Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Gordon Elliott became Wild Bill Elliott and was generally a good cowboy and generally his name meant an at least pretty good movie."The Man from Tumbleweeds" is barely a pretty good movie.It was populated by some great cowboy performers, and even Dub "Cannonball" Taylor wasn't over the top.But it was awfully slow.The story, the premise was a good one, but somehow, despite some very good scenes and some good dialogue, ultimately it was rather lame, even trite.Everything was fairly predictable, except there was not a final blood-bath as might be expected in a low-budget movie.If you're a Western fan, you do want to see it, and I hope you like it better than this review might lead you to. It's available in a somewhat out of focus print at YouTube.

With that phrase Wild Bill Elliott playing Wild Bill Saunders again states why he just can't settle down in any one place. Elliott's Saunders character is a Lone Ranger without a mask, going all over the west, righting whatever wrongs there are in a given area.In this case Elliott gets a commission from Governor Don Beddoe no less when he sells him on the idea of establishing a state ranger force. Local law enforcement is unable to deal with roving gangs of outlaws who jump from county to county. Elliott even sells Beddoe on the idea of paroling some hard cases from the state penitentiary to clean up a certain really bad gang who murdered freighter Edward LeSaint in front of his daughter Iris Meredith. Get this bunch and a pardon might be in the offing and these paroled convicts the nucleus for a permanent state rangers.One thing really kind of got me. Granted that this film is for the Saturday matinée crowd of kids. But are we really surprised when one of Elliott's parolees turns out to be a double agent when he's got a nickname of Shifty? These films are never known for subtlety.I'm sure the kids in gallery got their money's worth from The Man From Tumbleweeds.

There's lots of six-gun action and hard riding with more intrigue than usual for a matinée entry. Crime boss Kilgore is pillaging the state until Wild Bill arrives to head up a ranger force recruited from the state prison. Everybody's got a sneaky plan to nail the opposition. Add a tricky informant who goes back and forth between the sides, and you may need a scorecard.Elliot is really good at being tough and even downright mean when the occasion calls for it. In my book, he's one of the few matinée heroes who could also play a bad guy as well as a good. Here, however, he stays pretty nice, but is still convincing as the head ranger. Pretty girl Meredith gets more plot than usual for pretty girls and even gets to sling a gun at the bad guys.Of course, no one expects high drama from these matinée specials. Still, this one's notable for its cult director, Joseph H. Lewis, who was clearly perfecting his technique with crashing windows and complex plots. Too bad the action itself never gets out of the scrubby LA area, but Lewis makes good use of what he's got. Okay, this former Front Row kid still looks at these oaters with 12-year old eyes, so I'm probably not the best critic. But I still think it delivers the goods for old time fans.

Wild Bill Elliott, who got his moniker from playing Wild Bill Hickok in a popular serial, used the name Wild Bill Saunders in four films for Columbia. Wild Bill's trademark was wearing the two guns in his holster butt forward yet still drawing them in a traditional manner then swirling them around to put them back. Wild Bill was no phony. He was an expert horseman and had been since youth. Another trademark was calling himself a peaceable man yet using as much firepower as needed to knock down the bad guys.This time around, Wild Bill attempts to put together a group of state rangers to clean up a band of outlaws led by the notorious Powder Kilgore (Ray Bennett) who lets one of his henchmen called Lightning (Francis Walker, not a name that invokes fear and dread) do his dirty work so he can stay free of the law. The outlaws work from a hideout which serves as a meeting house to plot and make plans for robbery of wagon trains operated by 'Spunky' Cameron (Iris Meredith) who has the hots for Wild Bill. In a novel twist at the time, Wild Bill hits on a ploy to use real-life killers who are incarcerated in the state prison to organize the rangers, since the governor is short on funds and willing gunslingers. This idea would reach its fruition in the hit movie "The Dirty Dozen" years later. Needless to say not all the criminals who are promised full pardons for their work are to be trusted. Some wise advice: Never trust a criminal who is called Shifty Sheldon. Wild Bill ultimately succeeds but not before a lot of action-packed adventure takes place. "Brother Bill" has a colorful exist on his paint as he rides out of town headed for Texas and more rip-snorting action leaving Spunky to dream about what could have been.Cannonball (the redoubtable Dub Taylor) served as Wild Bill's comical sidekick in his Wild Bill Saunders films. He doesn't get to show his virtuosity on the xylophone this go around but has a few comic routines of note such as when he is "charred" by explosives when he throws them away from the jail house to save the day.This Wild Bill outings has one major weakness. Though the story is a clever one, the script falters from time to time. There are plot holes aplenty and much is predictable. The lines given Wild Bill and Cannonball are at times somewhat silly. Otherwise, this is a fine Wild Bill Sauders flick.