Border Badmen (1945)

Just perfect...

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

BORDER BADMEN is a very cheap black and white western with a starring role for former FLASH GORDON Buster Crabbe. He plays one of a cowboy duo who help out a female landowner from the crooks trying to steal her estate. This one clocks in at under an hour in length and has the usual plot ingredients, with a lot of horse riding and a handful of fight scenes. The broad-chested Crabbe makes for a charismatic hero but there's simply not as much to get excited or amused about here as in his science fiction pictures.

It's funny how in a lot of the Buster Crabbe/Fuzzy St. John team-ups, Fuzzy often winds up with more screen time or impact on the story than the nominal hero. In this one, he's one of many heirs who come calling on the estate of Silas Stockton after the man passes away, with partner Billy Carson (Crabbe) on hand to lend some brains and brawn when it's needed to take down the bad guys.That opening scene with the toll-gate seemed a little bizarre to me - a two hundred dollar fee being charged for four legged animals to pass and five hundred for the two legged kind. With the toll taker seemingly asleep (actually dead!), I had to wonder why Billy and Fuzzy didn't just ride on through. It would have saved a lot of hassle with the outlaw henchmen.Well it's never that easy for the good guys before they save the day. Charles King, a ubiquitous presence in these early oaters, is the principal hoodlum in the story. He's calling the shots on eliminating the potential Stockton heirs from ever reaching town so he could split the fortune with selected local accomplices. Even some of them, like mayor Jed Bates (Steve Clark) don't last too long when they start questioning Merritt's (King) game plan.I'm sure matinée fans back in the day got their quarter's worth watching Fuzzy liven things up in the story, head butting bad guys and doing the revolving door gimmick with Carson and later on, one of the henchmen. With Fuzzy, you had to believe him whenever he came up with a line like the one in this story - "Stand aside, there's going to be some action around here".

As the music of "Home on the Range" breaks out under the opening credits, we know we are in for another nostalgic delight. The plot may be a familiar variation on a very old theme – the use of some of Lou Costello's routines from Hold That Ghost (1941) is an unexpected novelty – and the dialogue may be atrociously clichéd, but the support cast is headed by such welcome old friends as Charles King and Al Ferguson. Even the direction by good old Sam ("Don't call me, Sam, call me, Fast") Newfield is a notch above his usual score of three or four out of ten. The two femme leads are rather innocuous (I saw the film only an hour ago, and already I've forgotten what they look like, whereas people like Henry Hall, I remember well, despite his extremely brief innings on center stage) and the occasional action sequences are well and truly outnumbered by the inordinate amount of footage allocated to Mr. St. John (who appeared in 337 movies, would believe? He also had a career as a writer and a director in silent days). Maybe one of his fans can tell me how he pronounced his name. I assume it was the American way, but I'm not sure. In the U.K. the name is pronounced "Sinjin".

Buster Crabbe, a fine actor and athlete, never got his due in Hollywood. He played a second hand Tarzan in the beginning and ended his career churning out B movies for cheapie studios such as PRC. One of his last hurrahs was playing "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion" on early television. He is, of course, best remembered today for the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930's. When he claimed that he was never really given a chance in Hollywood, he was speaking the truth and not just rolling in self-pity. His B westerns such as "Border Badmen" are fairly good oaters despite the low-budget. He was teamed with a master comedian, Fuzzy St. John, who had learned his trade from his uncle, the legendary Fatty Arbuckle. He was adept at physical humor such as taking pratfalls. He has some funny scenes in "Border Badmen," especially when he is sitting up with a dead body and when he and Billy Carson (Buster Crabbe) are exploring a hidden passage way. Buster and Fuzzy carry on in a manner that reminds the viewer of an old Abbott and Costello routine. "Fuzzy, try to find an opening," commands Buster. "If I can't find one, I'll build one," Fuzzy replies. The first movie I remember seeing when I was about four years old was a Buster Crabbe/Fuzzy St. John western at a Saturday matinée in my hometown. The only thing I remember from the film was Fuzzy St. John having a devil of a time in a haystack. So I know his humor was extremely appealing to youngsters of the 1940's.The plot is one that was recycled in several B westerns about a gang of bad guys trying to keep the female heir to a large estate from claiming what was rightfully hers. This time around, the gang plans not only to kidnap the lady as she comes to town but to replace her with a substitute who will get the land and money for them. Lovely Lorraine Miller plays the heir Helen Stockton. There is no romantic tie between Stockton and Carson as one would expect. Possibly the producers being on a shoestring budget didn't have the time or money to promote this angle and make it believable for the intended audience which would consist mainly of kids and their parents. Marilyn Gladstone plays the part of the stand-in heir. She looks like a saloon gal even though she is weak in the acting department. Buster and Fuzzy get involved because Fuzzy is a cousin "six times removed" to the deceased whose will is being probated. As it turns out Fuzzy is cousin number thirty two. There is plenty of action once the film gets started. At one point Billy Carson says, "It's time for some action." After that remark the action never lets up. The gallery of villains is a noteworthy one consisting of such stalwarts as Charles King. The viewer will recognize the faces if not the names. The title "Border Badmen" is a generic one. There are plenty of badmen in the film but nothing is said about a border as I remember. Still, if you are a fan of the old Saturday matinée cowboy movies, you should enjoy this one.