Ghost Town Renegades

Al "Fuzzy" St. John had been an acrobatic funny-man since his debut in silent comedies. He remained funny through his days as a western bad guy to and through his sidekick days.

Even in some of those atrocities with Buster Crabbe, Fuzzy was funny.

In "Ghost Town Renegades," we realize again that he even moves funny: Be sure to watch him pick up his hat early in this film.

Al "Lash" LaRue, billed here simply as Lash LaRue, in my opinion deserved and deserves better than he usually gets from critics and reviewers.

Without being gimmicky or affected, he does act.

Most important, he is a good cowboy.

Jennifer Holt, of the famous acting family, was a real beauty, but she doesn't get to do much here, not much more than be beautiful, which she does very well.

A very capable cast of bad guys (including Wally West using another name) and a pretty good script and a good score make "Ghost Town Renegades" a darn good B western, well worth watching.

My copy is on a disk with "Border Feud," also with Lash and Fuzzy, from Treasure Box Collections. It is "digitally remastered" and looks and sounds good -- you can hear the saddles creaking! -- except for being too dark, apparently from being a couple generations too old.

Pretty good Cheyenne Kid (La Rue) oater. The opening hook is a grabber as two guys get dry-gulched by a long-range shooter. After that, their bodies disappear. Now the Kid and Fuzzy have to untangle a land grab scheme that takes them to a ghost town where odd things happen.

Along the way is the usual complement of hard riding and theatrical brawls. But watch how nimble Fuzzy is in these fights, surprising for an old coot except he's not as old as he looks (54). In fact, Fuzzy gets more screen time than La Rue, which appears true of many of the entries, and I'm not sure why since the guy in black is a decent enough actor and strong presence. Catch that first frilly shot of Diane (Holt) in the stagecoach—she's an absolute knockout. If I were the Kid, I'd drop the whip and grab her right away (but then that's me as an old guy, and not as a former Front Row kid).

Anyhow, looks to me like the "New PRC" is just as chintzy as the old PRC since the boys still have to ride around the scrubby hills of LA. The new outfit should have popped for something more scenic because they had a winner in La Rue with the kids I knew. Better production values would have really elevated the series above many of its competitors. Instead, I guess they took the fast-buck route. One way or the other, the Kid still cracks a mean whip.

A surveyor is at work in a ghost gold-mining town, when a couple of men ride up, and one shoots the surveyor. There's compliments all around (except from the corpse). Meanwhile, Lash Larue is called in by Marshal Albert Jennings to deal with a bunch of murders near the ghost town. Crack investigator Al 'Fuzzy' St. John is already on the site.

It seems odd to be considering Lash Larue B westerns, even from 'the New PRC', and trying to rate them against each other. Often they have a good plot behind them, as this one does, and some interesting actors, like Jennifer Holt, and a sharp print shows that cinematographer Ernest Miller is a talented man when it comes to lighting a set and shooting an outdoor scene than usually shows on video cassettes drawn from worn 16mm prints. This one looks quite nice. Clearly he knew the craft he practiced on more than 300 movies.

Then, however, you need to think about Larue's wooden acting, and the ridiculous foley work, and wonder why Miss Holt disappears from the production. It makes my head hurt. Well, at least a couple of St. John's comic bits are amusing.

This is my first time seeing a Lash LaRue film, and it won't be the last. Dressed in black, Lash has uncanny resemblance to Bogart, and his voice is similar too, however, he comes across unique, and has his own style. Boy, can he crack his whip with skill when taking on a bunch of bad guys out to steal a land teeming with gold. Plenty of fast galloping antics ensues, fist fights and action galore - Fuzzy Knight adds the comic support and the leading lady the beauty.

When gold is discovered in a ghost town, a crooked attorney, town clerk, and a couple of vicious gunmen team up to lure the unsuspecting landowners and kill them, securing their deeds by forgery.

Investigating the disappearances is undercover federal Marshall Davis, better known as the Cheyenne Kid and his sidekick Fuzzy Jones.

This is a entertaining entry in Producers Releasing Corporation's Cheyenne Kid series starring Lash LaRue, with some good action scenes and a craftier than usual villain.

Al St. John gives good support with ample comic relief, definitely the best sidekick in the business.

Co-star Jennifer Holt was one of the most beautiful women of the Saturday matinée westerns, her best role being as the title heavy in The Hawk Of Powder River.