"Starrett and Smiley blast gold-looting bandits!"
Federal agent Steve Lawton works undercover with his assistant, Smiley Burnette, to track down an outlaw gang that is raiding government gold shipments bound for Fort Navajo.
Social & External
The people behind it
Charles Starrett
Steve Lawton / Durango Kid
Smiley Burnette
Lois Hall
Alice Tanner
Robert J. Wilke
Krag Benson
Fred F. Sears
Major Copeland
Steve Darrell
Forsythe
Hank Penny
Guitar Player
Slim Duncan
Fiddle Player
Jock Mahoney
Lieutenant Peck (uncredited)
Johnny Brownell, former Confederate officer turned Federal agent, is sent to Texas during the reconstruction years to obtain evidence against a gang of raiders who have been making life difficult for the local carpet-baggers. He saves the life of Shorty Kendall, an unreconstructed rebel about to be hanged, and this wins him the gratitude of Belle Chambers, a widow whose husband was killed in the Civil War who hates all Yankees with a fever.
Charles Starrett once more dons the mask of mysterious do-gooder "The Durango Kid" in Columbia's Challenge of the Range. Wandering cowboy Steve Roper (Starrett) is hired by the Farmers Association to stem the activities of a group of gunmen who are driving ranchers off their land. The most likely suspect turns out to be innocent: the real culprits are within the Association itself. With the help of the chief suspect's son, Roper brings the crooks to justice.
Steve Landry arrives as the new Marshal of a town that is having trouble with outlaws. When an outlaw escapes over the State line out of his jurisdiction, the Durango Kid brings him in. The Durango Kid then continues to break up the outlaw raids. But Belle, the saloon owner who is in cahoots with the outlaws, notices the the boot prints of the Durango Kid match those of the new Marshal and a trap is sent to get Durango.
Dakota Indian Agent Steve Reynolds receives a copy of the Bonanza City Nuggett from Jim Mallory and reads a story blaming the Durango Kid for recent gold mine raids.
Charles Starrett plays lawman Steve Forsythe in Ridin' the Outlaw Trail. Somewhere along the line, of course, Steve is obliged to don the mask of The Durango Kid, mysterious righter of wrongs. The "wrongs" in this instance include the theft of $20,000 in gold, and the "kidnapping" of a blacksmith's forge! Jim Bannon, who only a few months earlier had played the heroic Red Ryder, provides the villainy in this fast-paced "Durango Kid" entry
Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.
This time the Durango Kid confronts an expert gambler.
When Blackton outbids Bill Carson. Bill suspects he will have to rustle cattle to fulfill the contract. So Bill arrives posing as an Mexican. When he rustles the cattle from the rustlers, it gets him into the gang. Hoping to bring them all to justice, he is in trouble when his true identity is revealed.
Starrett tries to prevent a range war between settlers and the Native Americans. Blue and his fellow scoundrels think they can profit from the bloodshed,but the Durango Kid along with a couple of precocious youngsters put an end to Blue's terrorism.
Markham and his men have found gold on the Indian reservation and are trying to get rid of them by starting an Indian war. Dressed as Indians they are attacking the soldiers. Steve Holden is the Indian agent sent to prevent a war. After finding proof that white men posing as Indians were responsible, he is able to locate the gang's hideout but quickly becomes a prisoner slated to be killed. - Written by Maurice VanAuken
The Durango Kid sets out to clear his name after being falsely accused of a payroll robbery.
The Durango Kid, along with assistance from sidekick Smiley Burnett, investigates a pair of murders that threaten to fuel a range war.
Charles Starrett makes his final appearance as The Durango Kid, this time as Steve Reynolds, a postal inspector who has gone underground to catch the bad guys. His longtime sidekick, Smiley Burnette appears as an itinerant optometrist who is hardly in the plot line of the film. Jock Mahoney plays Jack Mahoney, an eastern educated dude who has come back home. The Durango Kid teaches Jack how to draw and fire a six-gun, and the two ultimately work together to bring the outlaws to justice.
