Slightly more elaborate than most Charles Starrett westerns, Down Rio Grande Way is set in the mid-19th century, when the Republic of Texas was poised to join the Union. Starrett plays Texas Ranger Steve Martin, who is dispatched to a "renegade" Texas country that refuses to become part of the good old USA. He discovers that the crux of the problem is a local tax collector who, with the help of a crooked newspaper editor, is systematically robbing the citizens of their hard-earned cash, all the while fomenting anti-American sentiments.

Briefly switching gears in 1942 and 1943, western star Charles Starrett made a handful of "northerns" in which he played a Canadian mountie. In Law of the Northwest, Steve King (Starrett) supervises a road-construction project designed to transport war materials to the Aleutians. Problems arise when a crooked contractor decides that his interests are more important than the war effort.

When Stephen, the husband of Gerald’s mistress, Claire, discovers a pair of tickets for their planned trip to Venice, Gerald must invent a wife to cover their tracks. He is then forced to hire a woman to play “his wife” when Stephen insists he and Claire accompany them to Venice.

The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.