Overlooked Films: The Durango Kid in "Blazing Across the Pecos" (1948)

The Durango Kid, in his black outfit and mask, looks cool and mysterious on movie posters, which may explain why he survived long enough to appear in 67 films.

On screen, though - at least in this film - the Kid is considerably less cool and mysterious. He’s pretty much your standard western hero, roaming from town to town and arriving just in time to rescue an innocent good-lookin' and purehearted female and her father from evildoers. And he performs most of his heroics unmasked, this time under the name Steve Blake.

For reasons unexplained (and likely inexplicable) the Kid's unmasked name changes from film to film. So he might be Steve Duncan or Steve Lawson or Steve Armitage or Steve Drake or Steve Woods or or or. And sometimes, probably just to get out of a rut, his first name is Jim or Jeff or Bill or Kip or something else. Also unexplained is why Steve or Jim or Whoever occasionally dons the mask and does his derring-do as The Durango Kid. I have no clue, except maybe that it looks cool and mysterious on the movie posters. And maybe that’s enough. The whole idea was to get butts in the theater seats, right?

In that list of 67 Durango Kid films, Blazing Across the Pecos falls smack-dab in the middle, at number 34. So I have to guess it’s somewhat representative of the series. The trouble is, everything about it screams cheap. TV cheap. If I didn’t know this movie was released in 1948, I’d have thought it was made for an old western TV series.

The sets are minimal. Most of the action takes place in the bad guy’s office, or the newspaper office, or the saloon. Or maybe in the street, where a bare minimum of extras are milling about. When an action scene is needed, like an attack on a wagon train or the rustling of cattle, we get a healthy dose of stock footage.

The shots are all close-ups or medium close-ups, just what you’d expect from TV, and must have looked really in-your-face on the big screen.

Steve, or Jim, or Barney, or whoever the hell the Kid is when he's not the Kid, 

engages in some unfunny horseplay with Smiley.

Smiley Burnette is on hand, playing a character named "Smiley Burnette," who looks and acts just like Gene Autry's pal "Frog." Except that Frog is actually funny, and "Smiley" is just silly. Chief Thundercloud appears uncredited (probably at his own request) as Chief Bear Claw. Sheesh, how embarrassing. The only bright spot was a 30-second uncredited appearance by Jock Mahoney, who later became a series regular.

The feeling all this conveys is that everyone involved was resigned to making a silly and forgettable cheapie, and were just going through the motions. Hard to blame them, seeing they had already cranked out 33 of them, and had 33 more to go.

The Kid impresses Chief Bear Claw and his pals with his pidgin English, 

though elsewhere they understand real English just fine.

So. Did I LIKE this film? Hm. While I didn’t especially dislike it, LIKE is too strong a word. I’m still mildly curious about Starrett’s first appearance in the role, made way back in 1940, but otherwise it’s hard to imagine devoting another 58 minutes of my life to The Durango Kid.

BELOW: Because the D.K. did not look particularly cool or mysterious on the poster for Blazing Across the Pecos, I'm sticking up this 3-sheet from an earlier film, in which he does. Shades of The Shadow, no?

Get your Overlooked Films fix this week and every week at Sweet Freedom. 

My favorite BLACK MASK cover.

September 1940 - by Rafael DeSoto

Okay, maybe I'm sadistic, but this one just speaks to me. And this ish features a great story, too. The three-part serial "Dog Eat Dog" was later published as the second Cellini Smith novel, No Love Lost. 

Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective: FREE!

GOOD NEWS: There are now over 40 adventures of Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective available FREE in a variety of electronic formats from Munseys.com. One of those is this story, from February 1943. And as a bonus for you Almanack readers, here's a look at all the original artwork.

To download "Murder's Blue Motive" click HERE and choose your format. If you'd rather just read the story on your computer, click HERE and you'll be taken to Blackmask Online.

Forgotten Books: Jeremy Six returns in "The Night it Rained Bullets" by Brian Wynne Garfield

After rereading Mr. Sixgun last month (review HERE) I was eager for a return trip to Spanish Flat, and another round of blazing action with Marshal Jeremy Six. And The Night It Rained Bullets (1965) did not disappoint.

There's a storm coming - a BIG one - and no one wants to be caught on the Arizona desert. So everyone - including a notorious gunman and a gang of toughs Jeremy Six recently kicked out of town - comes slinking in to hunker down in Spanish Flat's saloons, hotels and bawdy houses. Once the storm hits, the blizzard is so fierce a man can't see across the street, and risks being swept just by venturing out of doors.

But Jeremy Six knows that each gathering place is a potential powder keg, especially those occupied by the aforementioned gunslinger and the gang of badmen. So out he goes, ably assisted by his relief marshal Bill Dealing and his deputy Dominguez (on Six's right and left, respectively, on the cover at left).

The fuse is lit when a spoiled rich-kid accuses the gunslinger of cheating at cards, and the gang of evil varmints threaten to carve up Spanish Flat's (and Six's) version of Miss Kitty. Hell starts a-poppin', and Six and his men are right in the thick of it.

