A Rotten Brother

The universe in which B-movie westerns exist is place where reality gets altered quite often. Sometimes, as in the case of the Three Mesquiteers films, the time frame in which the characters exist changes from one movie to the next. Sometimes, as in the case of the Tim Holt films, the protagonist might keep the same sidekick and the same horse from one movie to the next, but his name will inexplicably change.

Take Brothers in the Saddle (1949), for instance. In this one, Tim Holt plays Tim Taylor. But in the films made the previous year, he was alternately Ross Daggert, Bob Banning, Dave Taylor and Tim Holt. This is despite the fact that he had the exact same sidekick in every film (Irish Mexican Chito Rafferty--played by Richard Martin) and the same horse (a palomino named Lightning).

Why does Tim's name change every movie, while his sidekicks stay the same people? Why, O, Why?

Oh, well. Whatever Holt's name may be this time out, Brothers in the Saddle is a great movie. Tim and Chito are working on the ranch of Nancy Austin (Virginia Cox). Tim's brother Steve (Steve Brodie) also works on the ranch, but is also now engaged to Nancy.

This isn't necessarily a good thing for Nancy. Steve is a compulsive gambler and keeps dropping hundreds of dollars of Nancy's money in poker games. The guy can't win. Of course, it doesn't help that he keeps trying to win against crooked card sharps.

Steve ends up killing one of the card sharps. It is self-defense, but when the saloon girl who can clear him runs off to Mexico, Steve is sentenced to hang.

Tim sticks up for his brother, breaking him out of jail and then searching for the girl. He knows Steve has problems, but he believes Steve is innocent.

Steve, though, doesn't stay innocent. While Tim is looking for the witness that can clear him, he decides to rob a stage. Then he decides to kill a man. Soon, Steve is wanted by the law for additional crimes, Nancy has tumbled to the fact that he's a bad guy and pretty much everyone--including his own brother--now acknowledges he's a rotten apple.

Tim now has to bring in his own brother. How far will he go to do this? How far will Steve go to remain free?

Directed by B-movie vet Lesley Selander, Brothers in the Saddle looks great, making effective use of location photography while telling a strong story that has a few unexpected twists. Tim's final confrontation against his brother is particularly good.

But no one in the movie ever explains why Tim's name keeps changing. In the end, I guess we have to go with a "myths and legends" approach to his movies. That means each film is a different legendary story or tall tale about the same character. Tim's affable personality and strong moral sense, along with other consistent details such as sidekick and horse, create a mythic continuity from movie to movie, even if the details within each movie change. So it don't matter what Tim's name is. He's a mythic figure--a Western knight of the Round Table that gets talked about around campfires, with the tellers of these tales sometimes getting a few details wrong.

Yeah, that sounds good. Let's go with that.