The Hawk of Powder River

I watched this with eager anticipation as I had been led to believe that there could be some quite dramatic moments in this film as Jennifer Holt (Vivian AKA the Hawk) runs a gang of outlaws. While it is true that she is a cut above the rest of the cast, I'm afraid that the film doesn't involve her enough, and her final shoot-out scene could have been so much better.

Eddie Dean is the good guy and he sings some nice songs - in fact, the musical interludes are quite good and that was a surprise to me as I dreaded some cheesy nonsense. It actually works quite well. The storyline is fine and the overall experience is watchable despite June Carlson (Carole) not having much to do and lawyer Eddie Parker (Cochrane) caving in rather too easily and spilling the beans so that we can proceed to the final shoot-out. But I didn't expect any more as the film has to quickly reach it's conclusion. Another mention to Jennifer Holt - she seems wasted considering how she lights up the film on her every appearance, and more emotional involvement with her would have greatly improved this offering.

A Belle Starr like outlaw named The Hawk has been committing all kinds of crime in the Powder River. In fact several of the first ten minutes of The Hawk Of Powder River are just a lot of crime sequences with a lot of riding and shooting culminating in the cold blooded murder of the editor of the town newspaper. The Hawk and the gang didn't like the editorial policy of the paper.

Jennifer Holt is the Hawk and she's one of the meanest women you'll find in films, but you'll find them in noir films far more than westerns. It was unusual for a film geared to the Saturday matinée kids to have a character like here. She operates with impunity using her uncle's ranch. He must have been one dim bulb not to see what was going on around him, but when he did discover it, two of her men dispose of him.

However the uncle's daughter June Carlson and Holt's cousin is arriving the next day is coming in on the stage from school back east. If she can just get her out of the way, Holt can really operate without hindrance.

But it's at this point that our hero Eddie Dean and sidekick Roscoe Ates take a hand and of course set things right.

This PRC film is an Eddie Dean western, but Jennifer Holt who had a brother named Tim who did a better series of B westerns at RKO really steals this one. She's one amoral woman who has as few redeeming qualities as Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Jennifer Holt lifts this B western far above the norm.

While I have seen a few hundred B-westerns, this was my first starring Eddie Dean. Overall, I'd have to say that he was quite competent...but nothing more. His singing was nice...some other singing cowboys sang nicer. He was decent on the horse and acting...many others seemed to have more charisma and natural talent.

In "The Hawk of Powder River" you've got a very anachronistic plot. A lady leads a gang of criminals and she's a hooded figure known as 'The Hawk'...but the film reveals she is Vivian and she lives with her nice Uncle. But, when the Uncle stumbles upon her hidden identity, he is murdered. The Hawk doesn't mind...as she'd like to inherit her Uncle's ranch. However, the Uncle had a daughter...and so it's up to her gang to kill the lady. But, as is typical in these sort of films, the hero and his dippy sidekick arrive and soon put things to right...very soon considering the film was only 55 minutes long. In fact, even for a B-movie that's kind of short and there really wasn't much suspense as it seemed obvious who the criminals were as well as their wicked intentions.

The film is fine for lovers of the genre but certainly didn't turn me into a Dean fan. Perhaps I'll try a couple more...and perhaps he'll grow on me.

I greatly enjoyed the Coen Brothers' 2018 Western anthology movie THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS. At the time, I thought that the singing cowboy star played by Tim Blake Nelson was the sort of nightmare that you get after watching a bunch of B Western movies while eating lobster and Welsh Rabbit. * Then I watched this movie and realized that Buster Scruggs is based on about a score of Producers Releasing Corporation singing westerns starring Eddie Dean from about 1945 through 1948. He's not a poor actor, and his singing is good, if you can get used to the seemingly random way his mouth moves while he rides singing on his horse. And Roscoe Ates as comic relief. The camerawork may be ok; the print/transfer I saw was dark, flat and low-contrast for the exterior scenes and fairly film noir for the interiors.

The story, as far as I could tell over the poor and random-sounding score, involved Jennifer Holt, a local girl who puts on a mask to become the Hawk, a mysterious road agent with several followers. She is trying to scare off June Carlson from her family ranch. Judging by the characters' last names, the two women are probably cousins. Eddie tries to help Miss Carlson.

The B western in general and the singing western in particular was in decline. PRC was also in terminal decline, having been replaced by Eagle-Lion and soon to vanish into United Artists. In fact, this appears to be the next-to-last PRC release, with the last the final in the Eddie Dean series. I can't imagine anyone put extra effort into it. At least, I hope not.

*Or perhaps eating a bunch of B westerns while watching a lobster and Welsh Rabbit. Since I have never tried either course of action, this is all supposition.

Eddie Dean made any movie worth listening to and his roles usually made them worth watching.

Jennifer Holt ALWAYS made a movie worth watching, and in "Hawk," she had an unusual role that proved she could and should have been a star. Superlative performance.

Roscoe Ates was an intrusion, but most of the rest of the cast varied from good to great.

In addition to Eddie Dean's songs, the score highlighting the action fit well; the photography was excellent; the stunts, in particular the fight scenes, were simply first-rate; and the entire film was well directed.

There is an good print at BnWMovies.com, a site I highly recommend.