Wild Horse Phantom

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.

Sometimes I wonder if the script meetings for these films just took last week's and re-arranged the page numbers. This hasn't anything remotely original about it as it allows "Billy" (Buster Crabbe) to yet again find himself blamed for a crime - this time a bank robbery - so he and trusty steed "Falcon", diverted by some typically clowning antics from "Fuzzy" (Al St. John), have to get to the bottom of things. This does raise quite an interesting legal principle. You have cash in the bank, it gets robbed, you also owe the bank money and they want their debt settled. You can't pay because they lost your money, but they need you to pay so they can give it back to you. Quite a conundrum, eh? Anyway, in order to get himself sorted, "Carson" has to infiltrate a deadly gang and then follow the golden thread via what might be an haunted mine and is definitely a feisty "Marian" (Janet Warren) before all hell breaks lose. The production is a shambles, the only things missing from shot are mobile phones and the continuity person was clearly enjoying one or two of the bar scenes a little too enthusiastically. It's all formula stuff, but Crabbe makes for decent eye-candy and it's really all about the horse, anyway.

Watching the escape with the warden is Billy Carson who has engineered the break. Carson has the idea that he will trail the leader of the escapees, Link Daggett in order to recover the missing money from a bank robbery. The robbery caused an entire community to lose their savings and face financial ruin. Carson and Fuzzy trail Daggett's gang to the Wild Horse Mine where Daggett may have hidden the loot. Inside the mine Daggett can not find the money. Billy and Fuzzy have to face not only the gang, but a maniac acting like a ghost as well as a giant bat

Wild Horse Phantom is a mix of prison break action, mystery, a little horror and the usual good vs bad guys western fun. Not the most remarkable western, it's decent enough with some good atmosphere and humour ( courtesy of Fuzzy.)

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.

Crabbe may get top billing, but the star is goofy St. John. I doubt any comic relief in Westerns gets more screen time than the toothless clown in this oddity. It's like they don't have enough 60-minutes of script, so his antics have to fill the bill. The plot's a standard one-- our hero has to get stolen money before the ruthless banker forecloses on area ranchers. What makes this oater different is that most of the action takes place in a darkened mine tunnel where the money's hidden. The pit's also inhabited by a big flying bat and crazy laughter. Too bad these weren't played up more, which would have really distinguished this bottom row production (PRC). As it stands, Crabbe's broad-shouldered, St. John's fitfully funny, and the 60-minutes mostly amounts to a silly oddity.