That’s right, cartooners!
We’re back!
OUR STORY SO FAR: Jim and
his Riders are trapped in the “Lost Aztec” mine by Wolf and his men, without
food, water or horses.
Jim discovers a back
entrance, through which he sees and whistles to his horse, and rides for help.
Wolf, Butch and two
others give chase and open fire. Jim
slumps in his saddle, and his frightened horse races for the nearby sand dunes
and into a blinding sandstorm.
Wolf and his followers
watch as Jim is blotted out by the whirling sand and…
Okay, I know it’s been mid-August since I’ve done an
installment of Serial Saturdays…but it hasn’t been that long to the point where we’ve forgotten that Wolf (Charles
Bickford) had only one follower watching
Jim (Dick Foran) being blotted out, and that’s faithful toady Butch (Lon
Chaney, Jr.). Butch is so devoted to the
Wolf Man (see what I did a second time?) that I bet if you looked on the
underside of his saddle you’d find “Mrs. Butch Reade” written multiple times.
And what of Jim, who’s been left to die in a sandstorm while
his useless horse Smoke stands around, waiting for a sugar cube?
Seriously…this nag is as useless as tits on a
bull.
(I’ll bet Trigger or Champion
would have dragged his ass out of there by now.)
As you can see, though—Jim is okay and he’s walking it
off.
(Yeah, rub some sand on it, too,
big guy.)
In the meantime, Wolf and
Butch have ridden back to join the rest of the Reade gang, who are still
exchanging gunfire with Benton’s Death Valley Riders, stationed at the entrance
of the Lost Aztec Mine.
DAVIS: Did you get Benton?
WOLF: No…he rode into a sandstorm…I
think he’s a goner…
DAVIS: Good…without a leader they can’t hold out long…
Davis is, of course, Rance Davis (Monte Blue),
second-in-command to the Panamint power broker known as Joseph Kirby (James
Blaine), who’s been mostly absent from the past several chapters because Rance
is away on assignment and those orphanages in Panamint don’t foreclose
themselves, you know. In the matter of
Davis, who’s almost as bad a brown noser as Butch, he seems to believe that the
Riders organization will fold like a lawn chair without the guidance of
Benton…when the real reason why Jim is the “leader” is because he’s the
only one among them who can do long division.
The gunfire continues apace, and there’s a shot of Benton
making his way back toward the group riding faithful ol’ Smoke. At the same time, Trigger (Jack Rockwell),
one of Wolf’s henchies, is also stumbling back into the line of fire—he’s been
out for a while, owing to a scrap he had with Benton at the back entrance of
the mine. Wolf makes his way over to
where another of his goons, Pete Gump (Richard Alexander), has stationed the
groggy Trigger out of the line of fire.
TRIGGER: Benton jumped me…hit me
over the head with a gun…
WOLF: Never mind that…
“You’re covered under ACA, stop yer bellyachin’…”
WOLF: …did you find the entrance?
TRIGGER: Yeah…
WOLF: Good! Butch!
(Butch makes his way over to where Wolf and Trigger are stationed) Any of the rest of them see ya?
TRIGGER: No…
WOLF (to Butch): There’s a back
entrance…you’ll have to cover it…
BUTCH: Yeah…but we ain’t got enough
men!
WOLF: That’s right…
“I knew there was a flaw in my evil scheme somewhere…”
BUTCH: I know how we can do it,
though!
WOLF: How?
BUTCH: Blast the other end of that cave!
WOLF: With what?
BUTCH: There’s plenty of powder down there in that wagon…
By golly, he’s right!
And of course, since Wolf orders him to go get it, Butch is only too
happy to run down to the wagon, snatch the keg and carry it back to where they
are…while being shot at by both Benton’s
men and his own friends. (Butch…compadre…maybe he’s just not that into you.)
As Butch is completing his little chore, Wolf calls out to
Davis…
WOLF (reaching into his vest
pocket): I want you to go to Panamint…
(He hands Rance the gold nugget
Butch found in Chapter
7.)
