The Mysterious Rider on AllMovie

Jack Greenhalgh's murky photography did not enhance this low-budget "Billy the Kid" series entry, in which a falsely accused Billy (Larry "Buster" Crabbe and his sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) flee to the ghost town of Laramy. Said town is lorded over by one Dalton Sykes (John Merton), a former lawman who killed rancher Frank Kinkaid for his gold claim. Going by the name of Bill Andrews, the Kid rescues Kinkaid's grown children, Martha (Caroline Burke) and Johnny (Dave O'Brien), from Sykes' henchmen. Fuzzy, meanwhile, plays the murdered man's violin, scaring the living daylights out of the henchmen, who believe that Kinkaid's ghost has returned to haunt them. Broken in the ensuing fracas, the violin reveals a hidden map to the Kinkaid gold mine. Sykes, who has gained Martha's confidence, attempts to get to the mine ahead of the competition but is stopped by Billy and the local marshal (Ted Adams). Martha and Johnny take over their father's ranch and mine, and with Sykes' reign of terror having come to a close, the citizenry returns to a peaceful Laramy. Busy PRC director Sam Newfield helmed this minor Western opus under his pseudonym, Sherman Scott.The film was reissued in 1948 under the title Panhandle Trail.