Crossroads of Laredo

Crossroads of Laredo (1995)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Wood's first film, running just 20-minutes, has him playing a young cowboy who loses his best girl to the bad guy who eventually marries her. A year later the woman has turned into a slave so the good cowboy tries to get her back. Wood originally directed this film in the late 40's or early 50's but no one bought it and for decades it was considered lost until the original producer found a print and then restored it. The audio track is still missing so a narrator pretty much tells us what's going on but this is the biggest problem. The narration is very annoying and I think it would have been better had they just released the film silent. As to be expected, the film is pretty poor from start to finish with wooden acting, bad directing and some horrible camera-work, which looks worse than some of the films I've seen from the 1890's. There are some usual Wood moments including a woman carrying her baby, which is clearly just a bunch of rags and another scene involving a funeral where it's obvious the coffin is just a paper box. Wood's ex and future Elvis songwriter, Dolorus Fuller, does the music score and wrote two songs, which would be performed by Elvis, Jr.