AllMovie

Directed and written by Harry L. Fraser, Gunfire is one of those ultra low-budget jobs whose wildly melodramatic plot is in deep contrast to its very authentic ambience. The dusty mise-en-scène was mainly due to the lack of any budget, but while the antics of boy rider Buzz Barton or the rather tepid romance between Rex Bell and Ruth Mix may no longer evoke much excitement, modern viewers cannot help but delight in such charming pursuits as a barn dance, complete with hayseed musicians who resemble distant cousins to the backwoods folks in Deliverance (1972), or onion and potato-peeling contests between Bell and arch villain Philo McCullough. And if that weren't enough -- and it certainly ought to be -- there is the redoubtable Lew Meehan, a no-budget Western regular whose face looked like it had been hit once too often by a Mack truck. Like all independently produced Westerns in the 1930s, Gunfire found its audience in small backwoods hamlets very much like the California village it depicts.