Empty Holsters on AllMovie

The Warner Bros. custom of casting their Dick Foran singing Westerns with whomever was available from the studio's large roster of supporting players often made for an interesting change of B-Western pace. In Empty Holsters, a typical entry in the popular series, one of Boss Villain Emmett Vogan's henchman was the sophisticated Anderson Lawler, a prominent -- and unapologetic - member of Hollywood's gay set. Lawler, as flippantly nonchalant as ever, and George Chesebro help Vogan frame Foran in the murder of two stage-drivers, one of whom was the brother of Sheriff Edmund Cobb). With Foran sentenced to ten years in the hoosegow, Vogan hopes to get better access to lovely Patricia Walthall. But the girl keeps pestering the territorial governor and Foran is soon paroled for good behavior. Returning to the old homestead -- where he sings Old Corral by M.K. Jerome and Jack Scholl -- Foran begins the arduous process of proving Vogan a killer, a task made even more difficult when he is forced to hand over his weapons to Sheriff Cobb. He succeeds against all odds, of course, and is soon able to face a brighter future with Miss Walthall, the off-screen daughter of veteran character star Henry B. Walthall. Baritone-cowboy Dick Foran remains a matter of taste -- audiences in 1937 increasingly preferred the less exalted vocalizing of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, et al. -- but his quickie Westerns benefit from the kind of care only a major studio like Warner Bros was able to lavish.