The Burning Hills

Storyline

The Burning Hills, Both Barrels Blazing, The outlaw gangs are robbing the railroads and the Rangers cannot follow them when they move to New Mexico. So Kip decides to take a vacation to New Mexico and, as the Durango Kid, bring Cass and his gang back to justice. But Cass and his gang are killed at the bank in a double cross and Kip must still find the loot. For this, he enlists the help of Tex and Grubstake, although Grubstake does not know it.

“A man must fight for what is right.”

The Burning Hills, I wouldn’t have bet on Tab Hunter involved in one of the better Western movie brawls to come along, but surprisingly, he’s got two to his credit here in the latter part of the story. He goes hell bent for leather against Earl Holliman in a rousing battle in the barn at the Old Sampson place, and not long after has a decent tussle with Skip Homeier in which both fall off a cliff ledge into a river below. OK, I know it was their stunt doubles doing the heavy lifting, but they were the principals, so you have to give ’em credit for the close up work.

The Burning Hills, Not only that, but Trace Jordan (Hunter) was also clairvoyant in the picture as well. When the Sutton posse makes it’s way to Maria Colton’s (Natalie Wood) place, foreman Ben Hindeman (Claude Akins) sends one of his henchmen out to locate a tracker by the name of Lantz (Eduard Franz). Later in the story, Jordan makes reference to Lantz tracking him, but how would he have known that? He wasn’t at the Colton place to hear what the foreman said.

The Burning Hills, Ah well, not to worry about that too much. Hunter and Wood make for an engaging screen couple for the teen crowd, though I don’t know how many teenagers would have been Western fans in the fifties. I guess if you were a fan of the principals you might show up. Both stars looked good on screen, with Hunter doing a beefcake scene when Maria patched up his bullet wound. For her part, Wood showed some leg when Hunter’s character needed her petticoat to make camouflage boots for their horses. That’s something I hadn’t seen before; it sounded logical enough but not that practical. Tracker Lantz figured out the ruse, but how did he know it was a petticoat? An old, cut up blanket might have worked just as well.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid