Above: A title card for GORDON OF GHOST CITY (Universal, 1933).

GORDON OF GHOST CITY

Universal, 12 Chapters, 1933. Starring Buck Jones, Madge Bellamy, Walter Miller, Tom Ricketts, Francis Ford, William Desmond, Ethan Laidlaw, Hugh Enfield.

Like PIRATE TREASURE, which came out the following year, GORDON OF GHOST CITY is a wonderfully simple and entertaining little serial made in the post-silent, pre-Flash Gordon era, when cliffhangers had converted to sound but were still utilizing the basic plotlines of the silent chapterplays. It’s a good old cowboy cliffhanger, and doesn’t sound like much on paper, but it’s made into “something special” by the presence of Buck Jones and by the sincerity with which everything is executed. The actors put their all into their roles, and director Ray Taylor handles the simple story with gusto and enthusiasm (when Taylor is at his best, in serials like PIRATE TREASURE, GANGBUSTERS, and THE SPIDER’S WEB, he’s perhaps the most gung-ho serial director of them all). After watching PERILS OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED (which seemed bent on mocking itself and the whole serial genre), it was really refreshing to view GORDON OF GHOST CITY.

GORDON starts out with rustlers raiding the cattle herds of rancher John Mulford (William Desmond), and a posse setting out in pursuit. The Sheriff (Dick Rush) returns to the Mulford ranch without prisoners or recovered cattle, and is thoroughly chewed out by the irate rancher. Mulford and his neighbors have been suffering no end from these rustling raids, and the Sheriff has been unable to stop them. Enter carefree cowpoke Buck Gordon (Buck Jones) who rides in with two trussed-up rustlers in tow. Gordon explains he caught the two men burying a calf’s hide after skinning it, and, as he puts it “I figured they wouldn’t be doing that if the calf was theirs.” He accused them of rustling, they “started something” and he finished it. Mulford is delighted to find someone who can handle the rustlers, and Gordon is hired on the spot as cowpuncher and unofficial range detective. Mulford’s foreman Rance Radigan (Walter Miller) disapproves of this “hasty” step--because, as we soon find out, he’s the secret leader of the rustlers. Shortly afterwards, Buck gives chase to a rustler and captures the owlhoot’s horse, though the man himself gets away. Gordon sets the horse free and trails it to Ghost City, a deserted old ghost town. It’s not quite uninhabited, however, as Buck soon learns. While investigating the town, he hears a shot and discovers the body of a rustler in the street. A girl (Madge Bellamy) confronts him with a rifle and demands to know if he killed the man. Then a weird old codger (Francis Ford) takes a shot at him from a side building, and he goes to investigate with the still suspicious girl. Other rustlers led by Pete (Ethan Laidlaw) arrive and make off with the girl in a wagon; Buck gives chase and rescues her, though only after the wagon crashes. Two riddles are quickly solved in ensuing chapters: the girl is Mary Gray; her grandfather, Amos Gray (Tom Ricketts) had a gold mine in Ghost City that was sealed off by a cave-in that killed his partner and crippled Gray. He hopes to reopen the mine, which is still rich in ore, and stake a claim on it this time. Mary has been snooping around Ghost City to find out how feasible this is, and Buck gladly agrees to help the Grays in the fight for their mine. The presence of the rustlers in Ghost City is also accounted for: they’ve been using Ghost City as a hideout despite the presence of the mysterious, trigger-happy old man. But who is the old man? And why is he so protective towards Ghost City? Does he know about the gold mine? Those questions remain unanswered until the final reel. In the meantime, Radigan gets wind of the secret of Ghost City and decides to turn it to his own profit, and Buck has his hands full for the rest of the serial, as he protects the Grays and their mine while blocking Radigan’s attempts to rustle Mulford’s cattle.

GORDON OF GHOST CITY is another example of the uncluttered, quintessentially Western chapterplays that Universal excelled in turning out. The hero tracking rustlers while protecting the heroine’s gold mine--these two plot threads are both tried-and-true sagebrush sagas. And GORDON features an exceptionally realistic cowboy in the person of the great Buck Jones. Jones has rugged good looks, assured line delivery, and great riding talents, and if that wasn’t enough, he’s also the only serial lead who can add humorous ad-libbed quips and comical moments of confusion (especially when the heroine admits she loves him) to his heroic characters and get away with it. Gordon is strong, tough, and determined when the situation calls for it but he also possesses a mischievous sense of humor that makes him truly endearing as a character. No one but Jones can so successfully deliver laugh-out-loud funny lines like “I’d rock you to sleep if I could find a rock” (to a captured rustler) and then so convincingly gallop after the bad guys with steely resolve and guns blazing. I’m looking forward mightily to seeing the other three Jones serials (THE RED RIDER, THE ROARING WEST, THE PHANTOM RIDER) I have stashed away.

