a5c7b9f00b Cowboy Larry O'Day and his sidekick Lucky Smith happen upon a distraught Barbara Hartwell, who is about to be arrested for the murder of her uncle. With Barbara behind bars, Larry is determined to find the real killer and soon finds himself in the middle of a mystery involving crazed German entomologists and a smuggling ring bringing Chinese "picture girls" across the Mexican border for sale to wealthy Chinese bachelors.
Entomologist Frank Ball is bughunting near the Mexican border. He tells his niece, Harley Wood, to take a message in to sheriff Horace Murphy. As Miss Wood goes to her horse, she hears and shot and rushes back to find her uncle dead. Soon she finds herself in jail under suspicion of murder. Can wandering cowboy Bob Steele and comic sidekick Don Barclay untangle the mystery?<br/><br/>Bob Steele's westerns were a lot slicker now that they were being financed and released by Republic Pictures, and there's little doubt that director S. Roy Luby, whose other job was editor knew how to order the set-ups for under-rated cameraman Jack Greenhaigh efficiently. The problem is with the script by Fred Myton, who had been writing silents and B movies since 1916. Steele was an action star, whose athletic and acrobatic movements had been well served by direction under his father, Robert Bradbury. In this one, he has to spend most of his time talking. He doesn't even get into a fistfight with anyone until 51 minutes into the movie, and then all the action shots are chopped up by cross-cutting.<br/><br/>Myton's script also uses standard tropes: dumb cops, mysterious Orientals who dress in traditional Chinese garb in the middle of the American desert... with changes of costumes the whole movie could have been shifted to an urban setting with little loss. While the actors give good performances, and that's good, that's not what's supposed to distinguish westerns; good westerns, even B westerns, require open vistas, horses, action and more of the culture that makes the West different from downtown than a comic sidekick wearing chaps.
Border Phantom stars Bob Steele who when he was a B movie Cowboy hero, I always got the impression he was trying to be a James Cagney out west. Steele was a short man like Cagney and always played it with a chip on his shoulder.<br/><br/>Republic did not do right by it Mr. Steele at least in this one. I guess that after Gene Autry and Roy Rogers the other cowboy heroes got the leavings. This was definitely a story need not to have been filmed as Bob Steele puts an end to of all things, a racket involving arranged Chinese marriages. Who'd a thunk it.<br/><br/>Bob Steele was certainly capable of better things, just see him in The Big Sleep. And he was always great as a villain like in The Big Sleep or South of St. Louis with Joel McCrea. <br/><br/>He should have concentrated there instead of making these forgettable oaters.