Pals of the Prairie

Pals of the Prairie (1934)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland Western short has Buffalo Bill, Jr. (aka Jay Wilsey) above the title but he actually plays a supporting part. The film centers around friends Buck (Buck Owens) and Ben (Buffalo) who start to work on a farm when they're asked by the beautiful Joan (Victoria Vinton) to take some money into town. The men are held up by her wannabe future husband but of course he blames them and they've got to clear their name. This two-reeler is without question one of the dumbest and worst written films I've ever seen. This is certainly nearing the levels of any bad filmmaker out there but at just 20-minutes the thing never gets boring and at least the badness adds a rather campy feel to it. The story bounces around so much that it's impossible to tell that anyone over the age of three wrote the screenplay. There's never a good pace to the story and it's told in such a way that it seems bits and pieces are just left out or never even thought of. Something will happen to get us from point A to B and then something else will happen out of nowhere just so the story can get to another point. Owens is mildly likable in his role and Buffalo Bill, Jr. at least comes off mildly entertaining. The two certainly aren't a great comedy team and their "action" together doesn't work either but for some reason they remain watchable. The strange thing is that a radio gets used several times in the film and how it's done is just downright awful and you won't be able to not laugh. The following year Bela Lugosi did a film called MURDER BY TELEVISION, which featured an incredibly stupid story but the use of the radio here is even worse.

Nearly, but not quite since it was made by Robert Tansey for Imperial and not Bernard B. Ray for Reliable. Actually, a warm-up short western featurette made prior to Tansey beginning the Wally Wales series of western shorts. While Buffalo Bill Jr/Jay Wilsey is top-billed, he is a semi-villain that loses the girl to the short, comedic, bumbling Buck Owens(Buck), thanks to the efforts of Buck's short, comedic, bumbling pal Ben(Ben Corbett.)In this film the term comedic is used in a relative sense.

Story was by Perry Murdock, who didn't write many but the few he wrote always involved the leading actors getting into some kind of out-of-their-element situation, such as posing as vaudeville singers and comedians.That may account for why his name seldom appears as the writer of a western.