The Marshal's Daughter

"Man-oh-Man What a Woman!"

Jun 26 1953 Approved 1h 11m
Action, Adventure, Music

To fully appreciate the western comedy The Marshal's Daughter, one must be aware that its star, a zaftig, wide-eyed lass named Laurie Anders, was in 1953 a popular TV personality. A regular on The Ken Murray Show, Anders had risen to fame with the Southern-fried catchphrase "Ah love the wi-i-i-ide open spaces!" Striking while the iron was hot, the entrepreneurial Murray produced this inexpensive oater, which cast Anders as Laurie Dawson, the singing daughter of a U.S. marshal (Hoot Gibson). Teaming with her dad to capture outlaw Trigger Gans (Bob Duncan), Laurie briefly disguises herself as a masked bandit. Amidst much stock footage from earlier westerns and a plethora of lame jokes and dreadful puns, The Marshal's Daughter is a treat for trivia buffs, featuring such virile actors as Preston S. Foster, Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely and Buddy Baer as "themselves."

Plot

Produced by Ken Murray strictly as a vehicle for Laurie Anders, his curvy protégé from his television show and billed above the title and first billed in the cast as Laurie ("I-like-the-wide-open-spaces") Anders, which was her catch-line phrase and how she was introduced and known. This is neither a comedy, satire or parody---missing badly on all attempts at such---and isn't much of a western either, even by bottom-of-the-barrel B-standards. The plot by veteran B-western villain player Bob Duncan, who did manage to write himself the best role in the movie, relative to there being no good roles in this movie, has town banker Anderson, the secret head of an outlaw gang, trying to organize a Cattleman's Association and not getting any takers. He sends for Trigger Gans to act as a persuader. But a mysterious, masked rider known as El Coyote begins to resist. El Coyote is of course Laurie Dawson, daughter of retired Marshal and rancher Ben Dawson, and her El Coyote role ensured that whoever stunt-doubled her would wear pads where no stunt man ever wore them, with the possible later exception of Dean Smith doubling Maureen O'Hara in "McLintock." The heroines that Dave Sharpe doubled in Republic serials weren't built like Laurie Anders. Producer Ken Murray, as a riverboat gambler named Sliding Bill Murray, rolls into town on the same stage as Trigger Gans, and then promptly engages Preston Foster, Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely and Buddy Baer (in cameo roles) in a blackout-skit poker game written by himself, which had to have been even more painful for the participants than the viewers. Ralph Staub used to get better stuff than this in his "Screen Snapshots" just roaming around Columbia's backlot and interviewing Smiley Burnette and Ringeye.

Written by

Bob Duncan

Directed by

William Berke

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

Harris/Murray, United Artists

Languages

English

Awards

N/A

Scores
# of Votes
102
Average Rating
5.7 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA