Slim Braddock, a mine owner who was cheated out of his mine by Williams, a shady businessman, becomes a bandit, robbing any stagecoach that carries Williams' ill-gotten profits. Williams sends a posse out to kill him. Slim is fatally wounded but manages to save his son Tim from the posse. Years later, Tim takes up his father's fight & tries to save a family from ruin by protecting their mine from Williams' plans to demolish it.To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of Westerns. Aside from a few notable exceptions – the Sergio Leone spaghetti Western trilogy & the likes of Rio Bravo and anything Clint Eastwood makes – the genre has been highly limited in what kind of story it could tell about life on the Wild West. And the stories that it did manage to tell were highly simplistic & followed an unfairly rigid pattern of clichés.Bulldog Courage is a minor effort from the early days of the "talkie" – the 1930s to be exact. The story is nothing more than a simple Robin Hood-style tale that is heavily clichéd & almost completely one-dimensional. That said, there are some minor high points in the production – everyone gives a passable performance, particularly Tim McCoy, who excels in the dual roles he is given & Paul Fix is hilariously daft as the jittery demolitions expert hired by the villain to blow up the mine. The biggest bugbear I had with this flick was the el cheapo DVD's poor quality – the film ends abruptly with a shootout that is unresolved (probably due to poor quality of the original master copy).

Western miner Tim McCoy (as Slim Braddock) is cheated out of his claim by Karl Hackett (as Williams), but he can't prove anything. So, he becomes "The Phantom" bandit, and robs stages carrying Hackett booty. During a confrontation, Mr. McCoy is wounded; he dies in the care of son Eddie Buzard (as young Tim Braddock). Mr. Buzard quickly grows into McCoy (as old Tim Braddock), which is the main Braddock role. After pretty Joan Woodbury (as Helen Brennan) is introduced, the characters' ages are difficult to discern.McCoy is an odd "Phantom"; he makes no effort to hide his identity, and is plainly visible as "Slim Braddock". He also terrorizes citizens with kindness, and makes minor repairs on the coaches he robs. The most entertaining part of "Bulldog Courage" occurs when Paul Fix (as Bailey) arrives to blow-up a mine; he really uses his "noodle." After Mr. Fix is detained, McCoy does a wild impersonation of "Bailey"; with his obvious ability to memorize dialogue, and capture a character, "Braddock" should have been an actor instead of a minor.

Tim McCoy's first film was "The Covered Wagon" where he was employed as an Indian technical director and also did some trick riding.In 1935 McCoy made 10 Westerns for Puritan Pictures, in which he tried to expand his acting abilities.Even though he was in his 40s when "Bulldog Courage" was made he was definitely believable in the dual roles he played - that of father and son. Tim McCoy plays Slim Braddock, a mine owner turned stage coach robber. His mine has been taken by the sheriff and as he says in a note "as long as the mine is paying - I'll keep collecting". He is known as "The Phantom" and after he is killed his son, Tim (also played by Tim McCoy) comes back to try to bring his father's killers to justice. His father's old friend is being forced to sell his mine. He is trying to stand firm but his mine is being sabotaged. Joan Woodbury is the old friend's fiery daughter.Paul Fix, makes an early film appearance as a dynamite salesman. There is a scene where Tim McCoy impersonates the explosives expert in a very insightful way - he becomes very animated and has his personality down pat.Yes, there are mine explosions before the rather abrupt ending. For 60 minutes, it is a pretty good western.

This is a solid B-Western that's mostly carried by the plot, with some interest added by the dual role of Tim McCoy, as a father and son. The story has mostly familiar elements, but it moves at a steady pace, and the production gets decent usage out of generally inexpensive settings and other resources.McCoy's first character is one of many men who have been swindled by the villain, a dishonest banker who is not above using illegal means, including violence, to seize valuable properties. The fraud victim is succeeded by his son, who carries on the battle against the banker and his cronies. Much of it is predictable, but there are some interesting developments and a couple of good sequences. The best scenes are toward the beginning. The first holdup sequence features some entertaining touches, and the subsequent chase also adds a couple of interesting details.The father character, who is only in the first few scenes, is actually the more interesting of the two. McCoy also gives him quite a bit more personality and depth than he gives the son, who is the main character the rest of the way. Joan Woodbury is nice to look at as the daughter of his father's old associate, but her limited role doesn't give her very much to work with. The supporting cast features a few good moments from Paul Fix, as one of the banker's shady contacts.There are some obvious ways that it could have been better. The son character is one-dimensional and is not really that interesting, at least when compared with his father. The editing is also rather ragged throughout the movie, which occasionally becomes a distraction. But the pluses are easily enough to make it entertaining and to be worth watching for the hour or so that it runs.