Hard to say why I'm so partial to Garfield's prose. Somehow, he always says just enough - and never too much - to set the scene and keep the tension mounting. And amazingly, the guy was only 26 when this was published. Next up for Marshal Six: The Bravos.

WARNING: If you go hunting this on ABE, you'll find some dealers who think this 75 cent edition (Ace 57601) is the first printing. But the true first is Ace M-128, the one that sold for a mere 45 cents. Nothing wrong with the reissue, of course, but you should know what you're getting. The other side of both books is Nemesis of Circle A by Reese Sullivan, which I have not read.

More, more, more Forgotten Books at Sweet Freedom.

What the Surgeon General DOESN'T want you to know!!

Here's proof: Cigarettes make food taste better . . . 

. . . help you shoot straighter . . .

. . . make you a rodeo star . . . 

. . . and help you "Bring 'em back alive!" 

Smoke a pack today!

BOXING NOIR: Eric Beetner's "Split Decision"

Okay, I’m hooked on this Fight Card series. I reviewed Paul Bishop’s lead-off entry, Felony Fists, a while back (that’s HERE) and knew it wouldn't be long before I returned for more. And here I am, psyched again after finishing Eric Beetner’s first contribution.

Split Decision introduces Jimmy Wyler, a middleweight with a ten and ten record, just managing to hold his own in the second-class fight circuit of Kansas City. He’s not a great fighter, and he knows it, but he’s managed to fight clean in a town where a good half of the bouts are fixed. But when a dirty promoter offers him $500 to win in a particular round, Jimmy can’t resist. A win is a win, right? And the dough will put an engagement ring on the finger of his best gal Lola.

But right away, Jimmy has regrets. The dirty money will put an end to his career as a legitimate fighter, and cost him what’s left of his self-respect. He wants out of the deal, but learns there's no going back. And once that first fix is history, things get much, much worse. Jimmy finds himself caught between rival gangsters - one who insists he win his next fight, and one who demands he lose. No matter what happens, Jimmy Wyler is screwed.

Split Decision is a nail-biter as Jimmy struggles with his dilemma, and delivers plenty of fireworks when he steps into the ring.

Eric Beetner (aka Jack Tunney) gives us a believable hero and a cast of well-rounded supporting characters: Lola, the gal who’s smarter than she seems; Sal, the well-meaning manager who’s reached the end of his rope; and the opposing gangster/promoters - one venal and one merely greedy.

Best of all, this ain’t the end of the road for Jimmy Wyler. He returns (with a fistful of new problems, no doubt) in A Mouth Full of Blood. The books are available in both Kindle and print editions. Check 'em out!

Overlooked Films: Gene Autry in "Man from Music Mountain" (1938)

If you’re looking for the quintessential Gene Autry movie, you might as well look at Man from Music Mountain. It’s absolutely everything an Autry movie should be, and nothing more.

Here’s the lowdown. The film takes place in the Old West of 1936, just after Boulder Dam (now known, due to strange and devious circumstances, as Hoover Dam) went into operation. While normal folks are riding around in automobiles and talking on telephones and using new-fangled conveniences like refrigerators, Gene and his posse still pack six-guns, ride horses and dress like B-movie cowpunchers.

When we first see Gene and the gang, they’re just riding along singing a song in their typical carefree cowboy way. In this benign and relatively non-violent West, there are no bloodthirsty outlaws or hardbitten gunslingers. The bad guys are unscrupulous businessmen out to defraud good honest men and women (and even children), out of their life savings. This time, the villains are selling real estate in a ghost town, promising buyers that power will soon be coming from the dam. That, of course, is a lie - until Gene jumps on Champion, rides to the rescue and (SPOILER ALERT) makes it a reality.

Gene does a lot of singing, of course, and applies his overaged Boy Scout charm to catching the eye of a pretty young land fraud victim. Smiley Burnette does a lot of singing, too, and engaging in good-natured tomfoolery, and flirting with a blonde who wouldn’t look at him twice if he wasn’t a movie star.

It’s all good clean fun, it goes down painlessly, and is quickly over, with everyone getting their just deserts - except maybe that pretty young fraud victim. Apparently she didn’t go the movies much, or she’d have known Gene would soon be riding off into the next sunset to sing sweet songs to other wholesome gals and rescue other god-fearing folk from other dirty scoundrels.

But hey, it wasn’t Gene’s fault. He had a movie contract to fulfill, and a lot more quintessential Autry movies to make.

ODD NOTE: Five years later, in 1943, the same director (Joseph Kane) made another film for the same studio (Republic) with the same title (see above), but starring Roy Rogers instead of Gene. A remake? So you’d think. But this one had an entirely different plot (though it did have a dam in it).

More Overlooked Films at SWEET FREEDOM.

THE SPIDER: Pulp to Paperback - The City Destroyer

1935

1975