BY JOHN M. WHALEN

There’s an old axiom often quoted by writers that once you find a winning formula for putting stories together, stick with it. That certainly must have been the case back in the 1940s when the films collected together by Kino Lorber for its “Western Classics I” three disc box set were made. “When the Daltons Rode” (1940), “The Virginian” (1946), and “Whispering Smith” (1948) are all different movies, made by different writers and directors, with different settings, characters and plots, but when all is said and done they all basically tell the same story. Two guys who are pals have their friendship strained when they both fall in love with the same woman. It’s obviously a formula that worked.

In “When the Dalton’s Rode,” Tod Jackson (Randolph Scott) is a lawyer who comes west to set up his practice in Oklahoma, but finds he’s needed more in Kansas where his old friends, the Daltons, live. The Dalton family is having the kind of trouble that homesteaders usually have in these flicks—land grabbers. Tod decides to stay in Kansas and help them out. He and Bob Dalton (Broderick Crawford), especially, were good friends in their younger days, and the romantic triangle in this movie arises from the fact that Bob is engaged now to Julie King (Kay Francis). But when Tod meets her, it’s love at first sight. Tod’s inner conflict between loyalty to Bob and his attraction to Julie is played out against the background story of the Dalton’s fight with the Kansas Land Development Company. Bob, Emmett (Frank Albertson,) Ben (Stuart Erwin), and Grat Dalton (Brian Donleavy) are a wild bunch, and probably responsible for all that grey hair in their Ma’s (Mary Gordon) head. So it’s no surprise when one of the men working for the Land Development Company is accidentally killed in a fight with the Dalton boys and Ben is charged with murder. When they bring him into court for a speedy trial, the movie which had been pretty tame up to now, goes into high gear.

The second half of the film’s 82-minute length is one action sequence after another executed by a team of veteran stuntmen including Eddie Parker and Bob Reeves. There’s a breakout from the courthouse, an attempted lynching, a rescue of Emmett Dalton by Tod on buckboard, and a sequence of the four Daltons stealing a stagecoach, pursued by a posse of about 20 men. The Daltons jump off the front of the coach, unharness the horses pulling the stage and lead the posse on a merry chase. This is followed by several more high action scenes, including the Daltons leaping off a mountainside onto a passing train and later jumping their horses off the moving train. Yakima Canutt shows up in archival footage jumping a horse off a cliff into a river.

Director George Marshall and screenwriter Harold Shumate used Emmett Dalton’s biographical novel as the basis for the film—a book that was considered a complete whitewash of the Daltons—to create what is basically an entertaining B-western that has as very little to do with the actual Dalton gang. Do Randy and Kay find happiness? What do you think?

The Blu-Ray disc bonus features include audio commentary by film historian Toby Roan and the theatrical trailer for the movie. Picture and sound are good. While it’s not a restoration, the black and white photography of Hal Mohr looks clean and textured.

In “The Virginian,” the title character (Joel McCrea), who apparently does not have a real name and Steve Andrews (Sonny Tufts) are best buds, working as cowhands on a cattle ranch in Medicine Bow, Wyo. They’re having a fine old time until Molly Wood (Barbara Britton) arrives by train. She’s the new school teacher and when she sees the Virginian herding some cows off the train tracks, she likes what she sees. But Steve wastes no time moving in and offers to take her luggage to the hotel. While Steve is lugging suitcases. Molly is startled by a Brahma bull, and the Virginian rides to her “rescue.” The two cowboys spend the rest of the movie trying to outmaneuver each other.

In “When the Daltons Rode,” the main complication was the battle between the Daltons and the Land Development Company. Here instead of land grabbing, the problem is cattle rustling. Cattle have been disappearing off the ranches around Medicine Bow and the Virginian suspects a man named Trampas (Brian Donleavy) is the one behind it all. Well, why wouldn’t he? He not only wears a black hat, he dresses in black from head to foot. The Virginian’s also a bit suspicious of his friend Steve who lately seems a bit too friendly with the man in black. The plot draws these lines of tension to a final confrontation when The Virginian must choose between friendship and adherence to the Code of the West and possibly losing Molly’s affections. The penalty for rustling is hanging.

This is the movie where Trampas calls the Virginian a name and the Virginian draws his gun and tells him “Smile when you call me that.” To which Trampas replies: “With a gun against my belly, I always smile.” Personally I thought it sounded better when Gary Cooper said it to Walter Huston in the 1929 version made by Victor Fleming, but McCrea and Donleavy aren’t bad. “The Virginian” has been filmed at least five times, going all the way back to a silent version in 1914 by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Dustin Farnum. Based on a classic western novel by Owen Wister, The Virginian was made into a TV series in the 1960s, which is still running today on cable.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray of “The Virginian” is very good in terms of picture and sound, with colors bright and details sharp and clear. An audio commentary by author/film historian Lee Gambin and actress/film historian Rutanya Alda is provided on a separate soundtrack. The theatrical trailer is also provided.