King of the Bandits

For the sixth and final time, Gilbert Roland is the Cisco Kid, wandering into Arizona along with Chris-Pin Martin. Copycat Anthony Warde has been robbing stagecoaches while masked, so Roland is on the hook for it. He tracks down Warde and steals the jewelry he's taken, which eventually winds up with Roland making love very prettily to Angela Greene, and getting arrested by her brother, William Bakewell. However, Roland has resources that not even he is aware of.

It's minor and carried very handily by Roland's charm. Director Christy Cabanne would only direct two more movies after this, and he is often accused of being one of the worst directors in Hollywood history. There is quite a list of contenders for that title. It's my opinion he doesn't deserve it.

Like many an efficient director trapped in the lower ranks of the B movies, he was prized for his ability to come in on schedule and under budget, and no one was anxious to offer him much more. Yet a look at some of his earlier works show he was not only efficient, but given to camera didoes when given a half-decent budget. B this time, that was unavailable to him, yet the performers hit their marks, speak their lines well -- Roland is supposed to have written some of his sides here -- and the story is a well, if cheaply told one. Cabanne had a writing credit here, as well as a directing one. Cabanne would not to live to see a revival of interest in his work. He would die in 1950 at the age of 62.

When Monogram Pictures Corporation sold their Cisco Kid series of films to television in 1949, United Artists had acquired and now held the rights to the O'Henry characters, and the company was forced to dub-over and pronounce another name in every reference to Cisco, Cisco Kid and Pancho. Perhaps the speculator and guesser might want to go back and edit his review.

Giblert Roland and Chris-Pin Martin pay the Cisco Kid and Pancho in his film King Of The Bandits. The plot finds them in Arizona for the first time sand no sooner do they get there when they find someone is using Cisco's name to perpetrate all kinds crimes the latest being a stagecoach holdup where Roland has to rescue mother and daughter Laura Treadwell and Angela Greene. In a most charming manner does Roland get his name cleared.

Two things that got me about this film. First I would swear that in the saloon the background music was Cole Porter's Let's Misbehave. Secondly I did love the way Roland cut the odds down in a final showdown with villain Anthony Warde.

Gilbert Roland makes one fine Cisco Kid.