Boss of Bullion City (1940) Johnny Mack Brown, Fuzzy Knight, Nell O'Day, Maria Montez Movie Review

Boss of Bullion City (1940)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Boss of Bullion City (1940)

Bully for Brown

Tom Bryant (Johnny Mack Brown) and Burt Pennypacker (Fuzzy Knight) are heading to Bullion City but not because there is a lot of gold prospecting in the area but because Tom is setting up a newspaper. But on the way there they are being held up by some outlaws which leads to Tom capturing one and taking him in to town where he learns he is a deputy. Suspecting that there is going to be a Gold robbery Tom decides to beat the outlaws to it in order to find out who is behind it all but much to his surprise a slip by the sheriff when it comes to knowing that the outlaws didn't get the gold causes him to realise that the Sheriff is behind it all.

I've watched a surprising number of these old one hour westerns and one thing I have come to realise is that if I find myself becoming distracted by other things such as Twitter it isn't necessarily because the western is bad but because it is so typical it offers up nothing new. So when I watched "Boss of Bullion City" and found myself browsing Twitter it didn't surprise me.

As such what you get in "Boss of Bullion City" is a variation on a formula which had been doing the rounds for most of the previous decade. We get Johnny Mack Brown being the hero who attempts to bring the end to some corruption whilst we get Fuzzy Night in comedy sidekick mode. Both men find themselves with women in their life with Tom having an attractive homesteader to distract whilst Burt has a feisty Italian woman. And of course we have the corruption which in this case is the town's sheriff who is abusing his position of power.

What this all boils down to is that "Boss of Bullion City" is just a routine one hour western from 1940, okay as a bit of light entertainment but with nothing special to make it memorable.


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