20 best movies like Raiders of the West (1942)

Hero Jeff Strong (Starrett) comes to the rescue of a group of victimized ranchers. The villains are a gang of crooked gamblers, who demand a valuable dam as payment for a $50,000 debt. The ranchers hope to earn the money by getting their cattle to market on time, but head bad guy Cash Fenton (Kenneth MacDonald) and his flunkey Lobo (Dick Curtis) intend to prevent this.

In this western, three Texas Rangers decide to do their part to save the world and join the Army, but before they can, they are sent to Alaska to destroy a secret Nazi operation involving a submarine refueling station. The outpost is located behind an impenetrable tangle of barbed wire. The rangers get a little help, and discover a traitor. Then to get through the wire, they start a cattle stampede and save the day.

A cowboy turns bounty hunter to pay off his debts.

A cowboy goes undercover to catch the cattle thieves who killed his father.

Set on the Mexican border in 1850, Bad Men of the Border was the first of seven Universal Westerns starring handsome Kirby Grant, a former singer from Montana who had earlier acted under the name Robert Stanton. The series, Universal's last attempt at competing with Republic Pictures' many streamlined B-Westerns, also featured the bucolic Fuzzy Knight as Grant's sidekick. Grant and Knight are undercover U.S. marshals tracking down a gang of counterfeiters. To their surprise, they are soon assisted by a beautiful Mexican dancehall performer, Dolores Mendoza (Armida), who proves to be an undercover agent as well, in her case for the Mexican rurales headed by Captain Garcia (Francis McDonald).

A trio of cowboys infiltrate a cattle rustler's gang to seek vengeance for one of their fathers' murder.

The Texas Rangers round up rustlers by masquerading as the same. Trouble ensues when while in disguise one of the Rangers is accused of a killing.

As he looks over the dusty, deserted remains of the western "boom town" of Panamint, grizzled old prospector Chuckawalla Bill Redfield (Ruggles) recalls the town's glory days. Looming large in Chuckawalla's reminiscences is the day that young and apparently mild-mannerd minister Philip Pharo (Phillip Terry) rode into town. In his own gentle but forceful fashion, Pharo managed to bring the town's lawless element into line, mollify the local bluenoses, and win the heart of likeable dance-hall girl Mary Mallory (Ellen Drew).

Arriving to become the new Deputy, Steve Gordon takes over as Sheriff instead when he finds the Sheriff has been killed. He doesn't last long and is fired for incompetence. But he realizes Brady is pulling off a swindle. Having found the proper soil, Brady has salted it with cheap diamonds, gotten Smiley to accidently find them, and is now taking money from eager investors and planning to flee with it.

Returning G.I. Curt Norton (Ken Curtis), owner of a radio station, finds his father Amos (Guy Kibbee) has allowed the station to run down and has squandered Curt's money in bad investments in war-surplus material. Eddie Jackson (Robert Kellard), who owns the rival station, is also attracted to Curt's sweetheart Jean White (Joan Barton). When Curt and the Hoosier Hotshots successfully stage an auction to raise money, Eddie hires Mimi Carston (Claudia Drake) to claim that Curt married her in France.

Tex is after the gang that robbed a train of a gold shipment. He suspects Dorman is the culprit and is hiding their gold at his mine. When Stubby sees Dorman's henchman Stark cash in some gold nuggets, Tex tricks Dorman into moving the gold. He hopes to round them up with the help of the posse and the local Boy Scout Troop.

Sgt. Renfrew and Constable Kelly go aloft to search for a plane missing with a shipment of gold from the Yukon Mine Company. Inventor Speavy has devised a power ray which disrupts electrical impulses, and Morgan and his gang of crooks has brought in Prof. Lewis to increase the ray's range, telling him he's helping the government develop this new weapon. Speavy spills the beans to Prof. Lewis and his daughter Madeleine,and Morgan threatens to implicate them in his crimes unless they cooperate. Morgan kills Speavy when he tries to warn Renfrew, but when Madeleine stows away on board the doomed plane Renfrew is piloting, will the crooks be able to make Prof. Lewis use the power ray to bring the plane down?

