If you like the Cisco Kid, good news. This set has so many movies with the character and is a lot of fun. I had never seen any of these before and I had a great time with this set, which is full of movies.

South of the Rio Grande: There were three Cisco Kid movies made in 1945. That’s how popular the character was. This one, directed by Lambert Hillyer (who made so many movies, including Dracula’s Daughter) and written by Victor Hammond and Ralph Bettinson, is unlike many of the other movies in the series as its a musical. It starts with Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) singing to a potential girlfriend. Then, he and Pancho (Martin Garralaga) head to Mexico to stop the corrupt Miguel Sanchez (George J. Lewis) and romance the ladies like Pepita (Armida) and Dolores Gonzales (Lillian Molieri) who work in a cantina.

Sixty-two minutes long, this Monogram Pictures series joined Charlie Chan and Palooka Joe as their dependable features. They kept making them and audiences kept going to see them.

The Girl from San Lorenzo: Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) and Pancho (Leo Carrillo) have to prove their innocence after robberies made by two thugs (David Sharpe and Edmund Cobb) who look just like them. Our heroic dup gets jailed, but the outlaws have one more big score and need to free Cisco and Pancho to have an alibi. 

Director Derwin Abrahams worked in serials and TV, while writer Ford Beebe directed a hundred movies. These guys moved fast back then, making entertaining adventure and Western movies. The same year, there would be the first of 156 episodes of The Cisco Kid TV series.

I’m amazed that people talk about superhero fatigue. They should look back and see how many Western movies and shows there were in 1950.

 

Satan’s Cradle: The Cisco Kid (Duncan Renaldo) and Pancho (Lee Carrillo) have to stop Steve Gentry (Douglas Fowley) who has killed Jim Mason (Frank Matts), the well-respected leader of a small town. He takes over all of his businesses and is uses an actress named Lil (Ann Savage, Detour) who pretends to be the man’s widow. How bad are these bad men? They beat up Preacher Henry Lane (Byron Foulger).

Directed by Ford Beebe and written by J. Benton Cheney, this is an hour of your life that will enjoyable go by as you think about how awesome Ann Savage was in Detour and how fun Cisco and Pancho are at playing with their dialogue.

The Daring Caballero: Directed by Wallace Fox and written by Betty Burbridge, this has Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) learn that Pappy Del Rio (David Leonard) is about to be hung for a crime he didn’t do. The Padre (Pedro de Cordoba) thinks he’s innocent as well, as so Cisco and Pancho (Leo Carrillo) break him out. Later, when Cisco talks to Mayor Brady (Stephen Chase), he realizes that he’s really a criminal. There’s also the son of Del Rio, Bobby (Mickey Little), who needs to be saved.

The heroes are against nearly every elite in town. More than just the mayor, it looks like bank president Ed Hodges (Charles Halton) and Marshall Scott (Edmund Cobb) are also in on the crime. Luckily, they’re up against Cisco and Pancho.

Cisco Kid Returns: The first of three Cisco Kid films made in 1945 with Duncan Renaldo as Cisco and Martin Garralaga as Pancho, Cisco Kid Returns finds our hero trying to escape murder charges and keep his girlfriend Rosita (Cecilia Callejo) from marrying John Harris (Roger Pryor). There’s also the daughter of a murdered man who is used by Cisco as the child he claims that he has had with Rosita

The last film of director John P. McCarthy, this is not the first Cisco Kid movie. 1914’s The Caballero’s Way is the original film, starring William R. Dunn. Vester Pegg was Cisco in a 1919 film, then Warner Baxter took over the role in five films between 1928 and 1939, even winning a Best Actor Academy Award for In Old Arizona. Caesar Romero also was Cisco in six films from 1939 through 1941.

Cisco Kid In Old Mexico: Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) and Pancho (Martin Garralaga) are bandits who hold up a stagecoach and take Ellen Roth (Gwen Kenyon). Yet she wins them over by telling them that she’s a nurse who has been framed for murder. They decide to help her in their own way, demanding a ransom for her that the killer has — Will Hastings (Norman Willis) — has to pay so he doesn’t seem like the killer of his aunt. Cisco then implicates Roth by meeting with him and offering to kill her for money. Oh Cisco.

Director Phil Rosen also made It Could Happen to You, The Shadow Returns, Return of the Ape Man, Spooks Run Wild and more than a hundred other movies. Writer Betty Burburdge was the daughter of Civil War Major General Stephen G. Burbridge and Mabel Burbidge, an advice columnist. She acted in a ton of silent films before becoming a writer, specializing in Westerns. Of the 124 movies he wrote, 14 starred Gene Autry.

This is one of the three movies with the Cisco Kid made in 1945.

The Gay Amigo: Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) and Pancho (Leo Carillo) are at the border of Arizona and Mexico when they see the U.S. Cavalry pursuing some Mexico bandits. As they get to Mexico themselves, they see a bandido fall off his horse, dead. What’s strange is that the Mexican criminal is really an American soldier all dressed up.

