Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

One of the PRC series of B westerns starring Buster Crabbe as Billy the Kid/Billy Carson, and comical sidekick Al St. John as Fuzzy. In this series, every now and then, Fuzzy gets a hankering to buy and run a small business, at least for a short while, until Billy decides it's time to vacate this town. The owner of the newspaper, John Martin(John Elliot) was shot dead in the street after giving a speech promoting his crusade against the local outlaws, and advocating the local financing of a telegraph line. This left his daughter Edith in charge of the newspaper. However, she couldn't run it alone. Thus, pretty soon , it was in foreclosure, and a sheriff's sale held. Bidding rose to $3000., which was all the money, save 50c,that Fuzzy had from his reward money for bringing in 2 bank robbers. So, he bid $3000.50. Unrecognized outlaw Pete(John Merton) wanted to bid up again, but bad boy Billy pushed through the crowd and punched Pete in the breadbasket, so that he was temporarily unable to speak. This sealed the deal for Fuzzy. Of course, Billy and Pete had a slugfest after Pete recovered. And, of course, Fuzzy was woefully qualified to be a newspaper editor........When Fuzzy and Billy go into the saloon, Fuzzy is reading a newspaper. Pete throws an uncooked egg that goes through the newspaper and hits Fuzzy in the face. Billy returns the favor, and Billy and Pete are in another brawl........Later, rancher and unrecognized leader of the local criminal element, Lafe Barlow(Charles King) warns Fuzzy and Edith that inflammatory editorials will be risky to their well being. Barlow would become the leader of the minority anti-telegraph faction, whereas Fuzzy would become the leader of the majority pro-telegraph faction. Fuzzy was elected to take care of the money from the most recent telegraph drive. After accidentally spilling the ink bottle near the money, he hid it, but, unfortunately, some peeping Toms saw where he hid it. They burst in, knock him out, and take the money. A little later, Billy is trailing a suspicious man, who goes to Barlow's ranch house. Billy bursts through the door, and knocks out the man. Soon, Pete enters and Billy knocks him out(for the 3rd time), as well. He then searches around the desk, and finally finds what appears to be the stolen money. He takes Pete with him to town, and enters a room where Barlow is whipping up the crowd to lynch Fuzzy. He shows the money, and Pete corroborates his finding. I'm very surprised that he doesn't point out the ink-stained bills as proof that this is the stolen money!.......The climactic scene follows. I will let you see the film to find out what happens. It's available at YouTube. In any case, as with his other short-term entrepreneurships, when Fuzzy sees Billy leaving town, he abandons his property and catches up with Billy. Poor Edith: she lost her newspaper owner, and her potential boyfriend(Billy).

Without knowing a lot about Buster Crabbe, it certainly was big of him to let Fuzzy St. John take center stage in this adventure. While both men capture a pair of bank robbers in the opening scene, Fuzzy uses the reward money to buy a newspaper in Red Rock and try to live like a 'normal' citizen. You know this can only go so far, and pretty soon Fuzzy finds himself in the middle of a local dust up between cattle rustlers and the locals.Even with the serious subject matter, Billy Carson (Crabbe) spends a lot of time laughing heartily at Fuzzy's expense throughout most of the picture. That seemed a bit out of character for him but Fuzzy took it in stride the way he always does. If you keep an eye on Fuzzy when he leaves the newspaper office the first time, the amount of printer's ink on his face increases by the time he picks up his beer at the saloon.You know, if you really pay attention to what's going on in these old Westerns, you begin to wonder how they came up with some of this stuff. Like in the Red Rock Saloon - why were there raw eggs in dishes on the bar? Other than provide a prop for the bad guys to throw down with Fuzzy, why would they have been there?Or how about the scene when Carson knocks out Rusty while he was trying to set fire in the barn. The other four henchmen hung around while Carson brought Rusty in to the rancher meeting for questioning; why didn't one of them go ahead and start the fire? I guess that's why I get such a kick out of these oaters. Not only Westerns, but mysteries, sci-fi and horror flicks of the era as well. There didn't seem to be much pressure to keep things believable to keep a story line going. I will say this though, the boots behind the boulder gimmick in the opener was something I hadn't seen before. Very clever, but..., wait a minute - how did they do that?

On a whim, Fuzzy Jones uses his reward money from the capture of a fugitive in order to buy a small town newspaper, of which the previous owner was gunned down for going up against a group of cattle rustlers. Picking up where the slain man left off, he uses the pen and Billy Carson uses his gun to clean up the town.One of many times Fuzzy tried to settle down, this light-hearted, fast-paced, and action-packed entry in Producers Releasing Corporation's Billy Carson series is well-written and one of the best.There's a heavy emphasis this time on Al "Fuzzy" St. John. However, Buster Crabbe delivers one of his best performances ever, with the usually more stoic hero caught in a particularly silly frame-of-mind and getting almost as many laughs as Fuzzy this time around!

While it's a very predictable story, this B-Western is still not bad overall. Buster Crabbe and Fuzzy St. John are a likable pair of heroes, and it has a couple of lighter moments and some decent action. The story starts with Fuzzy deciding that he wants to 'settle down' instead of wandering about with Crabbe. He decides to become a 'respectable' citizen working on a newspaper, but very soon he gets caught in the middle of a dangerous confrontation with a gang of rustlers. Quite a bit happens after that, and while most of it is pretty predictable, the action is not bad. St. John also gets more screen time than he does in a lot of his supporting roles. Overall, it's nothing great, but worth a look if you like older Westerns.