The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend.

When Ranger Raymond is killed during a stage holdup, Wells Fargo Agent Whip Wilson assumes his identity.

Joan Wingate's wealthy father doesn't want his daughter to go into show business. As they vacation in the west she gets a job with Dan Tyler's show and uses Wingate money to keep him afloat. Sandwiched in between the numerous musical numbers they try to keep her father away from the show. But he eventually finds out and decides they will return east

Bill Underwood falls out with his father and chooses the life of a cowhand rather than take charge of his father's stage line.

A wandering cowboy and his sidekick try to resolve a murder.

In this western, set in Texas, the brave heroes Rod, Fuzzy, and their good-guy gang attempt to keep a band of ruthless outlaws who are trying to take over the reins of a stage coach line.

A cowboy looking for his missing father, poses as an outlaw and joins the gang he thinks is responsible.

To increase profits for his shipping company, Lynch has goaded the Indians to attack both the telegraph line and the new railroad. When Lynch sells rifles to the Indians, Rod Farrell captures Lynch and his gang. But Lynch's Indian friends free him and this time Farrell finds himself the prisoner.

Filmed at the Providencia Ranch (today's Forrest Lawn in Burbank, CA), this typical "Durango Kid" Western featured the Cass County Boys performing "Go West Young Lady" by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, in addition to series regular Smiley Burnette singing his own "It's My Turn" and "The Yodeler. This time, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) is chasing down a gang of outlaws shipping stolen gold in crates marked "ring bolts," ably assisted by Smiley, a treasury agent working undercover as a house painter. Virginia Maxey supplies female interest and little Tommy Ivo, in one of his six appearances in the Durango Kid series, also gets in the way of the action.

Three cowboys find that a U.S. Marshal relative is an impostor.

When Hadley finds gold on his land, Kirby kills him and then goes after Hadley's ranch. After Eddie Dean foils Kirby's robbery attempt, Kirby forces the assistant land agent Tuttle to sell the ranch to him. But Eddie learns of the forgery thru Tuttle's boss and goes after Kirby.

his was one of the earlier uses of Robert Tansey's favorite plot (only the 3rd time he had trotted it out of the stable, but he got six more films out of it in later years) in which a group of outlaws (wrongly jailed this time) are let out to join up with the good guys against a worse bunch of outlaws. And, not unusual in the B-western genre, most of the production crew wore several hats; director Robert N. Bradbury and supervisor Lindsley Parsons wrote a song for Tommy Bupp, one of the actually good kid actors of the time who proved real quick-like that singing wasn't his strong suit, while Robert Emmett Tansey worked three jobs under three names... Robert Emmett on story and screenplay, Robert Tansey as the production manager and Al Lane as the assistant director. And, for a change, music director Frank Sanucci actually earned a composers' credit as he did write a song... Written by Les Adams

The conflict between a railroader and a stage line owner is being aggravated by bad guys who are sabotaging both sides. Roy and Gabby mediate the conflict and expose the bad guys.

In this comic western, a Broadway star leaves his musical revue to go West and help out his troubled friend. While there, the performer finds himself forced into becoming the town sheriff. Mayhem ensues, but somehow, the crooner manages to round up a band of killers.

Clay gets a musical troop out af jail and helps raise money so they can put on their show. During the performance Blake and his men rob the box office. The townsmen give chase and Clay goes after Blake.

US cavalry officer James Laurence (Nelson Eddy) arrives at one of the Russian colonies to pave the way for the eventual American takeover of the territory. He faces resistance in the form of Prince Nikolai Balinin (Hugo Haas), who has no intention of weakening his despotic hold over the local peasants. The plot thickens when Laurence falls in love with Natalie Alanova (Ilona Massey), the wife of disgraced nobleman Count Igor Savin (Joseph Schildkraut).

Ranger Eddie Dean is looking for the outlaw the Tioga Kid, a man he closely resembles. He runs into Joe Morino and his gang of rustlers at the same time Tioga arrives to cut himself into Morino's game. But Morino doesn't give in and in the showdown, Eddie and the Kid find themselves on the same side.