Karl Hackett

Tex and his sidekicks arrive to help out his friend Jeffers, a railroad owner, only to find that he has been killed. They quickly run into trouble with an outlaw gang in their attempt to find the mysterious ghost train that supposedly runs on Jeffer's line. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>

At the request of the Mexican government, a federal agent and a lady reporter team up to catch a gang that has been smuggling gold from Mexico to the U.S. and then selling it to the U.S. government. The third in a series of four "G-Man" films produced by George A. Hirliman's Concord Productions for Grand National release finds smugglers have found that smuggling gold from Mexico has become a lucrative racket since the United States went off of the gold standard. McKenzie (William L. Thorne) and his gang operating from the Los Morados mine are sailing high until they happen to kill two federal agents and the Department of Justice sends in ace operative Alan O'Connor (Conrad Nagel) to find the killers and break up the gold traffic. He traces specimens of the precious metal to have come from the Los Morados mine, and sets off for Mexico. There he meets aviator Steve Williams (Frank Milan), who pays his saloon bills with gold nuggets. Alan persuades the proprietor of the Tarentella Cafe to add another entertainer to his staff, and then wires Washington to send Operative No. 37, Bobbie Reynolds (Eleanor Hunt), his sweetheart. (Nice work if you can get it.) O'Connor finds a map in Steve's room showing the American headquarters of the gang to be a mine near Winston, California, and he leaves Bobbie and heads there. He is recognized and followed when he arrives. Bobbie follows him by train. O'Connor has gone to the landing field with other agents to trap the in-coming Steve with his load of Mexican gold, but members of the gang are holding Bobbie captive in an old mine shaft. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Hopalong Cassidy and his gang battle sabotaging crooks as they gather more horses for the Spanish-American war. During the Spanish-American War, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders are short of horses, and Hopalong Cassidy and his Bar-20 friends are detailed to round up a bunch of wild horses, but a renegade and his gang are out to stop the roundup. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net> The Army needs 500 horses and Hoppy has been sent to round them up. After he and his men do all the work, Carson arrives and plants ten of his branded horses among the group. Then he and his men arrest Hoppy and his crew for rustling and make plans to hang all of them and then sell the horses. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net> In this 14th film of the 66-film series that is credited on the film as being based on Clarence E. Mulford's novel "Tex"... but isn't, other than some character names...the United States Army needs horses for the Spanish-American war but all attempts to get wild horses from the Western plains has failed as the gathered herds have been taken by rustlers. Colonel Whitely instructs Major McCready to secure the services of Hopalong Cassidy who, meanwhile, has been training his men as a volunteer force. While disappointed at having to work as a civilian, Cassidy answers the call to the flag and with the help of Lucky Jenkins, Windy Halliday, Smokey and the other cowhands, rounds up a herd of 500 wild horses. Black Jack Carson and his henchmen Hawks, Shorty and Brad steal the horses and capture Cassidy and his men. With the help of Boots, the Colonel's son, and Barbara Allen, Lucky's sweetheart, Cassidy manages to escape, regain the horses and capture Carson and his men. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>