DAVIS: But I thought you said…
WOLF (cutting him off): Never mind what you thought…take this
gold quartz to Kirby, tell him what’s happened and get these claims filed…
(Davis starts to leave) Wait a minute…just
remind him, and don’t you forget that
I’m in fifty-fifty…
DAVIS: I’ll tell him…
“…on our yacht off Bora Bora!” Meanwhile, inside the mine, we’re witness to
a stimulating intellectual discussion by the two MENSA members of Benton’s
Riders: Pancho Lopez (Leo Carrillo) and Borax Bill (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams)…
BORAX: Hey, Pancho…ain’t that Butch sneakin’ down between them rocks?
PANCHO: Yeah… (Drawing his gun) I get that Butcher!
Pancho fires a few rounds and comes close…but close only
counts in horseshoes and that powder keg Butch is carrying. Tombstone (Buck Jones) comes over to tell his
friend that “you can’t hit anything with an empty gun,” since Pancho is out of
ammo…and Tomb’s attempts to hit Butch fail miserably as well. Butch makes it back to base camp, and Wolf
orders Trigger to show him and Butch where the back mine entrance is located. As the trio heads toward their destination,
Wolf barks orders to henchman Rusty (Ethan Laidlaw): “Keep ‘em busy! We’re goin’ around the back way!”
Jim has made his way back to the action, and from a distance
he watches as Wolf, Butch and Trigger make off with some of the horses Reade
had Rusty corral in the last chapter.
Jim has no ammo to speak of, but he’s devised a cunning plan—so
cunning…okay, I actually don’t have anything for this because I used up all the
“cunning plan” jokes in The Adventures
of Sir Galahad.
First, Jim sends Rusty off to Slumberland with the business
end of his pistola.
Then, making sure he
doesn’t tip Pete and Dirk (Roy Barcroft) off that his six-iron is empty, he
orders them to drop
their guns and
march over to where he’s standing.
Which
they do, and Jim has Dirk truss up Pete like a dominatrix in an S&M
rodeo.
We then head back to the mine,
where Jim’s partner, the lovely Mary Morgan (Jean Brooks) is concerned…
MARY: I hope Jim makes it into
Panamint all right…
TOMBSTONE: Oh, so that’s it!
MARY: Oh, Tombstone…
TOMBSTONE (smiling): Oh, he’ll be
all right… (Pushing her back with his gun arm) You better keep out of the line
of fire…
“And make us some more coffee, huh, sweetcheeks?”
By this time, Jim has Pete and Dirk thoroughly
tied up and looking properly embarrassed.
“I wanna thank you boys for corralling my horses,” he gloats, pushing
Dirk’s hat down over his face as he takes his leave.
The two hombres are left to their own devices
on how to escape being tied up.
(“Stop
rubbing up against me, Pete…you know how excited I get!”)
Tombstone and the others watch as Wolf, Butch and Trigger
ride off toward the back entrance. “I
wonder what those walleyed sons of misery are up to?” he muses. (For the record, I call “Walleyed Sons of
Misery” as my new band name.)
TOMBSTONE: They haven’t fired a
shot in ten minutes…
PANCHO: Maybe they don’t got no
more cartooges…
TOMBSTONE: I think you got
something there…
“Sounds like broken English.” Mary then spots Jim riding up on Smoke with
horses he filched from Pete and Dirk, and he’s given a hero’s welcome despite
not having done anything remotely heroic.
Wolf, Butch and Trigger, in the meantime, have arrived at their
destination…but Trigger tells the two men: “We’ll have to make it on foot.”
TOMBSTONE: So, Jim…what happened?
JIM: Plenty…they’re headed for the back entrance of the
tunnel…Pancho…you and Smokey stay here with Mary…come on! We’ve gotta stop ‘em!
At the back exit, Wolf asks Butch for the powder and then
tells him to get his fuse ready.
But
before the fireworks can begin, sharp-eared Wolf hears Jim, Tombstone, Bill and
Tex (Glenn Strange) stomping around to the back entrance.
The three men make their way down the draw a
way with designs on ambushing the other four when they emerge.
BUTCH: I wonder how Benton got out
of that sandstorm…
WOLF: Listen…when you’ve planted
him six feet underground and build a monument over him he’d still get out of it!
So…Jim is a zombie, then.
(That’s going to wreak havoc in his relationship with Mary.)
