Enemy of the Law

"Enemy of the Law" is a film from tiny PRC, a very low-budget company known for making shabby movies. Now occasionally, PRC actually made a good film...but that was the exception to the rule. Is "Enemy of the Law" one of these exceptions?

Like Republic and their Three Mesquiteers as well as Monogram and their Range Busters as well as the Rough Riders , PRC tried the same formula with their Texas Rangers films. The formula for all these movies is that you have three good guy cowboys....one of which is the comic relief...and they right wrongs and uphold law & order in the old west. Here the three consist of Tex Ritter (who had a lovely singing voice), Dave O'Brien and Guy Wilkerson as the comic relief, 'Panhandle'. The series wasn't nearly as successful as the Monogram and Republic versions.

When the film begins, you learn that Wild Charlie is in prison for a US payroll robbery...but they never discovered the loot he stole. So, they get Panhandle to go to prison very briefly in order to befriend Charlie to that he can work undercover to discover the whereabouts of the money. Once the pair are released from prison, they join Charlie's gang...while Tex and Dave keep their eye on them from a distance.

So is it any good? Not especially. Part of the problem is that the plot is incredibly familiar. The only thing I liked about the plot was that they first asked Dave to do it and he responded that considering he's a well-known Ranger, someone in prison is sure to recognize him...something that never normally seems to occur to them when they use this plot! But it is pretty silly how quickly Charlie comes to trust Panhandle...talk about unrealistic! Plus the bad guys are unconvincing and dull (Charlie just looks like some old fat guy) and the same can be said of the heroes. As for the story, it's familiar and rather talky. Definitely a third-rate version of the Mesquiteers-style film. Not terrible...just not very good or memorable either.