Gangster's Den (1945)

Excellent but underrated film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

There's no real fireworks in this episode of Producers Releasing Corporation's Billy Carson series, with yet another corrupt land hungry villain ready to take people's property by hook or by crook, this time using corrupt gamblers to wrack up debt amongst naive landowners before setting his sights on the local saloon that allegedly sits atop the opening of a gold mine.Mostly forgettable, there's a few okay action scenes and an abundance of comedy relief by Al St. John as Fuzzy Jones, who acquires the afore mentioned saloon and it's cantankerous employee played by Emmett Lynn.I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen the earlier better pictures in the series.

'Fuzzy' St. John could have been top billed here and I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. A perennial sidekick to film cowboys Lash LaRue and George Houston's Lone Rider, Fuzzy backs up Buster Crabbe's character Billy Carson in this oater heavy on the laughs and pratfalls. In fact, Fuzzy has a couple of comedic sidekicks of his own, running gags with 'don't call me webfoot' Emmett Lynn, and the dense but harmless Charles King.Carson and Fuzzy Jones are partners in a mining operation, when Fuzzy decides to use their profits to buy the town saloon from Old Man Taylor. There's a locked trap door in the saloon's back office that hides the entrance to a gold mine, and is sorely desired by town boss Horace Black (I. Stanford Jolley). Black also has designs on the Lane Ranch, and spends virtually all of his screen time plotting how to weasel an interest in both of them."The Gangster's Den" is about as predictable as they come for 'B' Western fare. For his part, Buster Crabbe spends most of his screen time getting the low down on his adversaries by calmly watching their play, and mixing it up with the villains when he has to. But when you get right down to it, the real treat is provided by Fuzzy and his wayward pals.

Buster Crabbe had the look, build, and voice for a western hero. Al St. John had the look, build, and mannerisms of the perfect sidekick. Gangster's Den had these two men as an advantage from the start, but the movie centers around the sidekick more than the hero. I'm beginning to notice that pattern to the Billy Carson series. In this movie Fuzzy ends up buying a saloon and all the trouble that comes along with it. I. Stanford Jolley plays a lawyer trying to illegally take control of a ranch and Fuzzy's saloon because a mine runs underneath. Half of the movie is over before the hero does anything heroic to catch the evil lawyer and his henchmen. Yes, Billy Carson looks good saving the day, but it's Fuzzy who has the fist fight with the villain in the end. There is no mistake that half of the screen time was given to Al St. John. He was good enough to carry a movie on his own.Gangster's Den shows Charles King in an unusual role. He provides part of the comedy in this movie. Of all the movie bad men, Charles King was probably the best of the bad guys in the B western era. This time he plays an unruly customer in Fuzzy's saloon who gets hired to be Fuzzy's bodyguard.King's character is hilarious as he mistakes getting hit on the head for the strong drinks he keeps ordering, and when he takes the job of bodyguard too seriously.Emmett Lynn is almost a sub-sidekick to Fuzzy. The two of them argue with each other constantly in a way that only old sidekicks can. Kermit Maynard still looks strong and tough in this movie, and he has a better role in the movie than in so many other movies where he hardly spoke at all.

Fuzzy uses sacks of gold dust, saved by himself & Billy, to buy a bar from Taylor, who is trying to avoid selling it to crooked lawyer Black, who wants to bar and property as part of a valuable mining property land grab. While Black and his henchmen try to scare off Fuzzy, Billy has his hands full battling Black and helping Ruth Lane to save her brother Jim from losing money gambling with Black's henchmen and then their ranch to Black. Decent entry in the Billy Carson series, which doesn't feature Crabbe/Billy that much, but focuses Fuzzy's comedy antics and his encounters with Emmett Lynn as the bar's new cook and Charlie King as Fuzzy's bodyguard with a taste for strange booze concoctions. All in all, it's a fun hour to spend watching this. Rating, based on B westerns, 6.