The Local Bad Man

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• 1932
• 0 hr 59 mins
• Drama, Action & Adventure

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The tone is set when Rawhide, New Mexico bankers, brothers Joe Murdock (Hooper Atchley) and Ben Murdock (Edward Hearn) talk the slow-witted Sheriff Hickory (Edward Peil) from withdrawing his money out of the bank and, after he left, one brothers remarks to the other that if the sheriff had insisted on his money, they'ed would have had to shoot him. Their bank is insolvent and they have to raise $20,000 before the bank examiner comes around or go to jail. And in that end of New Mexico territory nobody has $20,000 they can beg, borrow or steal. Ben, the younger brother, starts working out a scheme, If they could make someone else responsible for $20,000 , such as the railroad company in El Paso, Texas, and if the railroad happened to get held up by the masked Joe, the older brother, and a couple of henchmen, than they would have the $20,000 shortage they needed from the railroad. But Joe insists they have somebody to blame for the robbery. It appears that a local small rancher, Jim Bonner, and his two quirky cowhands, "Skeeter" Coles ("Skeeter Bill" Robbins and "Horsetail" Wright (Milton Brown), months before, shipped some cattle on the railroad and the cattle were killed in a train wreck and the railroad had never settled their claim, and Jim's persistent inquires about the claims had aroused the anger of the surly, bad-tempered station agent McKee (aLfe McKee) who ran Jim out of the station at the point of a gun.. Jim and his friends played a trick on McKee, who took a shot at Jim and was arrested by the sheriff. Jim agreed not to prosecute McKee if he left Rawhide. The Murdock brothers decide the robbery can be blamed on Jim since he and his friends are openly at war against the railroad. Jim and his pals come back to town a week later to teach the new agent a proper respect for cowboys. But they find a pretty girl, Marion Meade (Sally Blane), now running the station. Jim tries to make Friends with her by surly McKee had warned her against Jim and his pals. So his pals stampede some cattle down the street so Jim can save her from the stampede. The next night Jim and Marion are dancing at a square-dance where the Murdock brothers start a fracas and manage to get Jim blamed, thereby giving the sheriff another reason to suspect Jim in a train robbery. The sheriff also tells Marion that staged the cattle stampede. The next day Jim, now established as the local bad man, goes to the bank to cash a check, and when he arrives the Murdocks send for the sheriff and ask for his protection to the depot with the $20,000 they are sending to El Paso. The train is robbed and in a series of highly unlikely events, Jim ends up with the money. The sheriff arrests Jim because in the morning he knew the money was to be shipped, that afternoon he had a chance to rob the train and that night he had the money. But the Murdocks got their money back and were back to stage one, and need to stage another robbery. Ben figures out Jim can't be blamed if he is in jail, so they break him out of jail. That doesn't work out according to plan either.