Law of the Lash
It's telling that Law of the Lash's introduction makes special notice that its inclusion as part of a roundhouse of Poverty Row Westerns for Gold Ninja's supplemental marathon has less to do with its individual merits and moreso for completion's sake, as this is <PERSON> first film as a leading man painting the West with the refined, cool personality that would permeate through the rest of his starring days, so in that effect the film does succeed in introducing a new star for the common man to flock to. Otherwise, however, its competence can't outweight just how extremely lightweight it is, boiling down the usual "gang invades town" plotline to downright banal degrees (like the villain being identifiable through being....left-handed, yeah really pales compared to masked desperado) and lacks anything to really separate itself from the other films I've covered thus far (such as the subgenre inclusion of familiar melodrama of Between Man or the temporal lateness of The Trigger Trio), making for a film that, true, offers simple thrills like others I've positively reacted to (such as <PERSON>'s later King of the Bullwhip) but coasts exclusively in that regard, unpretentious and garden-variety with even the comedy stylings of <PERSON> barely registering as repetitious groans. I'm being generous with applying a rating here mostly because I have a hunch my tired feelings are moreso out of fatigue from a genre/era combo that, admittedly, offers an approach to filmmaking antithetical to the type of analysis I favor and also because this is film #5 in what amounts to same shit, different day (I'm also a little salty that we don't get nearly as much bullwhip in this one, like c'mon it's on the POSTER but it's only used for like the final piece of action), but given how sloppy the fistfight choreography is and how uninspired the chases/shootouts are filmed as well I think I'm more than accurate in criticizing this as misbegotten aftermath of the assembly-line approach. Mercifully, the last film in this brief PRW voyage offers some variance, but it's safe to say that this one is best for those who are "hardcore" for the genre or, perhaps most apt, those who have never seen a Poverty Row Western. 952