Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Sick Product of a Sick System

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This ranks as one of the best B westerns that I have ever seen, filled with a believable dramatic plot, complex characters, some frantic comedy and even a couple of songs. Rex Allen has arrived in Colorado from Texas to assure his light above the neck pal Slim Pickens gets his share of an estate he has been promised. The only issue are the other heirs, which includes easterner Mary Ellen Kay and the unscrupulous June Vincent, one of the few female western villains I've ever seen. Her motive concerns logging rights, allegedly involving a tree killing beetle.There's a terrific characterization by Louise Beavers, stealing every moment as Kay's companion. With a huge heart and feisty demeanor, she's more than willing to risk her life for Ms. Kay. When one of the villains confronts her over a letter she received and is holding for Allen, it takes a shocking turn, especially concerning their beloved terrier who in an early scene set Kay and Beaver's unmanned carriage running wild thanks to spooked horses. A feisty goat also goes for laughs, getting targets in the butts of both Pickens and Beavers. You won't soon forget the sight of Pickens in "Charley's Aunt" drag as the talking brooch he carries. Dark lady Vincent certainly is also fascinating, basically the Lady Macbeth of the old west, stopping at nothing to get control of the entire valley. When genre like this take on the dark themes that makes the legitimate theater so powerful, that automatically raises the bar for me.

B-westerns almost always have a baddie. It's usually some guy bent on taking over the county and he secretly controls a gang of thugs who are terrorizing the countryside. However, "Colorado Sundown" is quite different. While the plot has the usual attempt to practically steal everyone's land, it's by a trio of evil siblings--and the most evil and conniving is a woman! And, to make things even more different, the woman is even more brutal and vicious than usual! And, instead of a gang, they use trickery and murder to make their plans work and a gang is only recruited when their plan starts to unravel.When the movie begins, three different groups of people think they are inheriting a ranch. In reality, they ALL are inheriting a third. While this may not sound so bad, one group (the Hurleys) are vicious thieves and want it all--and they'll get it one way or another. Their plan is to convince everyone that the land is infested with a bark beetle--and then get all the property for a tiny fraction of what it's worth. Then, they'll do the same thing for all the surrounding land that supposedly is infested.As for Carrie Hurley (June Vincent), she is the boss in her family and specializes in poisonings. The first victim is a forestry official who KNOWS the land is beetle-free. The second is a fake forest ranger who Carrie brought in--and to make matters worse, it's her own younger brother!! In addition to these killings, one Hurley shoots an innocent maid (Louise Beavers) and even a tiny dog!! Could it get worse? Well, she even shoots poor Rex Allen and then claims she shot him AFTER Rex beat the 'ranger' to death--when she actually poisoned him! Can the good guys uncover the plot and dispatch the evil Hurleys? Because the villains are so bad, this is a dynamite B-western. It also helps that the plot is quite original in many ways and Louise Beavers was great as one of the spunkiest women of the old west I've ever seen. Surprisingly good.It is interesting that in this film Rex Allen plays a character named Rex Allen and Slim Pickens played a guy named Slim Pickens! This sort of thing was quite popular in Roy Rogers films, as Roy and Gabby were often referred to by their stage names. Odd. Also odd is that Pickens really was a cowboy and rodeo star--and so playing a cowboy is pretty natural.

Colorado Sundown finds Rex Allen accompanying his sidekick Slim Pickens to the reading of a will where Slim will inherit a third of a ranch along with fellow heirs Mary Louise Kay and June Vincent and Fred Graham. The last two were expecting the whole ranch and these other heirs two the two thirds they don't have throw a crimp into their plans.Which are to denude a forest area which provides a natural flood barrier for the ranchers. These two want to open an old mill and to get permission to cut the trees have spread word of a plague of beetles in the area who would eat the trees until they rotted. They even get another idiot brother of their's to pose as a forest ranger giving them permission. They also kill the real forest ranger.June Vincent played a lot of evil women in many a film. She's at her worst in Colorado Sundown.Slim Pickens has some good moments himself, fighting a few losing battles with a goat that nails him every time he bends over. There's also a gag borrowed from the Road To Morocco where Pickens plays himself and his own mother. It worked well here as it did for Bob Hope.This is a good Rex Allen feature and I'm convinced more than ever that Rex was doing a lot of material meant originally for Roy Rogers. He does it well though.

Siblings Carrie and Daniel Hurley are trying to start up their timber mill by trying to have all the trees in the valley chopped despite the fact the forest rangers saying it will hurt the ranchers by exposing the land to erosion and flash floods. They also inherit a ranch with timber that can be cut down, but find themselves coheirs with Jacqueline Reynolds, arriving from the east, and Slim Pickens, coming from Texas with his ranch foreman Rex Allen. The Hurleys try to buy out Jacqueline and Slim's portions of the ranch claiming that the trees are infected with a blight and must be cut down, which will ruin the property, but Rex and Mattie, Jacqueline's maid, go stop them from signing the document. The Hurley's next plan is to have their younger brother, Dusty (a black sheep even for this family) impersonate a forestry official (using the documents of an official poisoned by the Hurleys) to order the trees cut down. Rex writes the forestry department for advice on the matter, and his letter is stolen by Dusty, who takes it back to Carrie, who poisons him to prevent him from telling Rex of their scheme. The Hurleys accuse Rex of Dusty's murder, but he is called to prevent rains from flooding the valley. Excellent entry in the Rex Allen series with plenty of action and great direction from director Witney. The script could have used some work in the beginning since the Hurley's motives at the beginning (before they inherit the ranch) aren't clearly explained. The film has a bunch of great fights including Rex vs. Graham (Daniel Hurley) started by Rex throwing a punch while riding past him on Koko. Pickens and Beavers (Mattie) both give good comic relief performances here. An all around winner. Rating, based on B westerns, 10.