Fighting with Kit Carson

USA 1933
produced by
Nat Levine for Mascot
directed by Colbert Clark, Armand Schaefer
starring Johnny Mack Brown, Betsy King Ross, Noah Beery, Noah Beery jr, Tully Marshall, Edmund Breese, Al Bridge, Edward Hearn, Lafe McKee, Jack Mower, Maston Williams, Lane Chandler, Iron Eyes Cody, Ernie Adams, Frank Ellis, William Farnum, Reed Howes, William McCall, Lew Meehan, DeWitt Jennings, Robert Warwick, Slim Whitaker
written by Jack Natteford, Barney Sarecky, Colbert Clark, Wyndham Gittens, script editor: Wyndham Gittens, music by Lee Zahler

serial

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Respectable citizen and head of a trading post Cyrus Kraft (Noah Beery sr), together with Reynolds (Al Bridge) and his Mystery Riders - a gang of masked outlaws on white horses who always sing their theme song (!) when they are riding the plains -, plans to hold up a wagontrain and steal a gouvernment gold shipment - but to have the perfect alibi, he has pacifist Indian chief Dark Eagle (Robert Warwick) killed so he can get the Indians on warpath and in the process blame the attack on the wagontrain on them. Kraft's plan almost works out, safe for the fact that Fargo (Edmund Breese) one of the guides of the wagontrain makes an escape with the gold to hide it in a safe place so it won't fall into the wrong hands ... Plus Kit Carson (Johnny Mack Brown), one of the scouts of the wagon train, could swear it wasn't the Indians who attacked it - especially since his friend, the young Indian chief Ankomas (Noah Beery jr) is so hell-bent to help him find the real culprit(s).

Soon enough, the Mystery Riders have captured Fargo and try to make him talk under torture, but to no avail, and even when they capture Fargo's daughter Joan (Betsy King Ross) - who poses as a boy - and threaten to torture her, Fargo won't talk - and Joan is saved by Kit and Nakomas soon enough anyhow ...

Then though Kraft ahs a fall-out with the Mystery Riders when he kills two of them, and soon enough they capture him and throw him into a cell with Fargo - who still thinks Kraft's a honourable man ... in fact so much so that he tells him the secret hiding place of the gold just before he's dying - poisoned incidently by Kraft himself. Only after Fargo's death is Kraft freed by Kit and Nakomas - who still think he's a honourable man as well ...

With his knowledge about the hiding place, Kraft soon hooks up with the Mystery Riders again ... but convinces them to kill Reynolds in order to get their hands on the gold. But even when Kraft sends the Mystery Riders to fetch the gold, he is smart enough not to accompany them in person, since Kit and Nakomas are in hot pursuit.

Eventually, Kit even manages to snatch the gold away from the Mystery Riders and take it back to the army ... but somehow, Kraft manages to still have him arrested for stealing the gold, while he himself offers the army to store the gold in his trading post, from where he can easily steal it via a secret passageway and send the soldiers set to escort the gold away with boxes full of scrap iron. Ultimately though, Kit can free himself witht he help of young Joan, overtake the soldiers and prove to them that they are only carrying scrap iron and then, with the help of the soldiers, the Mystery Riders can be rounded up ... and by now, Kit has a pretty good idea that Kraft is indeed the leader of the Mystery Riders, but when he faces him in the trading post, Kraft can once more escape. It is only when Kit and the soldiers dress up as Mystery Riders and follow him to his secret headquarters that they get close enough to him and even make him confess ... but when Kraft realizes he is cornered, he blows up his headquarters and kills himself.

Typical Mascot serial that has all the usual ingredients one would come to expect from a good Mascot serial: an over-convoluted plot that is outbalanced by tight pacing, plenty of exciting action and stunrs, and a story sontaining pulp mainstays like masked villains (this time they even sing a song), doublecrossers doublecrossing each other, and of course the obligatory secret passageway. And like all good Mascot serials this one is easy to enjoy, provided you can forgive the occasional budgetary and narrative shortcomings and don't expect Jean-Paul Sartre ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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