Pack Train (1953)

Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Gail Davis, Kenne Duncan, Sheila Ryan ... see more  , Tom London , Harry Lauter , Melinda Plowman , B.G. Norman , Richard Alexander , Champion , Frank Ellis , Herman Hack , Wesley Hudman , Louise Lorimer , Frankie Marvin , Kermit Maynard , Tex Terry , Frank O'Connor

Gene Autry's summer release for 1953 was the 56-minute Pack Train. In this one, Autry is assigned to safely transport supplies to a band of settlers. The villains, headed by Ross McLain (Kenne Duncan)... read more , intend to bushwhack Autry, grab the supplies, and sell them at high prices to a local mining camp. It must needs be that Autry and the bad guy duke it out in the final reel; the climactic fight, which takes place on a speeding train, is the best scene in the film. McLain's partner in crime is played by Sheila Ryan, the real-life wife of Gene Autry's perennial sidekick Pat Buttram (who also appears in the film). The heroine in Pack Train is Autry-contractee Gail Davis, who later in 1953 began filming on her own TV series, Annie Oakley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi