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Cowboy Tex (Don Nagel) shoots a young man (Ed Wood) & robs his money, but
when he sees a rider approaching from afar, he hightails it to the little
crossroads-town of Laredo, as to not get blamed for the murder. In Laredo, Tex
visits the saloon, &, always the ladies' man, has some fun with the girls
...
Lem (Duke Moore), the man whom Tex has seen approaching also comes to
Laredo, & he gets mighty suspicious about Tex, however he is sidetracked by
lovely Barbara (Ruth McCabe), whom he has long laid an eye on, & leaves Tex
be for the time being ...
However, Tex is also attracted to Barbara, & soon he has her smoothed up
for him & impregnates her, even marries her ...
One year has gone by. Tex has lost all interest in Barbara, let alone his
offspring, & he regularly beats her up & cheats on her with the saloon
girls. Lem stops by Laredo, & finds Barbara heartbroken. To restore her
honour, Lem challenges Tex to a duel ... & shoots him in the process, fair
& square - but the saloon girls, who have lost their best customer in tex,
think Lem to be a ruthless killer, & to avoid trouble, Lem hightails it ...
For Tex' funeral though, Lem returns to Laredo ... & immediately a lynch
mob forms & makes him the center piece of a necktie party ... until - Lem's
neck already in the noose - Barbara shows up & tells everybody that her
hubby really was the no-good killer Lem claimed him to be. The sheriff lifts
the noose from Lem's neck & Lem can look into a brighter future - together
with Barbara.
Crossroads of Laredo was Ed Wood's first - never completed - short
film ... the film was shot silent, & nobody ever seemed to come up with
enough money to finance the dubbing, until in 1995 (!) co-producer John
Crawford Thomas decided to add a soundtrack with a narrator & a few songs
written by Don Weisman & Dolores Fuller (who after her short & flawed
acting career with Ed Wood became a successful songwriter, working in New
York's Brill Building & writing, among others, some hits for Elvis Presley
himself).
However, the made up soundtrack did not do the movie (& certainly not Ed
Wood's vision) justice, so it's hard to pas judgement on the filkm.
The movie itself is actually made in the spirit of the (dirt-cheap)
B-Western, of which so many were churned out during the 30's & 40's. A few
takes look awfully flawed (like the shoot-out between Tex & the young
cowboy, where one of the horses repeatedls steps into the line of fire), but
then again, this was also rather common with cheap B's where re-takes would be
considered frivolous in all but the worst cases.
Could it have been any success in that respect if it was actually finished ?
Probably not, since both the B-Western & the short film were in decline in
the late 40's, & this movie had nothing to offer tht hasn't been shown in
so many other B's (& often better, too).
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