine wagon to investigate the rash of supply wagon thefts, which threatens to starve the miners out. Tex goes into the general store looking for work and overhears store owner John Hobbs accepting a mine claim as payment for a bill from a miner who can no longer afford to stay in town. Hobbs then sends him to Ransom, who owns a freight company, to seek employment, and Ransom fortunately does not recognize Tex. Later, Hobbs's sister accosts Tex, whom she heard sing in the medicine show, and asks for singing lessons for her niece. Tex sends Jim to teach the lessons instead, and he is immediately attracted to Hobbs's attractive niece Martha. Jim learns that the miners are being forced to leave due to the lack of food and are giving their claims to Hobbs to pay their debts. When Holman fires at Martha while she is out riding because she is too close to his hideout, Tex helps her retrieve her horse, then goes with Jim to investigate the hideout. Inside the barn they discover crates of all the stolen food supplies, but they are captured and discovered to be Rangers. Later, Panhandle overhears Ransom and Holman plotting to murder the Rangers, and confides in Martha, who rounds up a posse while Panhandle and his medicine show pals go to the barn. Martha mentions to her uncle that Panhandle and his friends are Rangers, and Hobbs, who has secretly been working with Ransom, rides to warn his cohorts to move their supplies to a mine shaft. Tex and Jim free themselves just as Panhandle finds them, and a gunfight erupts between the Rangers and the outlaws. When the posse arrives, the outlaws are rounded up, and Martha is shocked to learn that her uncle was the brains behind the mine claim scheme.
Director
Albert Herman
Cast
Dave "tex" O'brien
Jim Newill
Guy Wilkerson
Janet Shaw
Jack Ingraham
Charles King
Michael Vallon
Lucille Vance
Tom London
I. Stanford Jolley
Bud Osborne
Jimmy Aubrey
Cal Shrum
Crew
Arthur Alexander
Elmer Clifton
Robert Cline
Tex Coe
Charles Henkel Jr.
Lou Perloff
Fred Preble
Harry Rief
Cal Shrum
Alfred Stern
Hans Weeren
Lee Zahler
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was Fighting Men. Modern sources add the following actors to the cast: Artie Ortego, Robert Hoag, Don Weston, Rusty Cline, Art Wenzel, Kermit Maynard, Carl Mathews and Hank Bell. The film was re-released in 1947 under the title Thundergap Outlaws. For further information on the "Texas Rangers" series, consult the Series Index, and see the entry below for The Rangers Take Over.
