Sick Product of a Sick System

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

There is so much to enjoy in "Lucky Terror," but Charles King as a drunken, and funny, lawyer is enough to make this a near-classic B Western.It had been years since I saw Hoot Gibson, and didn't remember that he is not only a good cowboy, he is an actor.Hoot never was, as I understand, a classic battling-hero cowboy. He didn't even carry a gun -- at least not in a holster like everyone else.But as "Lucky" Carson, known as "Lucky Terror," Hoot plays an amiable wanderer who stumbles onto a death, some bad guys trying to steal a mine, and a medicine show, with a lovely girl, who has the legal and moral right to the mine, and the "doctor" who runs the show, plus the ethnic musician, played so beautifully by Frank Yaconelli.That "doctor" is magnificently played by Charles Hill, who had a lot of over-educated dialog and a flamboyant role (think John Barrymore) that he pulled off perfectly.Yaconelli usually played a Mexican but this time is an Italian, named, according to the listing here at IMDb, "Giribaldi," but it did sound like "Garibaldi" when the medicine show MC introduced him."Lucky Terror" is just crowded by really great cowboy movie stars, including Jack Rockwell, George Cheesbro, and Robert McKenzie, who is very reminiscent of the much-better-known Andy Devine.Also present and, as usual, uncredited is the always memorable Hank Bell, of the great mustache. Also uncredited are Art Mix and Hal Taliaferro, to name just two.There's a lot of story here, well presented by writer and director Alan James, of whom I know nothing. He was co-writer of the screenplay which was based on a story written by his screenplay co-writer Roger Allman, of whom also I know nothing. But this work tells me they both should be very well known.Director James does magnificent work with his angles and moving camera.Hoot gets to perform some trick riding, which is part of what made him a star in the first place. Exciting to watch.But Charles King, one of the most villainous villains in B Western movie history, is absolutely a wonder as the whiskey-soaked lawyer. You must see "Lucky Terror" just to see Charles King in this role.I highly recommend "Lucky Terror," which is available in a passable print at YouTube. Wonderful fun.

Hoot Gibson is a name few would recognize today. Back in the 1930s, he was one of many B-movie cowboys and by 1936 he was towards the latter part of his career and was making flicks for lower status studios. In this case, it's Diversion Pictures--and it doesn't get a lot lower than that. However, fortunately, Gibson had a likable screen persona--such that it managed to make slightly sub-par material like "Lucky Terror" work just a bit better than it should have.The film begins with some guy being chased by a gang--but you and Hoot have no idea why. The man meets up with Hoot and 'borrows' Hoot's horse--but soon has an accident and falls to his death. Hoot goes to take a look and finds gold! In the next scene, Hoot joins up with a traveling medicine show--and his job is entertaining the boobs with his trick shooting. Soon, however, he learns that the dead man at the beginning of the film owned the mine and some baddies were trying to steal it. He also realized that the nice lady in the medicine show is his daughter. So, Hoot sticks around to make sure niceness prevails. Or, at least he sticks around until it looks as if the law is about to convict him of this murder--when he takes off to prove his innocence, help the lady get her claim and rounds up the baddies--with a lot of help, incidentally.At one point in the movie, one of the baddies says '...possession is 9/10 of the law...'. While I have heard this sort of stuff before, it is NOT true and possessing something when someone else owns the deed is clearly against the law. Obviously this guy was no lawyer!Overall, this is another amiable but slight Hoot Gibson film. It's not nearly among his best but is pretty typical of the quickies he was making at the time. Reasonably entertaining but nothing more.

Hoot Gibson is accosted by a man desperate to get away from a group of trigger-happy gunmen. Before he gets a chance to switch horses with Hoot, he falls from a cliff. Hoot then attempts to sort out the situation by joining a medicine show featuring the dead man's niece, learning that the he was a local miner pursued by thieves who want his sacks of gold.Lucky Terror is a typical Saturday matinée western, but it's pleasant enough entertainment, with a likable performance by Gibson, some decent rocky scenery, and a scene-stealing appearance by the usually villainous Charles King, who plays an incompetent, liquored up lawyer that has to be bailed out of jail in order to represent Hoot. Leading lady Lona Andre is quite attractive too.Action scenes are a little so-so, with Gibson's character not as rough and tumble this time around. He's a great shot though.

In addition to deserving the "western" moniker, this film has that plentiful 20s and 30s kind of humor which appeals to me. Hoot's role is as Lucky Carson, who, at the outset, gets involved in the chase of miner Jim Thornton by Bat Molton and his buddies, who seek the gold which Jim has in his saddlebags. As Jim is swapping a few things to look like Lucky, thereby increasing Jim's chance to elude his pursuers, Jim accidentally falls to his death. Lucky discovers - and hides - the dust, then meets up with a medicine show, which he joins in the capacity of "trick shot". Although the villains suspect it, Lucky denies knowledge of the booty; therefore, the bad guys suggest to the local sheriff that Lucky is responsible for Jim's demise, of which Lucky is acquitted. Lucky's lawyer and the lawman are quite hilarious. Also in the show is Jim's niece, Ann, who inherits the mine, and who, Lucky figures, is the rightful owner of the ore. While trying to get it to her, the gang butts in again, which provides the flick's finale. How prejudiced of me to - because of the film's age - refrain from grading it even higher.