Mon 5 Jan 2009
Movie Reviews: Two B-Westerns, one with IRIS MEREDITH.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[4] Comments
YOUNG BUFFALO BILL. Republic, 1940. Roy Rogers, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Pauline Moore, Hugh Sothern, Trevor Bardette, Steve Pendleton, Wade Boteler. Director: Joseph Kane.
THE KID RIDES AGAIN. PRC, 1943. Buster Crabbe, Al “Fuzzy” St. John, Iris Meredith, I. Stanford Jolley, Glenn Strange, Charles King.
Here are a couple of B-westerns that play fast and loose with history, and if you can’t trust B-westerns, who can you trust? In the first of these two films, Roy Rogers plays Buffalo Bill Cody as a young scout who comes to the aid of an aged Spanish don with a ranch outside of Sante Fe. A crooked surveyor is trying to cheat him out of his land.
In the second, Buster Crabbe adds another entry to a long list of movies in which he played Billy the Kid. In this particular alternative universe, Billy is a misunderstood gunfighter who’s really good if people would only leave him alone. This time around he helps a bank owner withstand a run on his bank after thieves have robbed it.
In both cases there are young girls involved who catch both heroes’ eyes. Pauline Moore plays the Don Regas’s granddaughter to whom Roy is immediately attracted; and Iris Meredith is Joan Ainsley, the daughter of the banker in The Kid Rides Again.
Another point of similarity between the two movies is that both Bill Cody and William Bonney have goofy sidekicks. Roy has Gabby Hayes, who resents (often) being called an old goat and is called Gabby for good reason; and Buster Crabbe has Fuzzy St. John, the skinny old galoot prone to scratching his addled head and sidesplitting pratfalls. (Well, I thought they were funny.)
Neither plot line needs an in-depth analysis. The production values in Roy�s movie are the greater ones, but if you’re not a fan of singing cowboys, you already know to avoid his films. Roy’s probably also a better actor (earnest and young) than Buster Crabbe, but the Billy the Kid movie has something that Bill Cody doesn’t, and that’s Iris Meredith.
What a beautiful woman! I’m comparatively new to the world of the serials of the 1930s and 40s, so I’ve not seen her in her most famous roles, those being The Spider’s Web (1938), Overland with Kit Carson (1939) and The Green Archer (1940), not to mention dozens of westerns like this one, which as it turns out, was also her last.
Looking down the list of movies she was in (on IMDB), she deserved better roles than she ever received. If she had a major part in an “A” film, I don’t see it.
I’ve found two photos to show you, but neither one comes from The Kid Rides Again. The first one (above) shows how she looked as Nita Van Sloan in the pulp hero serial, The Spider’s Web. In the second one (seen to the right), she’s standing between Charles Starrett and Bob Nolan in Spoilers of the Range, Columbia, 1939.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:21 am
I’ve always liked Al Fuzzy St. John and I find him funny also. I’m also with you on Iris Meredith. Another beauty I never get tired of watching is Linda Stirling. She worked for Republic and was in many westerns but her best role was the serial Tiger Woman. I’ve always enjoyed B westerns and along with serials I think they are just about the closest thing to the pulps as you can get.
I’m not a fan of the singing cowboy but the films themselves are short, fast, and full of action. Usually there is a pretty girl, a whacky sidekick, and a nice horse.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
As it so happens, I have a DVD of Tiger Woman already in the queue to be watched. Maybe I’ll move it up a notch or two.
In the meantime, I have all of Iris Meredith’s serials on order. I can no longer watch a movie without finding at least six more that I need to see next.
— Steve
January 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Iris Meredith has been a favorite of mine for nearly 40 years now. She’s not the greatest actress in the world — although she wasn’t exactly given challenging roles or directorial guidance in Westerns and serials — but her beautiful face and distinctive voice still exert a vaguely hypnotic influence on male viewers, as Steve is now learning.
Unfortunately, like so many who toiled in “B” movies, she didn’t get the breaks she deserved. As a Columbia contract player, she worked long hours on cheap pictures and was forever being promised better opportunities that never seemed to materialize. Iris lost both parents before she started working in Hollywood (while still a teenager) and supported a younger brother. She retired from the screen in 1943 after getting married; I think that Buster Crabbe Western was her last film.
In the late ’60s or early ’70s she developed a particularly virulent form of cancer that
necessitated the removal of half her jaw and part of her tongue, disfiguring that once-beautiful face. She showed unusual grace and courage, in my view, by accepting an invitation to appear at a 1975 convention of Western movie fans in Nashville. Fortunately, her old fans — by now middle-aged men and women — showered her with affection during the convention, and she was moved to tears when an audience of several hundred gave her a standing ovation at the closing-night banquet.
Although she found speaking difficult — the loss of part of her tongue made it hard for her to articulate many words — Iris graciously granted me an interview. She recalled with fondness her stint as Charles Starrett’s regular leading lady (they made 20 Westerns together) and her appearance as Nita Van Sloan in THE SPIDER’S WEB. Curiously, when I mentioned her third and final serial, 1940’s THE GREEN ARCHER, Iris said, “I don’t like to discuss that film. Please don’t ask me about it.” I hastily changed the subject, but I’ve always wondered what happened on that set to make the shooting of GREEN ARCHER such an unpleasant memory for her.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
[…] Ed Hulse, editor and publisher of Blood ‘n’ Thunder magazine, read my review of a Buster Crabbe western in which his female co-star Iris Meredith caught my eye, he left the […]