Review of Wildfire

This is one of those westerns that definitely classifies as an oldie but goodie. Even thought it was originally released in 1945 it still holds a lot of entertainment value today. Like a lot of western films the plot to this one involves horse rustling. The unique way the story is presented; however, is that the men who are really behind the horse rustling attempt to explain away the missing horses by blaming it on a particular wild horse known as Wildfire.

Happy Haye (portrayed by Bob Steele) and Alkali (portrayed by Sterling Holloway) find themselves in trouble when the leader of the horse rustling gang, Fanning (portrayed by John Miljan) target them shortly after their arrival. Alkali is shot and then Happy catches up with the outlaws. Unfortunately, they are released not too soon after by the judge. It goes from bad to worse when the judge then discharges the sheriff and tries to pin the rustling on none other than Happy himself.

Realizing there is a real problem going on here, Happy and the sheriff team up together and try to prove that Wildfire isn’t to blame for the rustling and unveil the real rustlers while clearing their own names at the same time.

There are a couple of well knowns in this film including Sarah Padden who plays Aunt Agatha. Eddie Dean portrays the sheriff. As an interesting note this was the first release by Screen Guild Productions and for a first release and a B release at that it is really quite good.