BUTCH: Yeah…but I ain’t ever seen
the man yet that you didn’t get sooner or later…
Ass-kisser. Wolf
spots our heroes coming out of the cave entrance, and orders Trigger and Butch
to “let ‘em have it.” So the monotony of
continuous gunfire begins again.
BUTCH: We ain’t got a chance
against them down here, Wolf!
WOLF: Oh, yes we have…shoot for the powder keg!
A couple of shots are fired, and Jim spots the keg—so he
tells the rest of his bunch to get the hell back inside. The powder keg is hit, and things blow up
real good!
TRIGGER: Well, that blocks this
end…
WOLF: Yeah…let’s get back to the
horses…
Boy, is he going to be surprised when he gets back to the
remuda and not only finds no horses, but Pete and Dirk sharing a
cigarette. Naturally, a loud explosion
like that draws the concern of Jim’s gal Mary, who’s sobbing to Pancho as Jim
and the rest reach the front of the entrance.
Jim orders Borax to get the wagons loaded up and the team hitched, and
then directs Pancho and Tex to fetch the remaining blasting powder.
TOMBSTONE: What’s on your mind?
JIM: To close up the entrance to
this mine so we can bring some supplies up here…
What the…?
You’re
going to destroy all the work you did in
Chapter
6 so that you can…what exactly are you doing again?
Oh, I forgot…they’ve got fifteen chapters to
fill.
My bad.
And that’s that.
“Well, that ought to keep it hidden from Wolf and his gang ‘til we get
in and file on it,” says Jim smugly.
And
with a “let’s went!” our heroes ride onto…
Panamint!
(It’s only
a model.)
And before you can say
“Panamint City Bank,” Jim and Mary are arranging for the needed capital to mine
the beejeebus out of the Lost Aztec, with the blessing of bank president Lafe
Hogan (Jack Clifford), whom we haven’t seen since
Chapter
2.
HOGAN: So you think you’ll need
$20,000 to get the mine going?
JIM: Easily…
HOGAN: I’ll loan you what you need,
Jim…but…it’ll have to be a short-term note…
JIM: Oh, that’s all right, Lafe…I
know what conditions are…
HOGAN: Maybe things will be better
in sixty days…and I can give you an extension…if you need one…
JIM: Thanks, Lafe…I knew we could
depend on you…
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Jim…I’m probably the
world’s worst CEO, if that business in Chapter 2 is any indication.” The action then shifts to Hank and Madie’s
Broadway Social Club—our pet name for the drinking establishment owned by
respectable bidnessman Joseph Kirby, who is pacing up and down in his back room
office, irritated that his aide-de-camp Davis has gone missing.
KIRBY: I can’t figure out what happened
to Davis!
BUTCH: He sure had plenty of time
to get here and file on that claim…
KIRBY: By not getting here he’s
left everything wide open for Benton…
Outside in the saloon, we spot Davis entering through the
swinging doors. He spies Kirby’s lackey
Dan Gordon (William Hall) dealing crooked hands at one of the tables, and asks
him if Kirby’s in his office.
KIRBY (as Davis enters): What happened, Davis? What held you up?
DAVIS: I got caught in a desert
storm…worst you ever saw! I thought I’d never get out of it!
KIRBY: Well, that storm cost us the Lost Aztec!
DAVIS: What?!!
KIRBY: Yeah, Benton’s already filed
his claim…right now, he’s arranging with Lafe Hogan to finance the operations!
Now, I wouldn’t blame you if at this point in the narrative
you’re wondering how the two competing factions—Jim and the Riders & Wolf
and his mugs—managed to avoid Operation Desert Storm while Rance blundered
right into it. Writers. Be.
Lazy. Oh, and after Kirby’s line
there’s a quick cut back to Lafe’s office where the banker is seen handing a
draft to Jim and Mary, commenting “Glad to return a favor, Jim.” (“Seeing as you pulled my fat out of the fire on account of that bone-headed transaction that nearly cost me my bank!”)
KIRBY (as Gordon enters): Did
Benton make a deal?
GORDON: Sure did…he gave that Hogan
a quick claim deed as collateral…
DAVIS: Which means if Benton isn’t
able to pay up in sixty days that the mine goes to Hogan?
