His Brother's Ghost

In His Brother's Ghost, Al St. John takes center stage as both Fuzzy Jones and his twin brother Andy, a rancher besieged by villains trying to take over his spread.

Mortally wounded, he sends for Fuzzy, who then teams up with Billy Carson to battle the bad guys by dressing as his now dead brother and playing ghost to frighten the superstitious baddies into spilling the beans on their mystery employer.

Another typical entry in Producers Releasing Corporation's Billy Carson series, this has some okay action and St. John is great, really getting to show off his acting skills in the scenes where Andy lays dying.

Another great scene has Fuzzy staring through a window and getting a rise from a dim-witted gunman, disappearing into the darkness before the frightened man's companions can notice.

However, His Brother's Ghost hits a low point (for the film and the series) when Fuzzy hides behind a skinny wooden post and pokes out his head and shoulders a' la Looney Tunes. That was just too silly, even for a Saturday morning matinée western!

Only an incredibly stupid piece of script that allows Buster Crabbe to walk into an outlaw trap, though he does break away prevents this from being one of the best of PRC series. His Brother's Ghost has Al St. John playing Fuzzy Q. Jones and his brother Andy. Andy dies though he takes his time doing it, expiring from a gunshot wound. But not before he sets up a plan to trap the outlaws. I haven't seen this long running a death since the serial Tim Tyler's Luck where Al Shean takes two chapters to take the big trip.

Andy Jones maybe with the angels, but nobody's quite sure of that as Fuzzy starts being seen around and scaring the pants off the members of a gang trying to drive homesteaders out of the valley. Veteran western villain Charles King heads the gang which has some local so called respectable community members as part of their plot. Of course Buster Crabbe takes care of them all in the end with his usual alacrity and dispatch.

If you're a fan of Al St. John's slap saddle humor than this is the film for you.

With more characterization, and more of the minor characters getting more dialogue, director Sam Newfield brings George Milton's script to very active life.

According to IMDb, despite the different names as writers, they all were actually George Milton. And he deserves the credit.

Al "Fuzzy" St. John out-does himself this time, yes, still being his acrobatically funny self, but being an introspective self, too.

Bad guy Charles King out-does himself, too, and his look of glee at some particularly dastardly deed shows just what a good actor he really was.

Buster Crabbe doesn't stretch himself, but he looks good and, of course, handles his action well.

Behind them are some of the best Western players Hollywood ever had, and PRC once again rises well above its reputation.

I highly recommend "His Brother's Ghost" and there's a good print at YouTube.

I really like this fairly short little movie. There's always something interesting about old comic "haunted" Westerns (even more-so when it isn't a "real" haunting). Al St. John effortlessly steals the show from Buster Crabbe and the absurdity of supposed twins (living away from each other) having identical beards doesn't really spoil it either.

I also really like the titles and credits; the hand turning the pages (as in "Cat Ballou") of a big, interesting book, and that quick fumble of the title page. (I guess they could only do one take, heh, but it looks like they still practiced for a while.)

The plot basically involves Al St. John in two roles, playing both Andy Jones and his twin brother who comes in to take over after Andy is shot, who plays the vengeful ghost angle rather amusingly against Thorn and his men, who are killing the sharecroppers. Fully enjoyable, even though much of the spoken line continuity makes little sense. For example, the brother having to be told that he is to play Andy's ghost after he already scares off two of Thorn's men by merely walking into the room and saying "boo", and an odd line about convincing them that Andy is "still alive" (contrary to the ghost angle) and the idea of the somewhat bumbling Andy having more ability to organize than many men working together (which is actually why Andy called Billy in in the first place).

Some chair and wardrobe busting up during a fight in the final third. It wouldn't be Western without that.

The music is pretty good as well and fits just right, and there's a better than average (and highly amusing) feel-good ending.

Funny lines (what it SOUNDS like to me, anyway):

Doc (seeming to partially forget his lines): "We didn't expect - all these...mer-ders...Thorn."

Thorn: "Well what DID you expect? You hired me to get rid of the sharecroppers and I'm doing it."

Doc: "Aw, I goes it's all-what (all-right?)..."

There's one part near the end that almost made me fall out of my chair laughing; somehow a couple people "see" that it isn't really Andy Jones, even though it is the SAME actor, looking exactly the same. Heh.

"You better talk or that mug of yours is going to look like a spoiled custard pie..." Hahaha.

8/10

Released in 1945 - His Brother's Ghost is just one of many, many Hollywood B-Westerns that turned me, as a youngster, into a devoted Cowboy-Junkie as I sat for hours in front of the TV set completely fascinated and entertained by these low-budget, rip-roarin' tales of the Old West.

With its simple, straight-forward story that pitted the good guys against the bad guys, His Brother's Ghost also contained elements of comedy which certainly helped to move this gun-happy tale along at a light-hearted pace.

Starring ex-Flash Gordon dude, Buster Crabbe (as good guy, Billy Carson), His Brother's Ghost tells the story of a crooked gang of ruthless marauders who are terrorizing the region by systematically murdering landowners and then taking possession of their ranches and farms.

When these cut-throat bandits kill Andy Jones (Fuzzy's brother), Billy Carson decides to enlist Fuzzy as the ghost of his brother in order to frighten these easily-scared bad guys off.

With this plan set into motion, Billy hopes to expose the gang-leader's identity, and thus bring peace to the valley and restore the stolen property to the rightful owners.

Filmed in b&w, His Brother's Ghost had a very brief running time of only 52 minutes.

This poverty-row picture was directed by Sam Newfield who, throughout the 1930s & 40s, literally turned out hundreds of similar, fast-paced B-Westerns with such titles as Stagecoach Outlaws, Prairie Badmen and Thundering Gunslingers.