classicsoncall Review of The Fargo Kid

The Fargo Kid (1940)

"You just leave it to me. I can spot a killer a mile away."

[6/10 · 7 April 2024]

This is one of the more illogical Westerns you can find coming out of the 1940's. For one thing, cowboy hero Tim Holt smiles virtually all the time, even when he finds himself in a tough fix, like when Micaville assayer Nick Kane (Cy Kendall) has him tied up trying to get the five thousand dollars back that he gave The Fargo Kid (Holt) to kill a local rancher. Which leads to another dubious situation when the real Deuce Mallory (Paul Fix) shows up, the outlaw that Fargo Kid was mistaken for when he rode into town on Mallory's horse after he won it in a high card draw that Mallory wasn't going to honor. Kane offered Mallory a thousand dollars to do the same job after admitting that he stupidly gave Fargo five grand! Mallory didn't bat an eye and demand the same amount, actually making him even dumber than Kane. The most dubious moment occurred when Kid shot Kane near the end of the movie, and shortly after, pulled out the roll of money he stuck in the barrel of his gun in order to hide it. If it hadn't blown out in a flurry of confetti when he shot Kane, it should at least have been all tattered when it came out of the gun. But you know, kids going to see these flicks at the matinee showing of their local theater wouldn't have given this nonsense a second thought, as long as they were going to see their favorite cowboy defeat the bad guys. For us grown-ups however, even the comic antics of Nick Kane sidekick Bush Cleveland (Ernie Adams), and the Fargo Kid's pal Whopper Hatch (Emmett Lynn) couldn't save this one. But as I often say in these reviews, I never ran across a Western I didn't like.