THE VIGILANTE

THE VIGILANTE (15 chapter Columbia serial/1947.) Director: Wallace Fox.

"These days all you've got to do is take a good-looking guy, give him a hat, black boots and a white horse and you've got a star."

The Vigilante, a super-hero who appeared in Action Comics in the 1940's, gets the serial treatment in this cliffhanger from Columbia. Greg Sanders (Ralph Byrd of the Dick Tracy movies and serials) is a cowboy hero in the movies by day, and the roving action hero Vigilante by night. The plot has to do with a herd of beautiful horses and the curse of the "tears of blood" -- referring to pearls that are secreted in their horseshoes.The mysterious "X-1," whose identity is no surprise and who operates out of a nightclub, wants the horses and the pearls and will kill anyone who gets in his way. Byrd is good, Lyle Talbot is Lyle Talbot, Ramsay Ames (The Mummy's Ghost; Calling Dr. Death) is better than usual as the nominal heroine, and George Offerman Jr. makes for a very amiable sidekick, Stuff. Offerman had small roles in the serials The Master Key and Batman and Robin, and appeared in a great many movies, mostly uncredited. The Vigilante even has a couple of pleasant song numbers but, unfortunately, most of its cliffhangers are very prosaic.

Verdict: Entertaining in spite of itself. **1/2.