Canyon Ambush (1952)

When Johnny comes marching home again hurrah!

Canyon Ambush is directed by Lewis Collins and written by Joseph Poland. It stars Johnny Mack Brown, Lee Roberts, Phyllis Coates and Hugh Prosser. Music is by Raoul Kraushaar and cinematography by Ernest Miller.

Out of Monogram Pictures, Canyon Ambush is the sort of compact serial time filler that feels like it's in the wrong decade. Though coming out in the early 1950s, it has all the hallmarks of being a movie released ten years previously. Of course there was still a market for serial silliness, where the good guys were cut and dried in white, and the villains were black clad and easy to spot from the get go, but even in 1952 it feels old hat.

We are in Wyoming Territory, Border City, and a masked man on a black horse is terrorising and robbing all and sundry. Enter Johnny Mack Brown, a government agent on his way into town to work under cover as the sheriff's deputy. The sheriff, a war hero following in his father's footsteps, is pleased as punch to have some help in rooting out the bad eggs in town.

What follows is the standard formula for the quickie Westerns of the era, male characters mooch about barely concealing their true motives, a pretty gal (Marian Gaylord played by Coates) enters the fray and lowers the testosterone levels, and then it's action a go-go.

So it's shoot-out followed by a chase, a cunning plan is then hatched, then another shoot-out. Then time for a date with destiny, a mass shoot- out, some shifty shenanigans and a glorious happy ending, hooray! All crammed into under one hour of film.

In the year where Western fans had the likes of High Noon, The Naked Spur, Shane and the under seen War Arrow to gorge on, Canyon Ambush is a step backwards in the trajectory of quality Western cinema, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed. It wants to entertain and it does so, the honest intentions ensuring it's above average for those in the mood for such olde Western frothery. 6/10