Sunset Range on AllMovie

A curious mix of B-Western heroics and gangster film melodramatics, Sunset Range was the first of two very low-budget Westerns Hoot Gibson would make for Gower Gulch company First Division Productions. Mary Doran, a blonde starlet who had played gangster's molls during the heyday of that genre in the early 1930s was cast as Bonnie Shea, a Chicago girl whose brother Eddie (James Eagles) is a member of a gang headed by hoodlum Grant (Walter McGrail). When Bonnie is leaving to take over her brother's Arizona ranch, Grant forces Eddie to hide the loot from the gang's latest bank heist in her suitcase. In Arizona, Bonnie immediately faces staff problems when sloppy cowhand Reasonin' Bates (Gibson) refuses to work for a lady. But despite Reasonin's early misgivings, he and his fellow cowboys show a united front when Grant and his gang of city slickers arrive to retrieve the loot. As usual in these low-budget affairs, Gibson earned certain casting privileges and Sunset Range featured several long-time associates of the popular star, including Fred Humes, Fred Gilman and stunt-men Len and George Sowards.