That’s because a gang of elites are trying to keep Arizona from becoming a state and they’re using Mexicans and the racism against them to keep it from happening. Things really haven’t changed, I guess.

Directed by Wallace Fox, this was written by Doris Schroeder, who was also an editor and wrote TV show tie-in novels for Disney’s Spin and Marty, Patty Duke, Lassie and the Lennon Sisters.

The Gay Cavalier: The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) has no Pancho to help him. That said, he can still keep a young girl named Pepita (Ramsay Ames, who played Princess Ananka in The Mummy’s Ghost; despite her exotic appearance, she was born on Long Island) from marrying a rich man to save her family home. There’s also a gang of stagecoach robbers. It makes it all simple when the man aiming to steal Pepita ends up being the same man who leads the criminals.

According to director William Witney, there were several Republic Pictures’ stuntmen who got hurt running on rooftops to get a better look at Ames walking across the backlot. In fact, more of them got hurt that way than in the actual stunts.

This was directed by William Nigh, who directed many of the East Side Kids and Mr. Wong movies, and written by Charles S. Belden.

Beauty and the Bandit: The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) attacks a stagecoach carrying a wealthy young French person named Du Bois who ends up being Jeanne Du Bois (Ramsay Ames). The gang escapes with the money which Cisco says is money stolen for years from the poor of California. Of course, she soon falls in love with Cisco — and he with her, come on, he’s Cisco and she’s Ramsay Ames — and he gives her the money back. She has to decide what to do with it.

Directed by William Nigh and written by Charles S. Belden, this was another quick movie made for Monogram Pictures yet the Cisco Kid’s legend has lived all the way to today, as I’ve been watching movies with the character in them all week.

South of Monterey: Directed by William Nigh and written by Charles S. Belden, this time The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) learns that Commandante Arturo (Martin Garralaga) and Bennet, a tax collector (Harry Woods), are stealing land from the poor. Can he play them against one another and return the land to the people who really deserve to live there?

Auturo’s sister Carmelita (Iris Flores) is going to marry one of those locals (Carlos Mandreno), but her brother really wants to marry her off to Bennet. Cisco decides that he’ll help these young kids in love, as he’s a sucker for romance.

Garralaga played Pancho in some of the movies with Duncan Renaldo such as Cisco Kid Returns, Cisco Kid In Old New Mexico and South of the Rio Grande, so it’s interesting to see him as a villain.

Riding the California Trail: Rancher Don Jose Ramirez (Martin Garralaga) wants to marry off his niece Delores (Inez Cooper) to Raoul (Ted Hecht), because when she’s wed, he’ll be able to get her inheritance. The problem is that Raoul also is involved with Raquel (Teala Loring).

Where does the Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) and Baby (Frank Yaconelli) come in? Well, Cisco is a womanizer, but it’s one lady at a time, like the lovely saloon girl Delorez (Inez Cooper), who is known as The Angel of San Lorenzo for how kind she is.

It’s kind of wild that all Cisco does is smoke, drink and love the ladies, yet he was a matinee hero for kids. It’s a strange comparison to the singing Gene Autry to Tex Ritter and his whip.

This was directed by William Nigh and written by Clarence Upson Young, who also wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Rx.

Robin Hood of Monterey: Eduardo Belmonte (Travis Kent) overhears his new stepmother Maria (Evelyn Brent) and her lover Don Ricardo Gonzales (Jack La Rue) planning on getting his father Don Carlos Belmonte (Pedro de Cordoba) off the ranch and in the ground, so to speak. Eduardo offers her money to get out and she accuses him of trying to sleep with her, which leads to his father attacking him. The lights go out, dad is dead and Eduardo is shot.

He’s saved by The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) and Pancho (Chris-Pin Martin) try to solve this, but Cisco is arrested and killed by a firing squad. But you know that this can’t be real and he’s going to show up — he does — and save Eduardo.

This is one of the 167 movies that were directed by Christy Cabanne and 192 movies written by Bennett Coleman.

King of the Bandits: In Arizona, The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) and Pancho (Chris-Pin Martin) learn that someone has been impersonating Cisco and robbing people. I feel like this has happened more than a few times to our hero.

Directed by Christy Cabanne and written by Bennett Cohen, this is yet another adventure just as much about finding the ladies as it is getting to the truth of these crimes. The bad guy — Smoke Kirby — is played by Anthony Warde and the mother and daughter who need saving are Laura Treadwell and Angela Greene.

The Cisco Kid Western Movie Collection is available from VCI Entertainment. It has 13 movies and extras like two Cisco Kid TV episodes, interviews with Duncan Renaldo and Colonel Tim McCoy, and photo and poster galleries. You can get it from MVD.