Seven Ways from Sundown

Ten years after the Civil War has ended, the Governor of Texas asks Leander McNelly to form a company of Rangers to help uphold the law along the Mexican border. With a few veterans of the war, most of the recruits are young men who have little or no experience with guns or policing crime.

A man searching for a stolen army payroll is joined by several men after the reward money.

Having fled to Mexico from the U.S. many years ago for killing his father's murderer, Martin Brady travels to Texas to broker an arms deal for his Mexican boss, strongman Governor Cipriano Castro. Brady breaks a leg and while recuperating in Texas the gun shipment is stolen. Complicating matters further the wife of local army major Colton has designs on him, and the local Texas Ranger captain makes him a generous offer to come back to the states and join his outfit. After killing a man in self-defense, Brady slips back over the border and confronts Castro who is not only unhappy that Brady has lost his gun shipment but is about to join forces with Colton to battle the local raiding Apache Indians.

This film was produced and released in 1944 by Film Enterprises for the 16mm school-and-institutional market, and was picked up and released in 1948 by Astor for theatrical 35mm showings. Both versions finds the citizens of Rockford upset over a series of murders and robberies. The Sundowners, Andy Clyde (Andy Clyde), Jay Kirby (Jay Kirby) and Russ Wade (Russell Wade), ride into Rockford and innocently takes jobs with Tug Wilson (Jack Ingram) and his tough crew of line riders, who are in cahoots with Yeager (Hal Price) in a big land swindle scheme.

Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.