Emboscada en las colinas

A gunman (Johnny Mack Brown) is hired by stageline owner Chet Norman to stop a series of stagecoach holdups that always take place when the driver, Pete, sees a mystery rider and hears the weird notes of a silver whistle.

Whistling Hills is a slightly off the beaten trail b-matinee western that stars the ever reliable Johnny Mack Brown, who has the task of trying to stop a series of Stagecoach robberies - the mystery rider in black and whistling sound punctuate the mystery angle. There's plenty of well-staged action sequences, nice rugged scenery, and a neat twist that was unexpected. It was a little tragic as that person had the wrong end of the stick, which had lead the person down the wrong path.

A series of stagecoach holdups have all been marked by a mysterious figure clad in black gives a whistle signal at a certain spot. Johnny Mack Brown arrives in the town to recover his stolen horse, but is asked by stage operator Chet Norman to do what he can to help stop the outlaws. This irks Sheriff Dave Holland who becomes peeved that Johnny is asked to do his job as well as get the attention of Beth Fairchild, who is Dave's sweetheart, as well as Norman's niece. Chief suspect of the black robed figure is banker Claine, who is organizing the outlaws to get the gold shipments that are arriving, while one of his henchmen, Slade, is secretly plotting to get rid of Claine after they made their big strike. Johnny and Dave need to settle their differences to get stop the outlaws and find the identity of the mystery rider. One would think towards the end of Johnny's career his films would be getting weaker and weaker, but this film proves it is farther than the truth, basically helped by a well written script with good action and excellent plot twists. Despite not seeing eye to eye during the film, Brown & Ellison make for a good team and make me want to check out their other team ups. Worth a good look. Rating, based on B westerns, 9.

There have been two previously posted reviews on IMDb of "Whistling Hills," both thoughtful and right on. But as reviewer Mike-764 asserted, the film is strong, thanks to an imaginative story and well performed script. The film stands proudly beside JMB's earlier films during his heroic and valiant days in the mid 1930's. There is just something always so pleasant in watching JMB go through his paces, seeming nearly implausibly effective for such a nice and affable guy. JMB ws 46 years old in this one, and even though he looked a little jowly and well-fed, he also looked strong and ready for action. His fight scenes were energetic and well choreographed.

I. Stanford Jolley does a smooth job of putting across his character. By contrast, Noel Neill is the least effective; I have never felt that she was comfortable in her performances anywhere, never really natural.

In this film director Derwin Abrahams creates a gorgeous black and white movie and frames each scene with depth and balance of background, whether indoors, on the street, or out in the countryside.

The western town in this one is magnificent in its variety of structure types, too. The narrative related by the reviewer "honker" about the Iverson Ranch is not only charming and valuable, it is also beautifully written. I hope that here in 2023 he is still enjoying these old films, as there are so many now available, many more than in 2002.

Incidentally, I like Mike-764's announced way of rating B-westerns, the implication being that the ratings adhere to a different standard than other A-level features in Hollywood. Unfortunately I have not followed such a two-approach system, and it is too late to change horses in the stream now (even though I must admit I am prone to giving the B's a little more slack when coming up with their rating.

So for "Whistling Hills" I will assign a 7 of 10 rating, but if assigning a rating for B-westerns only I would join Mike in voting for a 9 of 10. For what was going on in B-westerns in and around 1951 with Rex Allen, Monte Hale, Sunset Carson, Wild Bill Elliott, Alan Lane, and others, this was a good picture.

It was 1951, I was all of eight-years-old when I stepped out of our 1946 Packard Clipper with my little brother, Bobby, at my side--both of us dressed in our spiffy cowboy outfits. It never occurred to me that I was putting my young boot-covered feet on what would become hallowed ground for us B-Western fans--the dust and tumbleweed covered soil of the Iverson Ranch.

My aunt worked in the Publicity Department for Monogram Pictures and had arranged for us to visit a shooting set. "It's somewhere out near Chatsworth," she said. "Way, way out there, past the boondocks." We drove through a San Fernando Valley never to be seen again--down Ventura Boulevard, with its quaint, small villages, broken up by peaceful countryside, where mighty skyscrapers stand today. Then up Topanga Canyon Boulevard, not much of a parkway back then, just a two-lane country road lined with pastures and grazing livestock, chiseled into the foothills at the west end of the basin--at present, an unstoppable city of concrete. The directions my aunt had given us were rather vague. All she had said was that we were to turn off on the first dirt road we came to after Topanga Canyon Boulevard turned into The Santa Susana Pass. It was our very first time on that steep and narrow, winding route--though it would not be our last--and after a few worrisome moments, we were there. No sign; no nothing. Just a deserted, sandy path, it seemed--stitched, almost evenly on both sides, with sparse, wind-whipped weeds and rusted barbed-wire.

Once inside the ranch proper, and without any further directions from my aunt, we had absolutely no idea where we were supposed to go. We felt quite lucky to see an old pickup with a man working beside it. After telling him we were looking for the movie set, he asked, "Which one?" It seems that there were more than just a single movie company shooting on Iverson land that morning. We were more specific, and within minutes we were traversing an area covered with unique and colorful rock formations--Iverson's Garden of the Gods. We wound around a few more blind curves, perfect settings for stagecoach holdups or a good ambush, and finally saw a configuration of vehicles parked behind some old, wooden buildings. This, as it turned out, was the Lower Iverson Western Street. And it was there that my brother and I disembarked on one of the most memorable days in our young lives.

A whistle blew from somewhere. A loud voice yelled, "Quiet!." That stopped us dead in our tracks. It stopped others, too. My Mom was just getting out of the car when a man, one of a few who were close by, shushed her with a finger to his lips. "We're shooting sound," he whispered. "Everyone's got to be reeeel quiet." So we waited--and waited. We could hear nothing. Another loud voice yelled, "Cut! That's a keeper." People began to move again. I grinned to my brother. We were actually on an honest to goodness B-Western movie set.