Blonde, wide-eyed beauty Madge Bellamy makes a perfect leading lady for Jones, her feistiness and obvious enjoyment of adventure in general complementing his impish, breezy attitude. Miss Bellamy has a scream of panic to rival Fay Wray’s, but she’s also very helpful and capable, rescuing Buck more than once and even climbing from the inside of a stagecoach to the driver’s box in a plucky attempt to rein in the runaway horses and save her grandfather, who’s also inside the coach. The various bantering scenes between her and Jones are priceless, particularly when Buck, after trying unsuccessfully to rouse her from unconsciousness after a mine accident, resorts to the desperate expedient of kissing her. She promptly comes round and slaps him, and he comments “you’re back to normal, sure enough.” Both Jones and Bellamy are likable and interesting protagonists, a hero and a heroine with personality to spare.

The two leads dominate GORDON by and large, but Walter Miller is his usual excellent self as the double-dealing Rance Radigan and holds onto his share of screen time with assurance. The more I see of Miller, the more I’m regretting that I didn’t include him in the “Featured” articles on my Villains page. He was clearly one of the most prolific and talented cliffhanger heavies of the early sound era. Deadly earnestness while outlining his schemes, sly joy in fooling the good guys as to his true intentions, and occasional outbursts of temper all seem to be hallmarks of a Miller villain, and they’re all present in Rance Radigan. I’ve got to make up for my neglect of Miller in future articles.

The incomparably cranky Ethan Laidlaw is Miller’s chief henchman (as he was in PIRATE TREASURE), and once again snaps and snarls at the entire cast (fellow henchmen and good guys) to great effect. Laidlaw was relegated to rather colorless small roles for much of his serial and B-western career, but in these early Universal outings he shows himself one of the best action heavies in the business. William Desmond, another repeater from PIRATE TREASURE, is very enjoyable as the hot-tempered ranch owner Mulford, and British-born Tom Ricketts is excellent as Madge Bellamy’s tough, eccentric, and crotchety old grandfather. Hugh Enfield is Walter Miller’s cohort Ed Roberts, who poses as a good guy cowboy right along with his boss; under the name of Bob Allen, Enfield co-starred in Universal’s PERILS OF PAULINE in 1934 and later went on to a successful career as a smooth B-movie villain under the name of Craig Reynolds. Bud Osborne and Jim Corey are two more of the principal henchmen, and the always-entertaining Francis Ford is great as the chuckling, mysterious old hermit of Ghost City.

Cliff Lyons and Edmund Cobb both play Mulford cowhands, as does (reportedly) a young Dennis Moore (I couldn’t spot him, but he could have been in there). Tom London has a brief cameo as range detective Pat Campbell, who is sent for to track down the rustlers but stops a bullet quickly. His interaction with Jones and his touching death scene show how well London could handle sympathetic characters when he had to.

The action in GORDON is kept on a fast track by director Taylor and by screenwriters Basil Dickey, Harry Hoyt, Ella O’Neil, Het Mannheim, and George Plympton. There aren’t many fistfights, but there’s a whole lot of dynamic riding scenes (including a great chase sequence across a marshy river in Chapter Ten), cattle stampedes, and gun battles. The cliffhangers feature some “live through it” resolutions, but none that strain credibility except the Chapter Eleven one. Jones himself seems to be doing what fistfights there are on his own, and his fighting style includes one very neat trick of running towards the rustlers and converting his run into a flying leap at the very last second, catching his opponent in the midriff and knocking him off his feet. I wonder if stuntman Hal Needham saw this serial as a kid, since he used a similar fighting trick during his stint doubling Burt Reynolds on GUNSMOKE.

GORDON OF GHOST CITY is a perfect piece of all-out, energetic nostalgia, a wonderful sample of another and a better era--and a must see for any interested Western or serial fan.