a5c7b9f00b A lawman stages a prison break so a gang of imprisoned robbers will lead him to their hidden loot.
The Link Daggett gang is sent to prison for the robbery of the Piedmont County Bank, but the bank's money is not recovered, and the ranchers face ruin. Billy Carson, a friend of the ranchers, conceives a plan to recover the money. Daggett and his gang are allowed to escape, and Billy and his pal Fuzzy Jones trail them to the Wild Horse Mine. Daggett is angered and puzzled to find that the money is not where he left it in the mine. Then, a mysterious voice drives Daggett and his gang from the mine. Billy learns that the mine belongs to Ed Garnet, an old miner who fanatically believes it contains fabulous riches. Billy's meeting with Garnet's daughter, Marian, leads him to Walters, the banker who refuses to allow the ranchers more time on their mortgage notes. (The film is set in the 1880s but the PRC stock-footage, used for the prison escape, contains 1940's automobiles, search lights and weapons.)
"Wild Horse Phantom" is the only film in this series of "Billy Carson" westerns that is set in the modern (1940's) West. Or is for a short time only. It opens with PRC stock shots of a prison break, with searchlights, tommy-guns, electric light fixtures in the Warden's office and a getaway car for the five escaping convicts. Once the convicts trade the car for horses, it all back to the 1880-90's West the rest of the series is set in.<br/><br/>This one has Billy Carson (Buster Crabbe),following instructions from the Governor, and the Prison Warden (John Elliott) watching over a planned-by-them prison break by a convict, Link Daggett (Kermit Maynard) and his gang members, Kallen (Frank Ellis), Moffett (Frank McCarroll) and Lucas (Bob Cason), and they also force a young convict with only a short time to serve, Tom Hanlon (Robert Meredith), to go along with them. The only reason for the fifth man seems to be just to give Daggett a chance to show how bad he is by shooting him in the back when he rides off to return to prison. But the kid lives long enough to crawl to a cabin and, there, finds Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John), and dies in his arms. Fuzzy, in addition to being Billy's sidekick, is also Hanlon's cousin, and this gives Fuzzy, besides stretching coincidence to the max, a chance to enact a dramatic scene.<br/><br/>Anyhow, it seems that Daggett and his gang robbed a bank of $100,000 and were caught and sent to prison, but the money wasn't recovered. This bank also was not a member of the FDIC, and now all the ranchers around Piedpont face eviction and loss of their mortgaged property by the banker whose bank was robbed, and they could have covered these notes and mortgages if this uninsured bank had not been robbed and they all lost their savings and seed-milk-and-egg money in the robbery. And the banker (Hal Price) wants his money or their property.<br/><br/>So, the gang is allowed to break prison( via 1940's stock footage) and Billy is going to follow them and recover the stolen money.<br/><br/>This 'un has way too much plot. That's what happens when the two writers, George W. Sayre and Milt Raison, share just one billing credit as George Milton. Complications arise when the gang heads for the "Wild Horse" mine, where the loot was hidden in a tunnel wall, and the loot is no longer there. But this mine has lots of tunnels, so Link decides he forgot just which tunnel he hid it in. But it turns out he had the right tunnel, but the rancher who lives around the corner and up the hill, Ed Garnet (Budd Buster), has been poking around the mine and has a finders-keepers attitude regarding the money he found hidden there.<br/><br/>Billy and Fuzzy come along, get captured, escape, get captured again, escape again and there is a series of in-and-out of the tunnels Keystone Kop chases, or as close as one can get when there are only two tunnels involved and the camera has to be moved from one side or the other to give the impression of more tunnels. Plus, one of the fake bats-on-a-wire from PRC's "Devil Bat" feature gets a cameo, and Fuzzy gets to play scared-for-laughs some.<br/><br/>This one is watched only when the viewer doesn't have a B-western from Republic, Universal, Columbia, Monogram, Victory, Reliable, or Normandy to watch. Viewed in that context, it's okay.
Crabbe may get top billing, but the star is goofy St. John. I doubt any comic relief in Westerns gets more screen time than the toothless clown in this oddity. It's like they don't have enough 60-minutes of script, so his antics have to fill the bill. The plot's a standard one-- our hero has to get stolen money before the ruthless banker forecloses on area ranchers. What makes this oater different is that most of the action takes place in a darkened mine tunnel where the money's hidden. The pit's also inhabited by a big flying bat and crazy laughter. Too bad these weren't played up more, which would have really distinguished this bottom row production (PRC). As it stands, Crabbe's broad-shouldered, St. John's fitfully funny, and the 60-minutes mostly amounts to a silly oddity.