SANTAFE TRAILSERIES

   In the 1940s Warner Brothers released a series of eight two-reel, 20-minute shorts starring Robert Shayne. These films are sometimes referred to as Warner Brothers featurettes. Several were remakes of well-known feature films using stock footage from the original films. For example, Oklahoma Outlaws (1943) played off The Oklahoma Kid (1939) with Shayne playing the role James Cagney had played in the original film. Frontier Days (1945), a Technicolor short, used stock footage from Dodge City (1939) and had Shayne in the role Errol Flynn played in the original. The Santa Fe Trail series exemplifies probably the lowest point in B Westernhistory. These were not just low-budget Westerns; they were cheap rip-offs of top-notch films.