THE CISCO KID: THE BLACK KERCHIEF (OCTOBER 5, 1954)

Laghing. "Oh Pancho."  "Oh Cisco"  More laughing.  And away they'd gallop...

The Cisco Kid was the creation of short story writer O. Henry, whose one tale of the character was 'The Cabellero's Way" (Everybody's Magazine, July 1907; and included in O. Henry's collection of the same year The Heart of the West).  In the original story, the Kid is a murderous criminal who tricks a Texas Ranger into killing his girlfriend.

The story was first filmed in 1914; Stanley Herbert Dunn perhaps (there is no true documentation)played the leading role  Five years later, a second Cisco Kid movie was filmed, The Border Terror, featuring Vester Pegg.  The Cisco Kid then had to wait for sound to come to the movies, and In Old Arizona was released in 1928, featuring Warner Baxter as The Cisco Kid -- a role that won him the second ever Best Actor Oscar; Raoul Walsh was slated to lay the role, but a freak accident with a rabbit coming through his windshield cost him his eye )!).  The film was also notable because now The Cisco Kid was a good guy.  Three other movies followed.

Then in 1939, the film series began and Baxter was brought back in the title role in The Return of the Cisco Kid; Caesar Romero played one of the Kid's sidekicks, Lopez, and Cris-Pen Martin played the other, Gordito.  The second film in the series, The Cisco Kid and the Lady, brought Romero up to play the lead while Martin continued as Gordito the sidekick.  Romero and Martin rode through five more movies before World War II interrupted the series.  Monogram Pictures revived the series in 1945 with Duncan Renaldo as the Kid and with Martin Garralaga as a new sidekick, Pancho.  After three films, Gilbert Roland took over the lead for six pictures before Renaldo returned, this time with Leo Carrillo as Pancho for 1948's The Valiant Hombre.  Renaldo and Carrillo made four more features before riding out of the movies and into the television show for 156 episodes (1950-1956).  In the final film, Renaldo wore the flowery "Charro" suit that would follow him into the television series.

There was a made for TV movie in 1994, The Cisco Kid, featuring Jimmy Smits as Cisco and Cheeh Marin as Pancho.  The less said about that the better.

The Cisco Kid hit the radio airwaves on October 2, 1942, with Jackson Beck as Cisco and Louis 
Sorin as Pancho.  The weekly show continued until February 14, 1945 on the Mutual Network.  The Cisco Kid returned on a Mutual-Don Lee regional network in 1946, and continued for more than 600 episodes from 1947 through 1956 with Jack Mather as Cisco; Harry E. Lang played Pancho until the actor's death in 1953, with Mel Blanc then taking over the role until the series' end.

In "The Black Kerchief," Cisco thwarts a ruthless gang of train robbers.

Enjoy this show and enjoy the Independence Day holiday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny5WE7Nypg0&t=23s

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MURDERLIZED

"Murderlised" by Max Allan Collins & Mathew V. Clemens  (first published in Hollywood and Crime:  Original Crime Stories Set in the History of Hollywood, edited by Robert J. Randisi, 2007; reprinted in the Collins and Clemens collection Murderlized, 2020)

Basically a Nate Heller story without Nate Heller.

Max Allan Collins is known for many things, of the least of which is his talent for taking finely researched historical and spinning a unique detective twist on them.  In the past, Nathan Heller has investigated the Lindbergh kidnapping, the attempted assassination of Mayor Huey Long, the Harry Oakes murder, the Black Dahlia case, the death of Marilyn Monroe, and the Kennedy killings (both Bobby and Jack), among others.  Now Collins and frequent writing partner Matt Clemens look into the death of entertainer Ted Healy.

And who needs Nate Heller when you have Moe Howard of The Three Stooges fame?

Once upon a time Healy was Charles Ernest Lee Nash, a struggling vaudevillian, as were Moses and Samuel Horovitz, who eventually became Moe and Shemp Howard.  The Howards' break came when Healy invited the pair on stage during his act to become his "stooges."  Over time, the Stooges caught on, adding younger brother Jerome ("Curly").   Healy was a drunk, mean-spirited, tight-fisted s.o.b. who he maintained control of the Stooges during the early days.  When the Stooges would be getting a hundred dollars a week, Healy would be pocketing a thousand.  Eventually, they parted ways, acrimoniously.  Shemp went on to other things and was replaced by Larry Fine (originally Feinberg).  Although the Stooges had a lot of resentment toward Ted Healy, Moe always felt a feeling of friendship toward the man who had ignited their careers.  Moe still loved the lousy son of a bitch.

And then Ted Healey died.   The newspaper report that evening indicated that he had been beaten in a brawl.  All news reports the next day hushed that up, reporting Healy had died of "acute toxic nephritis," a clear sign that one of MGM's "fixers" had been at work -- changing the narrative so no scandal would fall on the studio or its stars.  Moe needed to find out what had really happened.  He felt he owed his frenemy that at least.

Eventually he discovered that Healey was drunk at a bar and got into an argument with three people.  Healy insisted they take out to the street where he would take the three on one at a time.  There was no doubt that Healy was the one who started the fracas.  Outside the bar, however, all three attacked Healy at the same time, beating him mercilessly.  (For those who did not buy acute toxic nephritis story, the studio's fixer came up with the story that the three who attacked Healy were random college students.) In reality, one of the three was Wallace Beery, reputed to be a pretty nasty brawler himself; Beery suddenly found himself in Europe, his latest film role being taken over by Lionel Barrymore.  A second man was the cousin of a powerful hoodlum; he suddenly pulled up stakes and went to Mexico.  The third was a New Jersey kid who wanted to get into show business named Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who would eventually become the producer responsible for the James Bond films. Broccoli held back on the beating but the other two didn't.  But the beating did not kill Healey.  He eventually got up and walked away -- although when he walked away it was to the home of an old acquaintance, professional wrestler turned actor Man Mountain Dean.  Healy tried to convince Dean and another man to go back and pummel the trio who had beaten him.  Dean refused and Healy went on his way...to his death.

But how did Healy actually die and who was responsible?

An intriguing story about a Hollywood that existed behind the facade -- one that also shows Moe Howard in a positive light, far different from his on-stage persona.

Is it worth checking out?  You bet it is.

And here's a bit of serendipity:  In a post last night on J. Kingston Pierce's indispensable blog The Rap Sheet, Randal S. Brandt writes about "The Mystery of Dana Wilson":

http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-mystery-of-dana-wilson.html

Check it out.  

(Also note that the Collins/Clemens collection Murderlized is included in The Max Allan Collins Collection, Volume 2:  John Sand [2023], which includes the three John Sand novels and a John Sand short story.  The spy-guy Sand character is an homage to James Bond..  The universe works in mysterious ways.)

OVERLOOKED OATER: SNAKE RIVER DESPERADOES (1951)

 From 1940 to 1952, Charles Starrett made 64 B-movie westerns about the Durango Kid.

This is one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2wNv6sxW94