KIRBY: You’re dead wrong, Davis…it
means if Hogan isn’t able to pay off on time…the mine belongs to us…
BUTCH: Why not let me and Wolf
hijack the equipment on the way out to the mine?
“Cause…that’s what we do best, you know…”
KIRBY: No…Benton knows the mining business…we’ll let him
put up the mill…sink the shaft…get everything ready for production, then move
in…
DAVIS: Well, I hope it works…
BUTCH: Maybe we oughta have a
couple of our own men working for Benton…
KIRBY: I already have Buck Hanson
and three or four men working for him right now…
BUTCH: Good!
The scene then shifts to…okay, I need to stop right here and
register a complaint.
We’re eight
chapters in, and even though I have suspended my disbelief on multiple
occasions as far as this serial is concerned…explain to me why it takes six
friggin’ chapters to
find this lost
gold mine, and
ten seconds to get a
first-class mining operation up and running.
(I think my eyes are trapped in the back of my head from rolling them
too often.)
Anyway, the Lost Aztec Mine is going great guns, and as an
establishing shot shows Jim Benton a-ridin’ up in the distance, Mary is stopped
by a man (Ed Payson) whom Kirby has already identified as “Buck Hansen,” and
who has also been designated as being on the Kirby payroll.
HANSEN: How about that money I
asked you for?
MARY: Mr. Hansen, I’m responsible
for the payroll and I can’t advance
you any more money…
HANSEN: Well, I need it, and I need
it now…
MARY: Well, I’m sorry, but… (She
looks off to her right and sees Jim riding up) Here comes Mr. Benton…you talk
to him about it…
Mary then walks over to greet her partner and main squeeze.
JIM (as he ties up Smoke): Hiya, partner…
MARY: It’s about time you got back…
JIM: How things been?
MARY: Not so good, Jim… (She nods
in the direction of Hansen) Hansen
had another fight with the foreman…
“Unfortunately for Buck, it was George Foreman. He was
unconscious for three days…”
JIM: Ah, that’s too bad…he’s a good
worker when he wants to be…
MARY: Yes…but he causes an awful
lot of trouble…
JIM: Well, don’t worry about
him…I’ll take care of it…
MARY: Did you get the payroll?
JIM: Yes, sir! Right here in these saddlebags!
MARY: Oh…swell, Jim! That means you made a deal on the ore!
JIM: Yes, on delivery in Panamint…
MARY: Then we’ll be able to meet
that note when it’s due?
JIM: That’s right!
Oh, if only it could be due by the next chapter and put us
out of our misery. The scene shifts to
Tombstone, who’s riding a shaft elevator up to the surface…he’s carrying a
block of wood with him and chipping at its surface with his knife. He spots Jim talking to Mary and walks over
to where they're standing while the sinister Hansen watches from behind a tent
flap.
JIM: You betcha! (He pats the
saddlebag)
TOMBSTONE: Perfectly satisfied, huh?
JIM: Yeah!
TOMBSTONE: Well, get worried…
“How would you like to comb some of this rotten timber out
of your hair?” he asks his pal, showing him the piece of wood. Tombstone located it half a mile down the
shaft, so Jim hands the saddlebag to Mary and tells her he’ll meet up with her
at the office later. The two men then
make tracks for the elevator, with Jim stopping to tell a man identified as
“Charlie” to let the ‘vator down easy so that they can have a good look at the
cribbing.
As Jim and Tombstone disappear into the hole in the earth,
we spot “Trouble” Hansen observing from his tent, and he emerges from his
hiding place to make his way over to where Charlie is lowering his bosses on
the elevator.
JIM: You know, Tomb…I can’t figure
out how the cribbing in this shaft could be rotten so soon…it was just put in…are you sure?
TOMBSTONE: I’d hate to drop the
weight of an egg on it…
Well, the rotten timbers in the cribbing essentially act as
a metaphor (here’s where the serious film criticism comes in) for the fact that
the operation has been infiltrated by the no-goodnik Hansen, who hits Charlie
with a sap…allowing him to pull the lever and send our heroes to their
descending doom!
I love the little miniatures of Jim and Tombstone as they
hit bottom, by the way.
Suck it, CGI!