Filmed at the Providencia Ranch (today's Forrest Lawn in Burbank, CA), this typical "Durango Kid" Western featured the Cass County Boys performing "Go West Young Lady" by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, in addition to series regular Smiley Burnette singing his own "It's My Turn" and "The Yodeler. This time, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) is chasing down a gang of outlaws shipping stolen gold in crates marked "ring bolts," ably assisted by Smiley, a treasury agent working undercover as a house painter. Virginia Maxey supplies female interest and little Tommy Ivo, in one of his six appearances in the Durango Kid series, also gets in the way of the action.
In Prairie Roundup, Fred F. Sears' direction brings a welcome jolt of vitality to Columbia's aging "Durango Kid" western series. Once again, Charles Starrett stars as Steve Carson, a lawman who is forced to assume the identity of masked do-gooder Durango. Framed for murder, Carson escapes to locate the real killer. It turns out that he was set up by cattle baron Buck Prescott, who eliminates competition by stealing livestock from other ranchers.
Quick on the Trigger was Charles Starrett's second "Durango Kid" picture for 1949. It all begins when ousted sheriff Steve Warren (Starrett) is put on trial for the murder of heroine Nora Reed's (Helen Parrish) brother. Steve is innocent, of course, but he doesn't stand a chance against prosecuting attorney Garvey Yager (Lyle Talbot) -- especially since Yager is the real killer.
It's 1873 and the disbanded Texas Rangers have been replaced by the corrupt Texas State Police. Steve Lanning arrives posing as a wanted outlaw to get in with them in his attempt to have them replaced. His inside work helps the Durango Kid break up the State Police raids but he is in trouble when his secret identity as Durango becomes known to them.
The town of San Felipe is plagued by robberies. Two Federal Agents are sent to investigate the major suspect, a local landowner. One agent works on his ranch, the other becomes his daughter's fiance.
Mahoney is a sheep man who's framed for the murder of a rancher. It's all part of a scheme by a dishonest cattleman who hopes to extenuate a range war for his own profit. The Durango Kid helps clear Mahoney's name.
El Puma, a Mexican desert guide, escorts an archaeological expedition headed by Professor Lucius Lloyd through the Indian badlands of Mexico. Marian, the professor's niece accompanies the party as only she can translate the Aztec writings in the diary of her father, murdered on a similar expedition six years previous. The professor is murdered by a knife, and the weapon is recognized as the property of El Puma. Magpie, a Federal Investigator, knows that El Puma is really "Lightnin' Bill' Carson, a former federal agent who has been missing since Marian's father was slain. The reluctant Magpie believes that his old pal is guilty. Carson sets out to prove otherwise.
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
A man and his partner arrive at a small Western town to kill its most powerful man because the former blames him for his wife's death.
A con man heading west to search for gold teams up with a pair of scheming brothers along the way. The trio soon find themselves in the middle of a feud between two rival families and two underhanded land developers.
In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
Tom Destry, son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn’t believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent.
A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.
Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.
A gunfighter and a cowboy help a Mexican girl avenge the land-related murder of her parents.
John Breen (John Wayne), a Kentucky militiaman falls in love with French exile Fleurette De Marchand (Vera Ralston). He discovers a plot to steal the land that Fleurette's exiles plan to settle on and aims to foil it.
A scorned woman enlists the help of five strangers to execute a bank robbery. Tensions rise as the men anxiously await her arrival with the money, leaving the crew to wonder if they have been betrayed.
In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.
American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.
When a gang of ruthless claim jumpers brutally murders his miner father, a gunman known as the Silver Kid joins forces with the local marshal to free the tiny town of Silver City from the clutches of the dastardly villains.
US Marshall Vance is assigned to rid the Oklahoma Territory of outlaws.
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.
When a handful of settlers survive an Apache attack on their wagon train they must put their lives into the hands of Comanche Todd, a white man who has lived with the Comanches most of his life and is wanted for the murder of three men.
A rancher, his shady bride and his one-armed brother fight amid carpetbaggers in Texas.
Davy Crockett and his sidekick Georgie compete against boastful Mike Fink ("King of the River") in a boat race to New Orleans. Later, Davy and Georgie, allied with Fink, battle a group of river pirates trying to pass themselves off as Native Americans.
During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?
One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?