His Brother's Ghost (1945)
Description
Thorne and his gang are wiping out the ranchers. When they get to the Jones ranch they wound Andy. When he dies Billy Carson has his brother Fuzzy become Andy's ghost. They then set out to bring in the gang.
This is a Classic of all Classic early Westerns with great stars as Buster Crabbe, (Billy Carson), Al St. John,(Fuzzy Jones) and the bad bad guy who always wore a big black hat, Charles King,(Thorne) In this film Thorne is a bandit, con-man who wants to take over all the ranchers property and decides to either scare them off their land or just plain murder them all. Thorne has the doctor, sheriff and other officials in the Western town all wrapped around his little finger and is going to take Fuzzy Jones property, when Billy Carson comes to the aid of his old friend and decides to put an end to this murdering and stealing peoples ranches. There are no cowgirls in this picture at all and no singing cowboys. Charlie King made over two-hundred (200) Western Films and did a great job of standing up to Buster Crabbe. When television was appearing in most households in the 1950's all these Classic Western's could be seen on a daily basis until people got sick and tired of them. Enjoy
Released in 1945 - His Brother's Ghost is just one of many, many Hollywood B-Westerns that turned me, as a youngster, into a devoted Cowboy-Junkie as I sat for hours in front of the TV set completely fascinated and entertained by these low-budget, rip-roarin' tales of the Old West.
With its simple, straight-forward story that pitted the good guys against the bad guys, His Brother's Ghost also contained elements of comedy which certainly helped to move this gun-happy tale along at a light-hearted pace.
Starring ex-Flash Gordon dude, Buster Crabbe (as good guy, Billy Carson), His Brother's Ghost tells the story of a crooked gang of ruthless marauders who are terrorizing the region by systematically murdering landowners and then taking possession of their ranches and farms.
When these cut-throat bandits kill Andy Jones (Fuzzy's brother), Billy Carson decides to enlist Fuzzy as the ghost of his brother in order to frighten these easily-scared bad guys off.
With this plan set into motion, Billy hopes to expose the gang-leader's identity, and thus bring peace to the valley and restore the stolen property to the rightful owners.
Filmed in b&w, His Brother's Ghost had a very brief running time of only 52 minutes.
This poverty-row picture was directed by Sam Newfield who, throughout the 1930s & 40s, literally turned out hundreds of similar, fast-paced B-Westerns with such titles as Stagecoach Outlaws, Prairie Badmen and Thundering Gunslingers.