Awesome Movie

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

One of the stranger of the Billy Carson series of PRC B westerns, starring Buster Crabbe as Billy, and Al St. John as Fuzzy. Here, Billy, as a US marshal, is charged with finding and returning $50,000. stolen from the Piedmont bank. Unless this is returned pronto, the bank has the option of foreclosing on various ranches, where the rancher's savings was included in the stolen money. Toward this end, Billy made arrangements to allow the 4 members of the gang that stole the money to escape from prison, in hopes they would make a bee line to where the money was hidden. In fact, this is what they did. First, they got a forced ride in a 1940s car to the point where they had somehow arranged for 5 horses to be brought, the 5th for Tom, a non-member whom they forced to join them. Apparently, they hoped to make him the 5th gang member, but he preferred to return to the security of prison life. Hence, he was shot in the back as he rode away. He did manage to crawl to the cabin of his friend Fuzzy, which just happened to be near by, before he died. Billy soon arrived, and convinced Fuzzy to accompany him looking for the money. They somehow got on the right trail of the gang, which led them to the old played-out Wild Horse goldmine. When they arrived, they heard the gang discussing that the money wasn't where the boss, Daggert, remembered putting it. Was his memory faulty, or had someone stolen it? They speculated that they might be in the wrong tunnel. Then, a ghostly laugh was heard, which upset Fuzzy, and they were discovered, and tied up. After the gang left for another tunnel, a phantom cut Fuzzy's rope with a knife, so he could untie Billy. Billy followed the mine owner, and possible phantom, out of the mine , to his nearby house, where they talked about the stolen money. Meanwhile, Fuzzy was scared out of his wits by a giant bat-like screaming flying creature. He picked up an axe, ran around with it, finally plunging it into the wall of the mine. Low and behold, he finds currency, a lot of it, behind the wall! But, soon, Ed Garnet(whom Fuzzy had not met) showed up in back of him, with a gun. Fuzzy dropped the money and ran. Meanwhile, elsewhere in and around the mine, the gang members were getting testy because Daggart couldn't find the money. So, he shot 2 members, killing one immediately, while the other escaped out of the tunnel, encountered Daggart, and shot him before dying. Meanwhile, Fuzzy had captured and roped the last member of the gang. Now, Billy had to convince Garnet to give up the money, if he had it. Did Garnet find the money where Daggart hid it, and rehide it behind the wall, where Fuzzy accidentally found it?? At first, Ed refused, but Billy appealed to his sense of community, and he gave in. Now, Billy had to rush to town and give the money to the banker before his noon deadline. If this sounds interesting, see it at YouTube.

Although "Wild Horse Phantom" is not the worst entry in the well-named PRC (actually Producers Releasing Corp., but the initials could well stand for Poverty Row Cra.. Well, let's say Collections) Billy the Kid/Billy Carson series, it earns a pride of place here because it re-uses The Devil Bat from the studio's 1941 Bela Lugosi release with that title. Buster Crabbe and Fuzzy St John spend most of their footage in a spooky mine. Kermit Maynard is the vicious, if forgetful villain. (This movie was once available on an excellent Retromedia DVD, but I don't know if it is still in stock. But it was also available on the "Fugitive of the Plains" DVD! See below). Kermit Maynard turns up again in the slightly better "Fugitive of the Plains" (1943) in which the lovely Maxine Leslie manages to overcome sloppy editing, scads of stock footage, obvious doubles, an incoherent plot, tedious comic relief, inept direction (Sam Newfield) and (in the VCI "Buster Crabbe" DVD) image break-up plus missing footage. This DVD also features our Wild Horse Phantom - not Fuzzy Settles Down as shown on the DVD's cover!

Wild Horse Phantom which incidentally has nothing to do with wild horses opens in what you would think is a modern setting in a prison. Some stock footage from a prison picture is used showing Kermit Maynard and his gang escaping. But it's all part of a plan set up by Buster Crabbe so that Maynard will lead the gang to the loot he stashed from his last job.For some reason some kid is forced to come along even though he's not part of the gang and he's shot when he wants to go back. As he's a friend of Crabbe's sidekick Al St. John that makes it personal.At the same time a skinflint banker is trying to foreclose on ranches in the area. It was his bank that got robbed and the depositors were those said ranchers. They can't pay on their mortgages so he's cleaning up.All the action takes place in an old mine where Maynard stashed the loot and where everybody's looking for it.The inconsistencies of time and place are really bad even for a poverty row PRC release. At the same time the comedy of Al St. John truly redeems this film somewhat. Fuzzy's fight with Bela Lugosi's Devil Bat also a PRC release is hilarious. Might be worth tuning in for that alone.

This is a great "B" film. It reminds me of one of the Abbott and Costello films where they encounter horror situations. Al (Fuzzy) St. John provides comic relief as Buster Crabbe plays a dashing Billy Carson complete with one-liners. Worth seeking out.