His Brother's Ghost (1945)

Excellent but underrated film

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely the worst movie.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

After not watching westerns for two or three decades, in a fit of nostalgia I decided to watch them again. Internet Archives has quite a few of them and I selected this one – mostly because of Al St. John. Although Fuzzy having an identical twin brother is kinda a nice twist, the movie is all in all a rather pedestrian oater. However, the scene of Crabbe (Billy Carson) galloping on his horse with his arms tied was a corker. As has been pointed out previously, the business of Fuzzy peeking around the pole was unnecessary and unfunny. Although I liked Crabbe as Flash Gordon, I never did (even as a kid) warm up to him as a cowboy. My favorites were Buck Jones, Lash LaRue, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Annie Oakley, all of who had a certain charisma, which, to me, Crabbe did not have. Still like Fuzzy though. At less than an hour, watching this movie is pleasant enough diversion.

During the 1930s-1950s, Hollywood made 147283401324 B-westerns--such as those with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. However, there were many, many more B series westerns as well with the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, the Cisco Kid and many, many others.This film stars Larry "Buster" Crabbe--ex-Olympic swimming champion and low-rent actor who played Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in serials. While few would know it today, he actually made quite a few low-budget westerns and west definitely NOT among the better movie cowboys--though he was tall and had nice clean clothes. Now considering that "His Brother's Ghost" was made by one of the crappiest of the 'Poverty Row' studios, it's actually surprisingly good--which, really, isn't saying much! After all, most of these series films really didn't have great plots nor were the actors that great either. They were simply churned out by the dozen and undiscerning audiences loved 'em.In this film, despite Crabbe getting top billing, the star seems to be Al St. John. If you don't know, St. John was one of Fatty Arbuckle's relatives and played his foil in many silent comedies. In the 1930s and 40s, St. John had re-invented himself as a cowboy sidekick and was kept very busy in this capacity.The film starts with the usual rich baddies trying to run out all the ranchers. One of the most recalcitrant of the ranchers is play by St. John and the other ranchers look to him to lead a fight against the forces of evil. But, when he is killed, the cause for niceness is given a severe blow. Crabbe, though, has an idea--to get St. John's identical twin(!) to pretend to be him! This is very contrived but also a bit funny--injecting a tiny bit of life into this otherwise routine film. While you might balk at my giving it a 3, most of these films deserved 3s as they lacked imagination and depth and were meant mostly for little kids.

This is a Classic of all Classic early Westerns with great stars as Buster Crabbe, (Billy Carson), Al St. John,(Fuzzy Jones) and the bad bad guy who always wore a big black hat, Charles King,(Thorne) In this film Thorne is a bandit, con-man who wants to take over all the ranchers property and decides to either scare them off their land or just plain murder them all. Thorne has the doctor, sheriff and other officials in the Western town all wrapped around his little finger and is going to take Fuzzy Jones property, when Billy Carson comes to the aid of his old friend and decides to put an end to this murdering and stealing peoples ranches. There are no cowgirls in this picture at all and no singing cowboys. Charlie King made over two-hundred (200) Western Films and did a great job of standing up to Buster Crabbe. When television was appearing in most households in the 1950's all these Classic Western's could be seen on a daily basis until people got sick and tired of them. Enjoy

I really like this fairly short little movie. There's always something interesting about old comic "haunted" Westerns (even more-so when it isn't a "real" haunting). Al St. John effortlessly steals the show from Buster Crabbe and the absurdity of supposed twins (living away from each other) having identical beards doesn't really spoil it either.I also really like the titles and credits; the hand turning the pages (as in "Cat Ballou") of a big, interesting book, and that quick fumble of the title page. (I guess they could only do one take, heh, but it looks like they still practiced for a while.)The plot basically involves Al St. John in two roles, playing both Andy Jones and his twin brother who comes in to take over after Andy is shot, who plays the vengeful ghost angle rather amusingly against Thorn and his men, who are killing the sharecroppers. Fully enjoyable, even though much of the spoken line continuity makes little sense. For example, the brother having to be told that he is to play Andy's ghost after he already scares off two of Thorn's men by merely walking into the room and saying "boo", and an odd line about convincing them that Andy is "still alive" (contrary to the ghost angle) and the idea of the somewhat bumbling Andy having more ability to organize than many men working together (which is actually why Andy called Billy in in the first place).Some chair and wardrobe busting up during a fight in the final third. It wouldn't be Western without that.The music is pretty good as well and fits just right, and there's a better than average (and highly amusing) feel-good ending.Funny lines (what it SOUNDS like to me, anyway):Doc (seeming to partially forget his lines): "We didn't expect - all these...mer-ders...Thorn."Thorn: "Well what DID you expect? You hired me to get rid of the sharecroppers and I'm doing it."Doc: "Aw, I goes it's all-what (all-right?)..."There's one part near the end that almost made me fall out of my chair laughing; somehow a couple people "see" that it isn't really Andy Jones, even though it is the SAME actor, looking exactly the same. Heh."You better talk or that mug of yours is going to look like a spoiled custard pie..." Hahaha.8/10