The Tioga Kid

Eddie Dean sets out to capture the thief, master cattle rustler, and now murderer the Tioga Kid, his exact double who may or may not be his long lost twin brother.

There's enough action and music to satisfy hardcore fans of Saturday matinée westerns, but once again Eddie and Soapy are pretty bland when not singing with the boys.

The presence of a second villainous version of the hero is a well worn staple of the genre and while it's always interesting to see the requisite split screen shots, here it doesn't really provide much of a spark.

Still, it's all unpretentious and inoffensive fun, though I wish it were better.

Eddie Dean is the singing cowboy here, later in his film career; with Roscoe Ates, giving one of at least fifteen performances as Dean's sidekick, Soapy Jones. They wanna help a female rancher, who's herd is being rustled with, they learn, the input of an employee of the gal. The rustlers also kill several emissaries of - and make off with - a government payroll. The Tioga Kid fits in thusly: at the beginning of the movie, he's obviously responsible for a number of misdeeds. And, he looks just like Eddie! He becomes privy to the evildoings of the gang, and demands one-third of the haul just because of what he knows. The bad guys, however, turn on him, and he ends up helping Eddie. There are three songs in this short flick: I see Dean's "men" around during two of them; but I wonder if that's a chorus of horses at the outset? I like other Dean fare more.

In yet another movie in which the lead plays two people who look exactly like each other, Eddie Dean, Texas Ranger, is sent to deal with Eddie Dean, outlaw.

Eddie Dean's last movie in his series for PRC -- it was also Jennifer Holt's last movie, and the last produced by PRC -- is a cheap affair, a remake of his 1946 movie THE DRIFTIN' KID, with the script given a light rewrite by western specialist Ed Earl Repp. Repp came from Minnesota, where he was a member of the Minneapolis Fictioneers with Carl Jacobi and Robert Bloch. He died in 1979 at the age of 77.

Ray Taylor's fading powers as a director are very much in evidence when it comes to stunt work. The long distance shots of Miss Holt trying to break a horse show the stunt man -- clearly a different man -- wearing a different shirt than the lady in close-up.

When it's discovered that Texas Ranger Eddie Dean and The Tioga Kid, notorious outlaw are lookalikes, Texas Ranger Captain Terry Frost decides Dean is the guy to investigate some reported horse thieving that The Tioga Kid has been accused of.

Well The Tioga Kid has been besmirched the real horse thieving is headed by Dennis Moore, but that doesn't stop The Tioga Kid from wanting a cut of the action that he's being accused of heading anyway. About this time Dean and sidekick Roscoe Ates arrive and Dean gets to meet Dean and starts reassess the situation and his life in general.

The Tioga Kid, the last PRC film to go before the movie-going public is simply reedited from a previous Dean film Driftin' River. A lot of the same cast members repeated their roles. It didn't get any better with a title change.

My big objections was the outlaw band massacring a cavalry patrol and the whole sequence is repeated. If the Texas Rangers didn't get them, you can be sure the US Cavalry would have as these people don't even bother to disguise themselves in any way. Kind of stupid to do that because there would be no place they could flee to in the USA with that hanging over their heads.

Eddie Dean had a nice singing voice and it's a pity he was not showcased the way those Republic Picture cowboys were.