SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Spikeopath Streets of Laredo is directed by Leslie Fenton and adapted to screenplay by Charles Marquis Warren from a Louis Stevens and Elizabeth Hill story. It stars William Holden, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix and Mona Freeman. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Ray Rennahan.For fans of traditional Westerns this is as solid as a Brick Adobe Structure. A remake of The Texas Rangers (1936) of sorts, plot finds Holden, Bendix and Carey as three bad boys who get divided by circumstance, love and conscious. Two of them wind up in the Texas Rangers - the famed frontier law enforcement battalion - the other stays on the wrong side of the law. All roads lead to the day of reckoning...The production is the usual mixed bag of superlative location photography (Simi Valley/Gallup) and crude back projection so often seen in the 40s and 50s Oater releases, with Rennahan's Technicolor photography a treat for the eyes. Performances are assured because the three principal guy actors are given characterisations that suits them - Holden tough emotional anti-hero - Bendix a lovable and dopey toughie - Carey sly bad boy. Freeman is lovely but it's a dressage character, while Alfonso Bedoya is on hand for some stereotypical bandido villainy.At 90 minutes in length it feels a bit padded out until the two guys actually join the Rangers, so some patience is required during the first half. However, there is plenty of Western movie action within the story, some turns in plotting to grab the heart strings and a pleasing array of costumes and musical accompaniments to keep the senses perky. All told, it's just a thoroughly enjoyable Oater regardless of if you have happened to have seen the original version. 7/10

classicsoncall A reasonable enough entry to be included as part of AMC's Saturday morning Western lineup, the film brings together the somewhat unlikely trio of William Holden, MacDonald Carey and William Bendix in a tale of villains and Texas Rangers. The boys start out as amiable bad guys who get separated following one of their adventures, with Jim Dawkins (Holden) and Wahoo Jones (Bendix) eventually joining the Rangers, while their amigo Lorn (Carey) schemes to replace Charley Calico (Alfonso Bedoya) as the main desperado in the vicinity of Laredo. As formulaic as Westerns can be, I can't say that I've seen another quite like it before, especially when Lorn Reming does a Han Solo like bushwhack on his former ally Wahoo later in the picture. Even though Wahoo was planning to turn in his ex-buddy, the vicious turn of Carey's character was a sit up and take notice moment.The story offers a few other novelties as well. Alfonso Bedoya gets a bit more screen time here than he did as 'Gold Hat' in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", though he'll never have as great a line as the one about those 'steenking badges' from that movie. I was really caught off guard to see Ray Teal as Calico's henchman Cantrel, virtually any time you see him in a Western he's playing a sheriff.I don't want to forget mentioning Mona Freeman as the story's romantic interest, first intrigued with Lorn Reming, and then when his true nature reveals itself, casting an eye for Jim Dawkins. Because the story spans a couple of years, her character Rannie Carter advances from a cute teenage cowgirl to a mature frontier woman. Bendix' character had a great line when they first met - "You're mighty pretty if you're a her".Though the Texas Rangers as an entity are part of the story, the film doesn't necessarily rely on that connection to work. However it does offer a convenient way for Jim and Wahoo to go straight while their partnership with Lorn falls apart. Of course the ending does submit to a fairly standard formula, but perhaps not in the manner in which it's carried out. For that though, you'll have to keep your eyes peeled for your local cable listings, as I'm unaware of the movie's availability elsewhere.

bkoganbing Streets of Laredo is a remake of Paramount's successful Texas Rangers with William Holden, William Bendix, and Macdonald Carey playing the parts that were done thirteen years earlier by Fred MacMurray, Jack Oakie, and Lloyd Nolan. Color is added and if anything this is a remake that proved better than the original.Three amiable outlaws get separated running from a posse. Two of them Holden and Bendix join the Texas Rangers and Carey continues his outlaw ways. Carey also as the film progresses demonstrates that he's a good deal more vicious than when we first meet him.Between them they have a lot of adventures on both sides of the law. But it is inevitable that they are destined for a showdown.There's a nice performance here from Alfonso Bedoya, fresh from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as Calico another outlaw with a murderous protection racket.Bill Bendix though he's never bad in anything, is really miscast in a western. He's just too urban a type to be a convincing western sidekick. Holden is a year away from his breakthrough part in Sunset Boulevard, in Streets of Laredo he's in one of his 'smiling Jim' parts as the amiable good guy. He fit those parts well, but he never would have had the career he did had he stuck to them.Western fans will definitely like this one, enough action and gunplay for any fan of the genre.

morales_zoraida This stars MacDonald Carey and William Holden. I grew up always watching McDonald Carey as Dr. Horton on Days Of Our Lives but I had never seen what he looked like when he was so young before. He was very handsome. He played an outlaw who helped rescue the main woman in the movie when she was just a girl. Also in this movie is Alfonso Bedoya. I saw him in the very first film I saw at film class in college, The Treasure of The Sierra Madre -- also a very good Western. Anyway, what I liked about this one is how the two friends who rescued the main woman when she was a girl were enemies now on account of how McDonald Carey was now an outlaw but William Holden was now a Sheriff and William Bendix, who was very funny, played his deputy, Wahoo. So, there was lots of tension back and forth, and the ending really surprised me. I liked this Western a lot.