Charles "Slim" Whitaker Movies

Eddie Dean and sidekick Roscoe Ates come to the aid of a young rancher in this low-budget singing Western from PRC. Discovering that Hadley (Steve Clark) hides a gold-encrusted cave on his property, villainous saloon owner Kirby (Terry Frost) kills the elderly rancher and seals the cave. But when he tries to force the Hadley heirs, Larry (Steve Drake) and Janet (Shirley Patterson), off their property, Kirby comes up against the forceful new Hadley foreman, Eddie Dean. The latter takes time out to warble his own and Dean Hal Blair's "Black Hills" and "Let's Go Sparkin'," while the Plainsmen and Ates take care of Pete Gates' comical "Punchinello." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this low-budget Western from PRC, Marshal Cheyenne (Al "Lash" LaRue) and his sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) are looking into the strange goings-on in the town of Buffalo Gap. A ranger (Bob Woodward) has been killed and the trail leads to a gang headed by Bill Judd (Jack Ingram). There is yet another killing, young Al Walters (Steve Drake) is brutally shot by Judd after calling gambler Grayson (Terry Frost) a cheat. But the sheriff (Henry Hall) seems remarkably hesitant to arrest the culprit and may be taking his orders from a mystery boss, who operates out of a shack in the wilderness. Teaming up with Al's pretty sister, Betty and her Uncle Bob (William Fawcett), Cheyenne and Fuzzy go in search of the mystery villain, whose identity may come as a surprise to anyone who has never seen a Grade-Z movie before. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The most unlikely cowboy hero of them all, whip-wielding, black-garbed "Lash" La Rue made his starring debut in this moderately entertaining B-Western from low-budget PRC. "Lash" La Rue plays the Cheyenne Kid, a prospector saving pretty shopkeeper Jane Hilton (former Fox starlet Mary Scott) from being harrassed by uncouth stage robber Lefty (Lee Roberts in a fine multi-layered performance). The latter follows Jane and her father (John Elliott) on an errand to Cheyenne's camp but is disarmed by the black-clad stranger's whip. Going slowly "loco" from being cooped up in a cabin for days with Cheyenne's uncommunicative sidekick Fuzzy (Al St. John) and the incessant ticking of a clock as sole company, Lefty is finally released by a seemingly magnanimous Cheyenne. Naturally, the henchman leads Cheyenne and Fuzzy straight to his boss, Decker (Jack O'Shea). In the climactic shootout, Cheyenne not only reveals himself to be a U.S. marshal in disguise, but that "Decker" is in reality the notorious wanted criminal "Dude" Bracken. Slightly better than its rather tawdry reputation, the La Rue Cheyenne Kid series was ostensibly launched because a jaded post-war audience liked the idea of a cowboy hero resembling Humphrey Bogart rather than Gene Autry. An equally valid reason for the series' modest success, however, was the enduring appeal of St. John's Fuzzy Q. Jones character, a hold-over from PRC's late Buster Crabbe/Billy the Kid Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Larry "Buster" Crabbe was billed "King of the Wild West" in this the final entry in PRC's ultra low-budget "Billy Carson" series. This time, Carson and sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) prevent a stage holdup, a crime organized by crooked land agent Vic Landreau (Jack O'Shea) in the mistaken belief that the coach was carrying cash earmarked for Devil's Gap rancher Jeff Barkley (Charles "Slim" Whitaker) to pay off the mortgage on his land. The plan thus having failed, Landreau has his henchman Hank Fowler (John L. Cason) frame Fuzzy in the murder of Barkley. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Serial killers are on the loose in this "Lone Rider" entry from PRC reportedly based on the exploits of a real-life 1870s roadhouse operator. A couple of crooks, Ben Gowdey (Ray Bennett) and Grogan (I. Stanford Jolley) have repeatedly sold the Circle C Ranch to unsuspecting buyers, whom they summarily rob and kill before signing the papers. Enter Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John), whose cousin Luke was one of the unlucky would-be ranchers, and Rocky Cameron, alias "The Lone Rider," who goes undercover as a fellow outlaw to catch the murderers. In other words: the usual. Busy B-Western heroine Joan Barclay was for unknown reasons billed Nica Doret for this film only. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Buster Crabbe essays a dual role in the PRC horse opera The Drifter. Crabbe is seen in his usual guise as dogooder Billy Carson (aka Billy the Kid) and as bank robber Drifter Davis. When Drifter commits a series of holdups, Billy is held responsible-and small wonder, since Drifter has been going around pretending to be Billy. Even Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John), the hero's sidekick, is fooled by Drifter, though not for long. All expenses were spared in bringing The Drifter to the screen, though Buster Crabbe and Al St. John are their usual talented selves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With his performance in the offbeat sagebrusher The Laramie Trail, Bob Livingston makes his final appearance in a Republic western. When first we meet Livingston, he appears to be an ingenuous dude, unwise to the harsh ways of the West. He proves to have more grit than expected when he rescues innocent cowboy John James from a murder rap. The film's overall brooding atmosphere seems more attuned to a Raymond Chandler detective story than a B western. Even Livingston's sidekick Smiley Burnette curbs his comic impulses. Laramie Trail was adapted from Jackson Gregory's story Mystery at Spanish Hacienda. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Old Oklahoma is better known today by its reissue title, War of the Wildcats. John Wayne heads the cast as oil man Dan Somers, who carries on a bitter feud with his crooked rival Hunk Gardner (Albert Dekker). Furthering the animosity between the two men is schoolteacher-turned-novelist Catherine Allen (Martha Scott), with whom both Dan and Hunk fall in love. The main story and the romantic second story both come to a head when Dan is offered a valuable contract if he can deliver an oil shipment within a specific deadline. Naturally, Hunk does everything he can to keep Dan from fulfilling his contract, resulting in a thrill-packed chase sequence that served as stock footage for many a future Republic western and serial. A pre-Roy Rogers Dale Evans costars as sexy dancehall chanteuse "Cuddles" Walker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Roy Rogers musical western gets off to a grim start when rancher Jerry Johnson (Jerome Cowan) is murdered by resort-hotel operator Lucky Miller (John Carradine). It's all part of Lucky's scheme to take financial advantage of a railroad right-of-way construction project. Conspiring with the villain is Johnson's mail-order bride Mary Hardigan (Phyllis Brooks)-or is she? No matter: the main plot complication concerns the efforts by Miller to frame Roy Rogers, Johnson's ranch foreman, for the murder. Somehow, Roy, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers find time for several songs, while ace stuntman Yakima Canutt gets to perform one of his more famous feats. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, two cowboys ride to the rescue of ranchers who are fighting to keep a land-grabber from taking their land and selling it to the railroad. Things look bleak for a while, but fortunately, one of the heroes is related to the vice--president of the railroad and is able to straighten the whole mess out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Bland former child actor Johnny Downs earns top billing in this low-budget horror film, but the real star is that most psychotic of all the mad doctors George Zucco. The British-born character actor plays Dr. Lorenzo Cameron, a discredited -- and quite mad -- medico who has discovered a way to turn his helper, Pietro (Glenn Strange), into a wolf man. The lycanthropic experiments succeed only too well and although Dr. Cameron spouts plans of turning his discovery into a weapon in defense of the civilized world ("men who are governed by one collective thought, the animal lust to kill without regard for personal safety! Such an army will sweep everything before it," Dr. Cameron promises), he instead unleashes his creation on those fellow scientists who had engineered his ouster from academia in the first place. Before long, however, the good doctor is unable to control the wolf man, who threatens to kill everything in his past, and only newspaper reporter Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs) and Lenora (Anne Nagel), Cameron's innocent daughter, may be able to stop the monster. A perennial cult favorite, The Mad Monster was released on the heels of The Wolf Man (1941), but cost a fraction of Universal's elaborate lycanthropic exercise. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Jack Greenhalgh's murky photography did not enhance this low-budget "Billy the Kid" series entry, in which a falsely accused Billy (Larry "Buster" Crabbe and his sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) flee to the ghost town of Laramy. Said town is lorded over by one Dalton Sykes (John Merton), a former lawman who killed rancher Frank Kinkaid for his gold claim. Going by the name of Bill Andrews, the Kid rescues Kinkaid's grown children, Martha (Caroline Burke) and Johnny (Dave O'Brien), from Sykes' henchmen. Fuzzy, meanwhile, plays the murdered man's violin, scaring the living daylights out of the henchmen, who believe that Kinkaid's ghost has returned to haunt them. Broken in the ensuing fracas, the violin reveals a hidden map to the Kinkaid gold mine. Sykes, who has gained Martha's confidence, attempts to get to the mine ahead of the competition but is stopped by Billy and the local marshal (Ted Adams). Martha and Johnny take over their father's ranch and mine, and with Sykes' reign of terror having come to a close, the citizenry returns to a peaceful Laramy. Busy PRC director Sam Newfield helmed this minor Western opus under his pseudonym, Sherman Scott.The film was reissued in 1948 under the title Panhandle Trail. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide