Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid

Not hard to understand why the pilot was picked up. There is no protagonist. Lyle Talbot is the obvious antagonist. When the Tucson Kid rides into town, it's Talbot with the demands to hang the stranger without a trial. But the real hero isn't the Tucson Kid, it's the . . . . Watch to figure it out.

This pilot isn't worse than some episodes of Superman (it even shares the same music) but it ambles all over the place. Think of it as the early Ed Wood Jr it is.An artifact of what was to come before Planet 9.

For unknown reason, writer-director Ed Wood Jr, called this pilot Crossroad Avenger instead of the more accurate Tucson Kid. This is standard B-western fare without a strong lead character. Plus, the storyline is tedious and predictable.

Considering Ed Wood, wrote and directed such classics as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, this program is disappointing in that there is nothing perverse, unusual, ridiculous or comical. And, certainly nothing memorable. Also, it pales in comparison with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Zorro or even Bat Masterson.

Sadly, this is probably the most professional program written and directed by Ed but, unfortunately it is uninspired. Considering this is a pilot, the lead character is not strongly developed but then again this was written and produced many years ago.

This would have been more successful and enjoyable as a feature film although it still would not have been notable. If you seeking Ed Wood wackiness, then save your money. This is not the Ed Wood Jr. most of us know and love.

You will want to see this for the cast, including two of the best cowboy stars, Tom Keene and Tom Tyler, and three of the best villains, Lyle Talbot, Kenne Duncan, and Bud Osborne, and two others of talent but of whom I had not heard, villain Don Nagel and "desert rat" Harvey B. Dunn.

Since this was a pilot, one can suppose if it had sold there would have been better plot development in the future.

For a low-budget TV pilot, the production values are pretty good, but there are two problems: Tom Tyler was already in the throes of his ultimately fatal health problems and Tom Keene was looking somewhat past his prime, but only somewhat.

Again, I think if the pilot had sold, the very talented actors would have looked better and the scripts would be better and more detailed.

Tom Keene, even this late in his career, was always a very pleasant character, and a good cowboy. I need a lot of research to understand why he wasn't a huge star. He really deserved to be.

In sum, watch this for the nostalgia, I guess, and for the history, since the four cowboys (Keene, Tyler, Osborne, Duncan) are so much part and parcel of the Hollywood West and western.

Crossroad Avenger (1953)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This Western short (or possibly TV pilot) features a familiar, veteran cast but it's best remembered today for being an early work of the legendary Ed Wood. The story is pretty simple as the Tucson Kid (Tom Keene) is delivering some insurance money to a man whose bar burned down but along the way Bart Miller (Lyle Talbot) tries to get his hung for the killing of a sheriff. It turns out the deputy (Tom Tyler) wants to go along with the plan but Tucson gets clear and goes to correct the wrong. CROSSROAD AVENGER isn't a very good movie and those coming into it expecting certain Wood-isms (is that a word?) are going to be disappointed. Wood wrote the screenplay and usually no matter what the movie is like, his dialogue at least gets a few laughs but that's really not the case here. The zany words are missing and in fact they seem to be coming from someone else simply because you expect to hear the crazy dialogue that never really adds up due to too many wrong words being used. I was surprised to see that the dialogue was fairly well-written but the problem is that it's just too dry to be entertaining. It also doesn't help that the budget of this thing appears to be just a couple bucks and this is overly obvious with the sets, which look just as cheap as stuff we'd see years later in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. I think what really hurts them here is that this thing was shot in color and this really shows you how poor they are. Many will enjoy seeing Keene, Tyler and Talbot together but they all pretty much sleepwalk through their roles, although Keene appears to be having fun as he's constantly smiling. Wood, the director, doesn't really impress either as he doesn't bring any life to the material and in the end this is just too bland to be entertaining.

Tom Keene looks tired, as does half the cast of this half-hour TV pilot directed and written by the infamous Ed Wood, Jr. I bought a copy of the movie from Ray Dennis Steckler, and the best part of it was a little piece he (or someone) had taped on the end which included a commercial for Remington ammunition with Keene Duncan shooting at various forms of candy and food products (presumably items with which the juvenile audience could relate to in terms of size).

As for the pilot, it is crudely produced, with typical terrible Wood direction. At one point, the aged comedy actor simply lurches off the screen at a really odd angle. Others have posited that this show was equivalent to other material on the air at the time: I'd like to see it. Of course, all I've really been able to find is "The Lone Ranger" and "The Gene Autry Show", and on these shows professional directors and photographers were utilized, even if the writing was pretty standard. Ed Wood can be an interesting writer, but his direction is awful by any measure, and it shows even in this tiny prairie saga.