not horrible nor great

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"The Homesteaders" opens with homesteader Mace Corbin ("Wild Bill" Elliott) laboriously plowing his rock/stump laden farm. He receives a letter from the army informing him that the army will sell him four wagon loads of dynamite which he hopes to distribute to fellow homesteaders to help clear their lands.Together with partner Clyde Moss (Robert Lowery)who has his own agenda, they go to pick up the explosives at the army fort. There Corbin learns that the dynamite is unstable and could explode at any time. To help transport the load overland to their home, the boys are given access to released army prisoners to form their travel crew.The wagon train forges on with Corbin as the stern wagon master. Old timer Grimes (Emmett Lynn), totally miscast, becomes the "ramrod" if you will. Of course there are troublemakers in the crew. Mead (George Wallace) and Slim (Rick Vallin are the chief protagonists. Back in town, gold miner Kroger (James Seay) has designs on the dynamite and plans to steal it from Corbin & co. Following an Indian attack, Kroger launches his own raid and......................................................Oddly enough, I guess due to budgetary restraints, there are no wagons blowing up in spite of their volatile cargo. At 62 minutes this film had the shortest running time of any of Elliot's Monogram/Allied Artists westerns.Bill Elliott wasn't your regular Saturday afternoon cowboy. He never the fancy duds of his contemporaries nor did he have a sidekick. In fact he is seen smoking a pipe in a camp fire scene. There is a reason that he was the last of the "B" western cowboys.

Veteran B-movie helmer Lewis Collins beat eminent French director Henri-Georges Clouzot to the punch with his western about Will Bill Elliot and the second actor to play "Batman" trundling wagons loaded with dangerous dynamite through territory infested with angry Native Americans. Allied Artists released "The Homesteaders" roughly a month before "The Wages of Fear" came out, but this above-average, often predictable sagebrusher isn't nearly as suspenseful as Clouzot's riveting epic. Nevertheless, this oater about homesteaders who plan to use dynamite to clear tree stumps and boulders so they can grow crops and raise cattle is substantial enough to warrant attention. Rarely did cowboy actor Wild Bill toil behind a horse and a plow, but then the actor can be seen as expanding his options. Mace Corbin (Wild Bill Elliot) is desperate to make his homestead a success, and he embraces the idea of obtaining surplus U.S. Army explosives to clear his way to a fortune. Corbin's married friend, Clyde Moss (Robert Lowery of "Batman and Robin"), doesn't necessarily share his friend's enthusiasm or his ideals. Instead, Moss wants to use the dynamite for excavating gold, like so many of his former homesteading neighbors have sought to do. None of them ever got their hands on dynamite. Reluctantly, Clyde goes along with Mace's idea, but he contacts the villain, John Kroger (James Seay of "Vera Cruz") and cuts a shady deal with him. Essentially, Clyde plans to double-cross his old friend.Things turn sour for our heroes after they ride into Fort Churchill and learn from the commanding officer, Colonel Peterson (Ray Walker of " The Blue Gardenia"), that the explosives are faulty. The colonel explains that the dynamite could blow up before a blasting cap is inserted into them. Earlier, Mace had told Clyde that handling the dynamite would pose no problems until the sticks were capped and fused. Our heroes refuse to give up but then encounter another problem. Where can they find men to help them get the explosives back to their property. Peterson offers to discharge several soldiers in the guard house early so they can help our heroes transport the explosives. These men display reluctance when they learn that the dynamite is so defective that it could explode at any moment. Nevertheless, with the few prospects for other jobs, this motley collection of manpower decides to sign on with Mace and Clyde to escort the explosives across rocky terrain.Predictably, a couple of bad apples keep things interesting, and Wild Bill has to rely on his fists to keep these ruffians in line. Late in this 62 minute horse opera, marauding Native Americans attack the wagon train and one of the wagons vanishes in a might explosion. Afterward, Clyde confesses to his perfidy, but Kroger and his men attack, and Clyde is responsible for shooting Kroger down. Clyde and Wild Bill reconcile and they ride off with the survivors into the sunset to embark on a new life.

As Wild Bill Elliott's career as a film cowboy hero was coming to a close his last studio was Allied Artists where clearly he was not getting the budgets he got at Republic or Columbia. And there was something incongruous about seeing him behind a plow as he was playing one of The Homesteaders.Bill and partner Robert Lowery hear about how they can acquire some dynamite, four wagonloads of it in fact from the Army which Elliott wants to use to blow stumps and rocks from the hilly ground he's trying to farm on. Lowery however is in deep to gambler James Seay who wants the stuff to use for mining gold. He's reluctant to pull a doublecross on a friend though.But the reason the army wants to get rid of the dynamite so cheap is its a really bad batch. Very unstable, but the commander of the post also gives Elliott and Lowery some of his best guardhouse specials as a crew to transport it.Although the action is a plenty as in Wild Bill Elliott films, this cast good and bad guys alike should have all been blown to smithereens. Elliott has to deal with discipline among his crew, Lowery's treachery, an Indian attack, and finally a showdown with Seay and his band. The way the bullets and arrows were flying around they all should have been blown to smithereens.Definitely Elliott's career was on the downside with stuff like The Homesteaders.