A Man's Land (DVD)

Crooked financier John Thomas wants to purchase the profitable Triple X Ranch which is being terrorized by rustlers. When the spread's owner dies, his daughter Peggy comes west to turn the place into a dude ranch. Her foreman, Tex Mason, objects strenuously and the girl takes a dislike to him. Thomas drives a wedge between them by persuading Peggy that Tex is behind the rustling. To clear his name the foreman gambles everything on a risky strategy.

A Man's Land is among the best of Hoot Gibson's westerns made for M. H. Hoffman's Allied Pictures. Adele Buffington's plot - in which an Eastern-raised heiress plans to convert a cattle ranch into a dude ranch - served as the basis for numerous later westerns including several featuring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Gibson is his usual affable self, Marion Shilling is appropriately spunky, and lanky sidekick Skeeter Bill Robbins ably contributes comic relief to this smoothly developed cowboy adventure.

• western