Redundant and unnecessary.

Just perfect...

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Gordon Elliott became Wild Bill Elliott and was generally a good cowboy and generally his name meant an at least pretty good movie."The Man from Tumbleweeds" is barely a pretty good movie.It was populated by some great cowboy performers, and even Dub "Cannonball" Taylor wasn't over the top.But it was awfully slow.The story, the premise was a good one, but somehow, despite some very good scenes and some good dialogue, ultimately it was rather lame, even trite.Everything was fairly predictable, except there was not a final blood-bath as might be expected in a low-budget movie.If you're a Western fan, you do want to see it, and I hope you like it better than this review might lead you to. It's available in a somewhat out of focus print at YouTube.

Gordon Nance appeared in a boatload of Westerns using the character name of Wild Bill - there was Wild Bill Hickok and Wild Bill Elliott, but for a brief four picture series with Columbia in 1940 he was Wild Bill Saunders. As "The Man From Tumbleweeds", Bill prevails upon Governor Dawson (Don Beddoe) to put together a lawman posse out of seven prisoners released to his custody to take on the Powder Kilgore (Ray Bennett) gang operating in the environs of Gun Sight. This is a fairly standard oater given the nature of these B Westerns, but trivia fans will find a number of interesting points to ponder with this film.For starters, there's Bill's sidekick Cannonball, portrayed by comic relief character actor Dub Taylor. Taylor had the name Cannonball Simms in his prior Columbia team-up with Elliott, "Pioneers of the Frontier", but apparently the last name was dropped in the other three pictures. Taylor uses some of the same type of braggadocio to describe his past exploits the way Gabby Hayes would in any number of his movie Westerns backing up stars like Roy Rogers. Cannonball's high spot in this flick occurs when he throws a makeshift bomb away from the Gun Sight town jail, and winds up in black face when the bomb explodes off screen. A few years later, Dub would appear with Charles Starrett in his Durango Kid films going by the name of Cannonball Taylor.During his days at Columbia and Republic, Elliott rode a number of different paint horses, all going by the name of Sonny. In this picture, it looks like he's aboard the original Sonny, identified by the white spot on the forehead, and more noticeably, the bi-colored black and white mane and tail. The name Sonny isn't mentioned by name in the story, but I do believe I heard Cannonball call his horse Jim.I got a kick out of some of the names given the outlaws who were sprung from prison to accompany Saunders. There was Shifty, Slash and Honest John identified immediately, but you had to stay attentive to catch the rest - Blackie, Daggett and Flint. I didn't catch the last one if it was mentioned, and most of them don't appear in the credits, which isn't unusual for these pictures.I guess I shouldn't forget actress Iris Meredith appearing as Cameron Freight operator Spunky Cameron. She has a role in nabbing the bad guys along with Cannonball and the rest, all with an eye it seems on roping Wild Bill by the end of the story. But not this jack rabbit, Bill was already making plans to high tail it to Texas for his next adventure. The head of the newly formed state rangers would have to be Honest John Webster (Al Hill), who performed admirably as Saunders' next in command. What would you expect of a guy named Honest John?

With that phrase Wild Bill Elliott playing Wild Bill Saunders again states why he just can't settle down in any one place. Elliott's Saunders character is a Lone Ranger without a mask, going all over the west, righting whatever wrongs there are in a given area.In this case Elliott gets a commission from Governor Don Beddoe no less when he sells him on the idea of establishing a state ranger force. Local law enforcement is unable to deal with roving gangs of outlaws who jump from county to county. Elliott even sells Beddoe on the idea of paroling some hard cases from the state penitentiary to clean up a certain really bad gang who murdered freighter Edward LeSaint in front of his daughter Iris Meredith. Get this bunch and a pardon might be in the offing and these paroled convicts the nucleus for a permanent state rangers.One thing really kind of got me. Granted that this film is for the Saturday matinée crowd of kids. But are we really surprised when one of Elliott's parolees turns out to be a double agent when he's got a nickname of Shifty? These films are never known for subtlety.I'm sure the kids in gallery got their money's worth from The Man From Tumbleweeds.

The Man from Tumbleweeds (1940)The claim to fame here is slight--it's directed by Joseph H. Lewis, later famous for some inventive, raw low budget movies like "Gun Crazy" (1951). It is directed with his usual fast, visual panache, though he's inexperienced here and it shows. The script is pretty routine, too, and so when the dialog intrudes, it intrudes.But it's fast, there are several turns of events, one of the main characters is a woman sheriff, and there are lots of gun fights, horse chases, double crossing, and broad black and white landscape. I liked it more than I should have, and it's partly how really well it was directed. With better actors and better dialog, this would easily be memorable.This is one in a series of one hour Westerns starring actor Bill Elliott, a sheriff who loved to be violent to bring in the bad guys, and would say, "Some folks call me Wild Bill. But I'm a peaceable man." It's the only Elliott film Lewis directed.Elliott was an Old West kind of character himself, and was the lead in several movie (low budget) serials, playing detective Gordon Elliott in some 28 of them, then a turning point came when Elliott (as Gordon Elliott) played Wild Bill Hickcok, the historical figure as portrayed in the 1938 movie. After this he played in Westerns for two decades. In the first four in the series, he played Wild Bill Saunders, and this is the third of them, all for Columbia Pictures. Then he switched to the more famous Wild Bill Hickcock himself for 12 films. When he moved to Republic pictures he starred as himself, Wild Bill Elliott.Should you see this? Why not? It's nothing much, but it's not bad, if you like Westerns of this sort. Any John Ford movie is better, of course, but this short and exciting. Oh, and don't be fooled by the opening credit that says Hygo Television Films--that was added for the 1953 re-release for t.v.