Ghost Town Renegades

This is my first time seeing a Lash LaRue film, and it won't be the last. Dressed in black, Lash has uncanny resemblance to Bogart, and his voice is similar too, however, he comes across unique, and has his own style. Boy, can he crack his whip with skill when taking on a bunch of bad guys out to steal a land teeming with gold. Plenty of fast galloping antics ensues, fist fights and action galore - Fuzzy Knight adds the comic support and the leading lady the beauty.

Al "Fuzzy" St. John had been an acrobatic funny-man since his debut in silent comedies. He remained funny through his days as a western bad guy to and through his sidekick days.

Even in some of those atrocities with Buster Crabbe, Fuzzy was funny.

In "Ghost Town Renegades," we realize again that he even moves funny: Be sure to watch him pick up his hat early in this film.

Al "Lash" LaRue, billed here simply as Lash LaRue, in my opinion deserved and deserves better than he usually gets from critics and reviewers.

Without being gimmicky or affected, he does act.

Most important, he is a good cowboy.

Jennifer Holt, of the famous acting family, was a real beauty, but she doesn't get to do much here, not much more than be beautiful, which she does very well.

A very capable cast of bad guys (including Wally West using another name) and a pretty good script and a good score make "Ghost Town Renegades" a darn good B western, well worth watching.

My copy is on a disk with "Border Feud," also with Lash and Fuzzy, from Treasure Box Collections. It is "digitally remastered" and looks and sounds good -- you can hear the saddles creaking! -- except for being too dark, apparently from being a couple generations too old.

A surveyor is at work in a ghost gold-mining town, when a couple of men ride up, and one shoots the surveyor. There's compliments all around (except from the corpse). Meanwhile, Lash Larue is called in by Marshal Albert Jennings to deal with a bunch of murders near the ghost town. Crack investigator Al 'Fuzzy' St. John is already on the site.

It seems odd to be considering Lash Larue B westerns, even from 'the New PRC', and trying to rate them against each other. Often they have a good plot behind them, as this one does, and some interesting actors, like Jennifer Holt, and a sharp print shows that cinematographer Ernest Miller is a talented man when it comes to lighting a set and shooting an outdoor scene than usually shows on video cassettes drawn from worn 16mm prints. This one looks quite nice. Clearly he knew the craft he practiced on more than 300 movies.

Then, however, you need to think about Larue's wooden acting, and the ridiculous foley work, and wonder why Miss Holt disappears from the production. It makes my head hurt. Well, at least a couple of St. John's comic bits are amusing.

Lash LaRue's main claim to fame is having starred in several B westerns in the late 40's and early 50's as the man with the lash. He dressed and looked a lot like Bogie as Whip McCord in 1939's "The Oklahoma Kid." In fact, Lash usually played a character called the Cheyenne Kid. Fans could always count on plenty of action in a Lash LaRue western plus plenty of slapstick comedy by a master, Fuzzy St. John, Lash's sidekick. Fuzzy was the real thing, a talented comedian who had worked with the best including Mack Sennett in many early Keystone comedies. He could take a pratfall as well as Buster Keaton or even Charlie Chaplin. He partly learned the art of comedy from his uncle, Fatty Arbuckle, who helped him get his first movie role with Sennett. He really shines in "Ghost Town Renegades." There is one funny scene when he, Lash, and Diane Trent (Jennifer Holt) spend the night in the ghost town in a room that Fuzzy thinks is full of spooks. A particularly funny part is when Fuzzy mistakes a mirror for a window and tells Lash that one of the toughest and ugliest hombres he has ever seen is spying in the window at them. Whereas Bob Steele was the fastest fighter in the B western, Fuzzy St. John was the funniest. He usually came out on top, but it was always in some humorously distorted position.

The plot of "Ghost Town Renegades" is also a good one, well-written by Patricia Harper. The bad guys are trying to take over property containing mineral wealth by killing off the heirs to the land one by one. Each heir is invited by letter to come to town to talk to Vance Sharp (Jack Ingram) about selling the property which is described as worthless by the land clerk Jonas Watson (William Fawcett). Watson and Sharp are in collusion. Before the heirs arrive in town, they are bushwhacked. Their bodies mysteriously disappear. Their trails always lead to the old ghost town. So Lash, who is an undercover marshal, investigates. His old pal Fuzzy is already on the job posing as a prospector snooping around the ghost town looking for clues. Diane Trent (Jennifer Holt) enters the picture as one of the heirs. Lash and Fuzz must protect her from the killers. There is one really clever scene when the outlaws are chasing the stage carrying Miss Trent after having shot the driver. Enter Lash LaRue. He takes a shortcut without the outlaws seeing him, snatches Trent from the runaway stage, then disappears carrying her on his horse,Black Diamond, without Sharp's henchmen seeing him. When they finally catch up with the stage, there is no Diane Trent. They spend all day looking for her to no avail.

This is a fast-moving Lash LaRue oater not to be missed if you're a fan. Others may find it entertaining as well and Fuzzy is always a treat.

The killing starts with an unsuspecting surveyor and his partner. "You never miss do you Waco (Lane Bradford) Most times you don't get a second chance." Fuzzy St. John playing the part of the 'desert rat' gets chased off by the henchmen but the King of the Bullwhip (Lash La Rue) is not far behind. Jennifer Holt is coming to town in style. Vance Sharp's (Jack Ingram) can't let that happen if they're going to control the deeds. Jonas Watson (William Fawcett) may be doctoring the deeds for Sharp who's trying to kill off the rest of the competition. Plenty of action by Ingram and his gang, beauty and style from Jennifer Holt and a strong performance by La Rue. However, Fuzzy has some of the best scenes, especially when he's chasing down the ghosts.