Billy the Kid Wanted

Buster Crabbe takes the reigns from Bob Steele and puts his own spin on the title character in Billy The Kid Wanted, the seventh entry in P.R.C.'s Billy The Kid series.

Once again we're treated to a fast paced, action filled shoot-em-up adventure with with a plot as well worn as an old boot, this time featuring eternal heavy and future Frankenstein monster Glenn Strange (who's always great) as yet another homicidal land swindler out to cheat and bully a group of innocent homesteaders.

As Billy The Kid, Buster Crabbe is likable and certainly more charismatic and better looking than his predecessor, but he lacks the macho posturing that made Bob Steele's portrayal so unique. He's still a great hero, though.

Like most of the poverty row westerns it's not very memorable but it's fun while it lasts.

Buster Crabbe plays the role of Billy The Kid in this western from the PRC studios located on Poverty Row. This film is in the tradition of those B studios take the name of a character from the old west and just using the name to build a wholly fictional story. Here Crabbe gets his share of gunplay, but uses his head more in this one to get a group of outlaws who want to move in on another outlaw who's been exploiting the ranchers and homesteaders. Get them fighting and the good people who want to make the west a civilized place might just take over. Edmond O'Brien describes that process so well in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Billy has two sidekicks, Al St. John and Dave O'Brien. In fact St. John is fed up with the vagabond life of the outlaw and goes out to the territory following an advertisement circular. He sees what's going on and sends for his erstwhile pals.

A bit more plot than usual makes Billy The Kid Wanted a cut above the usual poverty row oater.

This was the first in the Buster Crabbe series of Billy the Kid interpretations, this from 1941. I must say I am always surprised how I enjoy the PRC westerns, as they hold up just as well as the era's B-westerns from more lustrous studios, such as Republic. I have also noted how the PRC 8-day westerns don't jump out as being notably creaky and stilted like the studio's 8-day contemporary dramas and comedies. Nonetheless, this maiden voyage for Crabbe's BTK flicks has a focused and involving story that is developed well through the dialog, and which interestingly features three assemblages of men who take turns either being the group chasing on horseback the other two or being the group chased by the other two. Lots of horseback riding with manes a-flying in this picture!

Both Buster Crabbe and Al St.John are seen here before they evolve into what we will later in the series consider signature in their personal characteristics: Crabbe seems more blonde, evaluative, and gentle in this film; while St. John has a much less "Fuzzy" countenance about him here than he will show in subsequent installments... less comic appeal, less eccentricity, and a less overt old-timer "look." And finally Dave O'Brien, as the third amigo of the heroic 3-man team featured in many of these films, has a more integral role in the action here, more so than he often did in later BTK efforts.

The cast is fairly large and features the charismatic Glenn Strange, whose appearance here is made more delicious for the audience by his frequent sparring and matching wits with the wonderful Charles King. One just can not get enough of Mr. CK! The Billy the Kid series (Steele or Crabbe) was total baloney historically speaking, but the films were consistently enjoyable to witness, this first one with Crabbe included.