Wild Country

The country in this low-budget Eddie Dean Western from PRC isn't so much wild as it is familiar. Dean is assigned to bring in escaped convict Rif Caxton (I. Stanford Jolley), whose trademark is a polka dot hatband. The bandit is holed up in Silver Springs, where he frames Sheriff Bill Devery (Steve Clark) in a stage robbery and murder -- basically to teach the aged lawman a lesson -- and then shoots him down in cold blood. Eddie, meanwhile, passes off sidekick Soapy Jones (Roscoe Ates) as Caxton -- with the expected results. The real Caxton aligns himself with a nasty gambling establishment owner (Douglas Fowley) and his lackey, the new sheriff (Lee Robert). None of these gentlemen, however, is any match for Eddie, who can count to six and knows when the opposition's gun is empty. In between making Silver Springs a safer place for heroine Martha Devery (Peggy Wynne), Dean performs his own and Hal Blair's "Wild Country" as well as Peter Gates' "Saddle With a Golden Horn" and "Ain't No Gal Got a Brand on Me," the latter with the Sunshine Boys.