Gentlemen with Guns

Buster Crabbe,King of the Wild West,appears in this western programmer that is fairly routine and predictable. His rubbery sidekick, Al "Fuzzy" St. John latches onto a mail-order bride with disastrous results. Buster proceeds to try and knock some sense into the love-struck cowpoke.

Buster Crabbe is fine here, with a good mix of humor and action. I also enjoyed the performance by character actor George Chesboro --- who was excellent as always as a henchman. Unfortunately, the script and budget help to sink what could have been a decent shoot-em-up.

Even as a programmer, this one is not that noteworthy. Recommended for Buster Crabbe fans only .........

Buster Crabbe gets a letter from Al St. John and goes to visit his old friend. St. John is scheduled to get married to a mail-order bride (Patricia Knox), but that's not the problem. St. John is doing well on his ranch, but while he's in favor of settlers, neighbor Steve Darrell isn't. He also wants to buy St. John's water rights, which St. John won't sell. So he frames St. John as having killed a man, jus as Miss Knox rolls into town.

With a script by Fred Myton and direction by Sam Newfield, it's not exactly overplotted, so it's up to St. John to throw the occasional comic conniption, and for editor Holbrook Todd to hold shots too long. Happily, the print of this PRC work is in very good shape, so you get to see the excellence of Jack Greenhalgh's camerawork for a change, and Crabbe is a lot better speaking his lines than he usually is given credit for. But given its PRC budget, this definitely falls into the "if you've seen one, you've seen them all" category.... and seen 'em better.