The Reckless Buckaroo

At the conclusion of Ray Kirkwood's first series of Bill Cody westerns, released through Spectrum Pictures, he set about to produce a second series, co-starring veteran Bill and his 10-year-old son, Billy. With backing from Monarch Laboratory, production began in February 1936 on "The Reckless Buckaroo," with a nice script credited to Kirkwood's wife, Zara Tazil.

Numerous re-takes ate into the slender budget, and a disagreement between Kirkwood and his backers was reported in the February 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter, with the producer supposedly "ordered off the set," and the film left in the hands of director Harry Fraser.

The affable Codys both perform well in this story of a sheriff's efforts to capture smugglers near the Southwestern border. In many ways among the most appealing entries in the Bill Cody series, with nice support by Betty Mack, Budd Buster and other veterans of the Cody films, it was also the last of Bill's starring features - ultimately released in 1937 as a non-series western by Crescent Pictures.

With nice photography highlighting the desert locale, this pleasant western, which was supposed to inaugurate a new series of Cody adventures, unexpectedly brought the whole thing to a conclusion, but did so in an entertaining manner. Ray Kirkwood produced no further westerns, and the day of independent productions of this nature, released on a states' rights basis, was fast ending. Oliver Drake wrote a character part for Cody in a George O'Brien western a few years later, and the younger Cody did some good work in several features and serials - but "The Reckless Buckaroo" was Bill's swan song as a cowboy star.

Realizing that The Reckless Buckaroo is from a poverty row outfit called Crescent Pictures, it's not an awfully terrible film. It does provide for an outing for father and son Bill Cody and Bill Cody, Jr. to work together.

A good deal of explanatory footage is cut from the beginning. It probably had the reason why young Cody's father was killed. The film opens with the senior Cody and the junior Cody at the grave of junior's father in the film declaring their new partnership.

The rest of the film concerns the Codys rescuing sheriff Ed Cassidy who was left in the desert when outlaws he was trailing turned on him.

From the beginning it's obvious that Cassidy has a crooked deputy in Roger Williams. That lascivious look he gives the sheriff's daughter Betty Mack would tell any western fans he's the bad guy.

In the end of course the Codys put everything right in true cowboy hero tradition.

Crescent Pictures didn't bother to give this film even any imaginary title credits. But this was a no frills job to the bone.

Still it has some entertainment value.