Last night we saw Buster Crabbe in a film similar to those in the Billy the Kid series but not part of the franchise, called "Thundering Gun Slingers "(1944). As the movie opens, a rancher accused of rustling is being strung up at the old hanging tree by an unknown gang. This happens at night so we can't see their faces, except that of Charles King. Local gal "Bobbie Halliday" (Frances Gladwin), out for a night ride, sees it happen but can't identify anyone. "Dave Carson" (George Chesebro), the man who was hung, was the uncle of "Billy Carson" (Crabbe), who lives the next town over. Billy - like Billy the Kid - is the fastest gun in the region. "You're playin' with dynamite" a henchman tells King. "Good. That's just what I wanted" he responds. King wants to lure Billy to town, so he can do a revenge frame-up. You see, the guy King really wants to get rid of is Bobbie Halliday's Dad "Jeff" (Karl Hackett), who owns a prime piece of ranchland. King plans to set it up to make it look like Halliday killed Dave Carson over a rustling dispute, and that he's the leader of the nighttime gang. That way, when Billy Carson comes to town, he'll seek out Jeff Halliday and kill him as payback for his uncle's murder. Then in turn, Billy will be arrested and the frame-up will be complete.
But what happens is that Al St. John enters the picture. He usually plays sidekick "Fuzzy" in all the Billy the Kid flicks. This time, he's "Doc Jones", a horse doctor who "sometimes works on humans". And he's not too bad when it comes to sewing up shoulder-shots. When Billy Carson doesn't respond as fast as expected, Charles King tries to take out Halliday through his henchman "Slade" (Kermit Maynard). This is the first time we've seen Kermit in a major role, and he's great as a bad guy. He shoots Halliday in the shoulder, which leads Halliday to Doc Jones. Doc thus becomes a sounding board for all the range war gossip in town, and by the time Billy Carson rides in, and predictably shows up at Halliday's ranch and accuses him of leading the gang that killed his uncle, Doc Jones sets him straight, as does Bobbie. They both testify that Halliday could not have been the gang leader, and that - hey! - he's been shot.
Kermit Maynard then shows up for treatment at Doc's office. Halliday shot back when Kermit tried to kill him, and Kermit was grazed on the arm. He tries to pass it off as an accidental self-inflicted wound ("I was cleaning my gun") but Doc puts two and two together and tells Billy that Kermit shot Halliday. Billy then waits for Kermit in the saloon. Charles King is in there, glad handing everyone of influence, the Sheriff and all the ranchers. In truth, he's gonna steal the properties out from every one of them, but right now, all he wants is to frame Billy Carson to get him out of the way. So far, it isn't going too well, and when Billy finds out about Kermit Maynard trying to kill Halliday, so that King can blame it on him, Billy shoots Kermit dead. This movie has some brutal scenes in that regard, cold blooded without the usual humorous touches. After King tries cashing a forged check in Dave Carson's name, Billy figures out that King has been leading the hanging gang all along, which he would've known earlier if he'd watched enough 60 minute Westerns. This leads to a grand finale punchout between Billy and Charles King, in which the joint is trashed and King winds up in Sheriff Budd Buster's jail where he belongs. This is another barrel-scraping budgeter from PRC, lacking the pizzaz of their Billy the Kid releases, but any time you have Buster Crabbe, Al St. John and Charles King all sharing equal screen time, you've got a winner, especially when the picture is razor sharp as it is here. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Thundering Gun Slingers". It's highly recommended! ////
The previous night, we discovered a new cowboy trio: The Three Mesquiteers, starring in "Ghost Town Gold"(1936). The Mesquiteers (pronounced Mess -Ka- TEERS or muh-SKEETERS, depending on who's doing the talking) are "Stony Brooke" (Robert Livingston), "Tuscon Smith" (Ray Corrigan), and "Lullaby Joslin" (Max Terhune). In town, Stony and Tuscon ask Lullaby to deposit a check for 4300 bucks they've earned on their latest cowpunch. "Go straight to the bank, no card playing"! they tell him, knowing his penchant for a tricky deck. Lullaby is a magician with more than one ace up his sleeve, and instead of going to the bank, he heads for the town carnival, where he wins a ventriloquist's doll off a barker in a rigged game. Lullaby knows all the tricks, and walks away with the doll, but he's such a goof that he completely forgets to deposit the paycheck, and has to wait until the bank opens the next morning.
By the time it does, a scheme has been put in motion by saloon owner "Dirk Barrington" (Leroy Mason) to rob the bank of it's gold backup, and thus defraud the depositors. Barrington wants to overthrow the banker and take over the town. Sweet "Sabina Thornton" (Kay Hughes), daughter of the Mayor (Burr Caruth), works at the bank as a teller. She confides in Lullaby that because of the gold robbery, the bank is now broke. They need The Mesquiteers to hold off the customers long enough to get their money back. Lullaby informs Stony and Tuscon, both of whom oblige to help. At this time, there is to be a boxing match for the heavyweight champeenship of the West, between the local champ and a self described "wild man" behemoth from Eastern Europe. Seeing this barbarian, the champ chickens out, and Stony asks Tuscon, who has a boxer's physique, if he will fight the wild man in the champ's place. "It'll make enough money to right the bank". The Mesquiteers are true altruists; there's nothing in it for themselves. At first, Tuscon doesn't wanna do it, because the wild man is huge (pronounced yooge), and Tuscon, though in good shape, is not a fighter. But Stony tricks him into singing a contract, and the next thing you know, you've got a boxing scene that takes up one fifth of the movie (ten minutes). Huge sums are bet on this match, as all the hoodlums in town are sure that the wild man will knock Tuscon out of the ring in the first round. But as the match drags on, Dirk Barrington gets nervous, and has his henchmen ride down to an out of town mine, in a ghost town, where they've laundered their stolen bank gold by purchasing the ghost town from its old geezer owner.
Barrington tells his henchmen to kill the old guy, take the stolen gold back and hide it, so that nothing can be proven, then get back to town while he figures out what to do about The Mesquiteers. We've never seen Robert Livingston before, but he has just the right look and personality to lead a trio of good guys. Ray Corrigan is of course the cowboy star who went on to found the Corriganville movie ranch on land that is now a park, and one of my favorite places as you probably know. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Ghost Town Gold" filmed entirely at Chatsworth Park. The picture is very good, and we'll be looking for more from The Three Mesquiteers. ////
That's all for tonight. I'm listening to Tristan und Isolde by Wagner, still on a von Karajan kick, and I'm also listening to Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath. Though he'd probably have been more successful with it if he hadn't called it Black Sabbath (because by then he was the only original member left in the group), Tony Iommi wrote and produced some pretty impressive music during the period when Tony Martin was the singer. I'd never heard any of it until last week; it was Mick Wall's Black Sabbath book that got me interested. At any rate, give those albums a shot if you like heavy rock, especially "Tyr", "Headless Cross" and "Cross Purposes". Lastly, speaking of Sabbath, keep Ozzy in mind tomorrow (Monday June 13) as he will be undergoing what Sharon described as "major surgery that will determine the rest of his life". God Bless Ozzy Osbourne.
I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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