In the 56th (and next-to-last serial) made by Columbia Pictures, Montana Deputy Dan Lawson, posing as an outlaw called Laramie, goes to the Canadian northwest on the trail of Bart Randall who is wanted for murder and bank robbery in the states. In Canada, Randall is a little more upscale and uses a hydra-plane and a fake totem to over-awe the Indians. Laramie is aided in his search by RCMP Sergeant Gray and by Donna Blane, who is suspected at first of giving information to Randall, but who is actually a Canadian secret agent investigating Randall's gun-trading with the Indians.
Tennessee, 1838. Polly Crockett, the daughter of the legendary hero Davy Crockett of Alamo, and makes a living from hunting in the forests. These forests are still inhabited by the Indians. Most of them live in peace but some of them are negatively affected by white traders. One day Polly, who is accompanied by her faithful Indian friend Neshoba, goes to the town to sell her hides. Polly meets Catawampus Jones. Jones and his father fought in the Alamo too. Indians influenced by Prewitt, an employee of a hide company, and Redbud, are killing settlers and burning down their homes. Polly's house is destroyed too and her maid Birdie, Neshoba's mother, is killed.
Nobody has an easy time of it in the costume actioner Shark River. Wanted for murder, Clay Webley (Warren Stevens) and his wounded cellmate Curtis Parker (Robert Cunningham) hack their way through the Florida swampland. With the help of Clay's brother Dan (Steve Cochran), Clay is able to elude the authorities, but Parker dies of a snakebite. Subsisting on alligator meat, Dan and Clay make their way to the tiny cabin inhabited by widowed Jane Daughterty (Carole Mathews), her mother-in-law, and her son Johnny (Spencer Fox). The brothers rest here awhile, formulating plans to cross the Gulf of Mexico and head for Cuba.
Bill Elliot emulates his idol William S. Hart in the superior western Topeka. Elliot plays the archetypal Good Bad Man, hired to kick the crooked element out of a small town. A hard-drinking, hard-living man, Elliot entertains thoughts of taking over the town himself for the benefit of his own gang. After several reels of soul-searching, Elliot decides to honor his promise to clean up the town for its decent citizens. Evidently director Thomas Carr rented a camera crane for this Allied Artists production, since the camera performs remarkable calisthenics, the kind not normally seen in a medium-budget western.
Wild Bill Elliot plays gambler Frank Graham, who heads to Kansas in search of his father's murderer. This being 1864, the local military presence is more preoccupied with keeping Southern sympathizers out of the state to worry about Graham's problems. Thus, our hero undertakes the task of exposing the killer himself.
In the late 19th Century, Mary Breydon, a widow, and Peggy Breydon, her daughter manage a stagecoach stop on The Cherokee Trail. The story is told from the perspective of Peggy, looking back on her adventures.
The Johnny Mack Brown West of Wyoming concerns the efforts by cattle baron Simon (Stanley Andrews) to prevent the opening up of the rang to homesteaders. Government agent Brown comes calling when Simon begins resorting to cold-blooded murder. The leading lady is Gail Davis, a few years shy of her Annie Oakley TV stardom. Surprisingly, West of Wyoming contains none of the comedy relief that had characterized earlier Johnny Mack Brown oaters.
Posing as wanted men, Chris and Waldorf get hired by Sanderson. He sends them to kill the Sheriff but puts blanks in their guns. When they arrive someone else shoots the Sheriff and Chris is blamed and jailed. The Sheriff's brother then incites the mob to hang Chris.
Brown's principal antagonist this time is the town boss, an outlaw who has killed the community's leading citizen. The dead man's grown children want to investigate the killing, but the outlaw puts a stop to this by hiring a dance-hall dame to pose as the kids' long-lost mother. Johnny isn't fooled by this subterfuge nor is his sidekick.
In a rigged gunfight Tom Blake is forced to shoot a man in self defense and is then hunted for murder. After a long trip fleeing the posse he uses a false name and joins the Pony Express which is just about to commence operatons. Relegated to the most dangerous section of the route, he finds himself fighting the District Manager's scheme to sabotage the inital run. But just then a wanted poster with his picture on it arrives.