Rex Bell Double Feature: Fighting Texans (1933) / Lucky Larrigan (1932) (DVD)

Rex Bell's 1932-33 Monogram Westerns, turned out by the same production team that would shortly achieve great success with John Wayne as its star, are a notch above other independently made horse operas of the early sound period. Exploiting the likability of their amiable star, they films stress comedy, and in addition they eschew timeworn genre conventions in favor of fresh settings and situations. Fighting Texans opens in a clothing store, Lucky Larrigan at a polo match. Both are "contemporary" Westerns rather than shoot-'em-ups taking place during wild and woolly frontier days. But they don't stint on the action and melodrama craved by Saturday-matinee audiences, and Bell more than holds his own in the rough-and-tumble scenes.

Fighting Texans (1933, B&W): Brash young salesman Randy Graves loses his haberdashery job after brawling with a disgruntled customer and winds up selling oil stocks in a small Western town. But when villainous Gus Durkin and Julian Nash abscond with the invested money, Randy is left holding the bag - and having to deal with the outraged citizens. Starring Rex Bell, Luana Walters, Yakima Canutt, Al Bridge; Directed by Armand Schaefer.

Lucky Larrigan (1932, B&W): Craig "Lucky" Larrigan, a polo-playing New York socialite, falls in love with rancher Virginia Bailley. Reluctantly, he follows her out West as he fears he will be lambasted as a prissy city dude. His attempts to prove his manliness to the local citizenry backfire and land him in jail. Starring Rex Bell, Helen Foster, Stanley Blystone, Julian Rivero; Directed by John P. McCarthy.

• western