Tex Ritter was John Ritter’s dad!  Who knew?!

Tex Lawrence (Ritter), with his faithful steed White Flash (as himself)  and his two kinda useless sidekicks Pee Wee (the wonderfully over-the-top former Keystone Kop Snub Pollard) and Ananais (Horace Murphy), head on into a small town fraught with much violence to “help out” with the war between the sheepherders and the cattlemen. 

In town they find the very cadaverous “Gospel” Moody (silent and sound veteran Hobart Bosworth, who appeared in over 250 movies from 1908 to 1942, directed 44 known pictures from 1911 to 1915, wrote 27 and produced 11 known pictures from 1911 to 1921!!!), a non-violent, non-ordained preacher-man (and staunch cattle supporter) who stands against them scurrilous rapscallion shepherds, headed by his own brother, Cain Moody, and the violently named Trigger Gargan.  

Do you think Cain turned out bad because of his name, or …

The Sheepherders are vicious bastards, gunning down one of Gospel’s friends, a good and clean cowboy, and blaming Gospel for the murder.  Look, the plot makes zero fucking sense, but it is good and clean cowboy fun.

It’s also a hilariously “classical” western in the sense that “the victors write the history books”. 

The Johnson County War, the Pleasant Valley War, the Lincoln County War: there were numerous real-life violent feuds that spilled over from small factions into entire regions of the American West.  And a number of them did involve sheepmen vs. cattlemen.  The humor in this, as far as I am concerned (and this is as the great-grandson of cattle folk from West Texas) is that the cattlemen were the Big Businesses of the time period.

The sheepherders were predominantly Eastern European or Mexican immigrants, living a migratory life on the open range, while the cattlemen had more permanent spreads – also relying on the open range that they “traditionally” held. 

The big cattle companies often had private clubs (as in Wyoming and Montana) that sported liveried butlers, private dining rooms, gourmet meals, Parisian wines and Italian crystal-ware; the sheepherders often lived out of sod huts and had to hire from the Chinese and Mexican communities to muster enough men to load the sheep onto trains once a purchase had been made because the normal roustabouts and loaders wouldn’t take such “dirty” work.

Legends sprang up enabling the Cowboy to feel superior over his ancient enemy. That the stink of the “woollies” would stick to the water and drive away cattle from drinking.  That the cloven hooves of the sheep would cut the grass too short for the cattle to be able to eat any but the least nutritional part.  Ministers would give sermons about the “down-cast eyes” and “shameful deportment” of Sheepherders vs. the Good and Clean Drovers…

And this is where the unintentional comedy lies.  The sturdy and upright law-abiding Texas Rangers aiding the poor downtrodden ranchers, whose land is being invaded by the deadly gunhand sheepmen.  It’s like doing an action movie set during the 1890s where the bright and upstanding Pinkerton Men come to help the poor overwhelmed industrialist defend his built-by-hard-sweat-and-determination businesses from those dirty rat workers in the union… Or a contemporary film about the loyal and patriotic Blackwater PMCs coming to the aid of the unappreciated Halliburton executives…

All that politico nonsense aside, Tex Ritter (and his associates) are pretty awesome.  I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of all of them – and if the quality of this film is an indication, we’ll be enjoying those return visits.