You won't be disappointed!

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Instant Favorite.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Return of the Badmen is a crazy but a fun B western. It is a bit clichéd as Randolph Scott plays Vance Cordell a retired Texas Ranger hoping to settle down in Oklahoma which is just ripe for a land rush.The very best of outlaws are planning to just exactly that, a land grab as they converge to cause havoc. Led by the mean Sundance Kid (Robert Ryan) a world away from Robert Redford's portrayal. The outlaws also include Billy the Kid, the Younger Brothers, the Daltons, Wild Bill Yeager, Wild Bill Doolin. Vance manages to get one of the female outlaws to mend her ways and it also leads him to fight off two female admirers.Vance becomes a Marshall in order to take down the brutish Sundance Kid with a one on one fist fight.A likable, undemanding western.

Return of the Badmen is directed by Ray Enright and co-written by Charles O'Neal, Jack Natteford and Luci Ward. It stars Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, George Hayes and Jacqueline White. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by J. Roy Hunt.Braxton, Oklahoma Territory, 1889, soon to be a ghost town as the impending land rush changes the West. With that comes more than just settlers, it brings outlaws too, some of the meanest there is. Under the leadership of Wild Bill Doolin has gathered the Sundance Kid, the Younger Brothers, the Daltons, Wild Bill Yeager, Billy The Kid, George Mason, the Arkansas Kid and Doolin's niece Cheyenne. Standing in their way? Vance Cordell, retired Texas Ranger, soon to become temporary marshal of newly formed Guthrie Town, and a man with a score to settle with the Sundance Kid.Premise is simple, RKO, flush with the success of Badman's Territory the previous year, decide that more is best in this second instalment of the studio's "Badmen" trilogy (Best of the Badmen followed in 1951). They pitch some of the Wild West's baddest apples together and play them off against that bastion of stoic cowboyness, Randolph Scott. As a basic Western movie it works, film is always engaging, has a good action quota, is technically safe from the camera side of things and is driven by a pot boiling destiny showdown between Scott and Ryan. Trouble is is that so many notorious characters in one mix means the film has no chance of living up to its promise. Which in a running time of 90 minutes was always going to be impossible to achieve anyway, especially when you also have the inevitable romantic angle involving our hero, another character thread involving reform and the backdrop of the land rush as well.Thankfully the film finds Scott and Ryan more than capable of sealing the deal, lifting the picture above the routine plotting and unrealistic nature of the set-up. It's good versus evil, where Scott's Cordell is the man in light, the man of the people, and Ryan's Sundance is the man in dark, a twitchy cold blooded psycho. Yes, there's the inevitability factor of it all, we know who is going to triumph here, but the build up is well handled and it does provide a very brisk and punch laden finale. There's nothing irritable in cast performances across the board, yes we want more from the roll call of actors playing under written villains, but story, as fantastical as it is, never sags and entertains from first minute to last. There's worse ways for Western fans to spend an hour and half, that's for sure! 6.5/10

Make a Western with the iconic Randolph Scott, throw in some veteran cowboys like Gabby Hayes, Steve Brodie, Robert Ryan, Tom Tyler, Tom Keene and sprinkle in the likes of Jason Robards,Sr., Robert Armstrong and Anne Jeffreys, and how can you go wrong?Well, it ain't easy, but the bunch responsible for this dull affair did it. Apparently they bit off more than they could chew as far as the plot is concerned - there is some love interest, a little comic relief, some character study, loads of superfluous dialogue and many sidetrack plots. But the whole rationale for producing a western is the intrinsic action, which has been almost completely forgotten in this all-star potboiler. There is a good fistfight and a stagey-looking shootout towards the end but it takes too long to get there.Not really worth a look, but it's interesting to reflect on what could have been.

Randolph Scott had scored a pretty good success dealing with a whole bunch of name outlaws in Badman's Territory a few years back. Small wonder that RKO decided to repeat the same formula. Though Return of the Badmen is by no means a sequel to the original film.Return of the Badmen finds Randolph Scott as a retired Texas Ranger looking to settle in the newly opened Oklahoma Territory. But formerly the territory known as the Indian nations was patrolled by the army with visits from occasional federal peace officers like Rooster Cogburn if John Wayne fans will remember True Grit. A summit of outlawry has been called by Bill Doolin as played by Robert Armstrong. He brings in the Daltons, the Youngers, Billy the Kid, and the meanest of them all, the Sundance Kid as played by Robert Ryan. This is not the same guy who partnered with Paul Newman. He's a mean cuss and he's the guy that Randolph Scott eventually squares off with for reasons you'll have to see the film for.Repeating the same formula that RKO used for Scott in Abilene Town, he's got two girls pursuing him. One is Jacqueline White who is banker Gabby Hayes's daughter who is the widow of a peace officer herself with a small son in Gary Gray. The other is a Calamity Jane type outlaw named Cheyenne played by Anne Jeffreys who is Armstrong's niece. Again you'll have to see Return of the Bad Men to figure out who Scott gets.In true cowboy hero fashion, old peace officer Randolph Scott answers the call of the citizenry for law and order. Though Return of the Bad Men doesn't cover any new ground, it's a good western for Randolph Scott.Or as Mel Brooks would have it, RANDOLPH SCOTT.