NR | 56m | Drama, Western | 1944
Low-budget Westerns have a workingman’s honesty that bigger productions can lose once the bankroll starts doing too much of the thinking.
Megastars like John Wayne knew that world. Before his star-turn in “Stagecoach” (1939), he spent years riding through short Monogram Westerns that shaped his dialogue delivery, posture, screen habits, and audience.
“Wild Horse Phantom,” a 1944 Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) entry in the “Billy the Kid” series, features Buster Crabbe as Billy Carson with Al ‘Fuzzy’ St. John as Fuzzy Jones. The film wrings a lot out of a handful of sets, some shadowy corners, and one memorable leftover prop.
The Mine
Billy Carson sets a risky lawman’s plan in motion: Let Link Daggett (Kermit Maynard) and his gang escape prison then follow them to the money they stole from a bank and stashed.
The money belongs to Piedmont County ranchers. Without it, their land may fall into the hands of greedy land-grabber Cliff Walters (Hal Price), a banker with a hard face and no great love for mercy.
The escape turns ugly when Tom Hanlon (Robert Meredith), a young convict dragged along with the gang against his will, tries to go his own way. Daggett shoots him square in the back. No honor among thieves.
Hanlon makes it just far enough to reach Fuzzy Jones and fill him in on the happenings. That gives Jones a personal reason to ride with Carson, even if the sudden coincidence feels like it was written during a lunch break.
Carson and Jones trail the gang to the Wild Horse Mine, where the stolen cash was supposedly hidden. The mine has a cackling old prospector, suspicious rancher Ed Garnet (Budd Buster), and enough tunnel business to keep everybody walking in circles. There’s also a giant bat, which gives Fuzzy one of the film’s funniest scrapes.
More From Less
One of the best things about “Wild Horse Phantom” is how much usage it gets out of such a miniscule budget. The mine isn’t elaborate, and nobody will mistake the production for a major studio Western.Director Sam Newfield wisely keeps the action moving through darkness, with a few hanging lanterns, gunfire, and men popping in and out of tunnels as though the whole place were built by a stage magician with unpaid rent.
Crabbe gives Carson the straight-ahead confidence the part needs. This isn’t a man who’s putting on airs in the role. He simply rides, asks questions, fights, and keeps the plot from collapsing under its own pile of stolen money, doomed ranchers, prison schemes, and cave confusion.
St. John can wear out his welcome in some of these pictures, especially when the script gives him nothing to do except holler. Here, St. John has better material to work with. He gets to be scared, wounded, stubborn, and ridiculous, practically back-to-back.
The giant bat scene is as cheap as can be, which to me is half the pleasure. Jones wrestling the leftover titular prop from PRC’s 1940 horror film “The Devil Bat” and finally biting the thing is the kind of gag this movie can afford, and St. John plays it like he’s been waiting all day for the nonsense to arrive.
“Wild Horse Phantom” won’t convert anyone who’s allergic to B-Westerns. The plot has too many moving parts for a film this short, and the modern opening gets abandoned almost as soon as the horses show up. Even so, it’s a very enjoyable little ride.
