JohnHowardReid
A Newfield (Neufeld) Brothers Production, copyright 14 August 1946 by Pathé Industries, Inc. Released through P.R.C. Pictures, Inc. No New York showcase. U.S. release: 1 May 1946. No Australian theatrical release. 6 reels. 55 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Billy Carson and Fuzzy Q. Jones track down a gang of stagecoach bandits. COMMENT: By the humble standards of PRC's Billy Carson series, this one has an unusually strong, well-paced story. And using a thriller format, it actually introduces a large number of characters.One of the most amazing things about this film is that the official cast list gives not the slightest indication of the importance of the players' roles. Patti McCarty heads the support list, but after an elaborately staged introductory scene disappears from the film altogether except for one tiny glimpse. Stanford Jolley has three largish scenes but Karl Hackett has only the one scene in which he says not more than half-a-dozen lines. Henry Hall has less than half-a-dozen words and has only two scenes, the first of which is but a tiny glimpse of his back. Kermit Maynard has also only a small amount of footage and plays a subsidiary role to Frank Ellis (who receives no credit at all) who has the lion's share of the dialogue as well as his customary fist tussle with Buster after Kermit is killed! Marin Sais has one unimportant scene as the sheriff's wife, yet takes precedence in the billing over Budd Buster who plays the sheriff and has easily the largest amount of footage of the entire support cast! Steve Darrell hovers around in the background of quite a few scenes but Steve Clark has only one scene of two or three lines.One of the characters that Billy and Fuzzy are tracking down is "Ben Taggart" and he turns out to be played by Bud Osborne, quite a large and important role, with Bud playing the heavy and snarling delightfully, but not credited at all. Then Fuzzy and Billy go after "Luke Gordon" and who should be playing him, also uncredited, but another very old friend, villainous George Chesebro!By PRC standards, the direction and other credits strike a rare level of competence, and even this entry's production values are adequate. No obvious skimping, or hiding behind familiar stock footage!
