On the right are Crabbe and pretty Frances Robinson in the detective cliffhanger, RED BARRY (Universal, 1938). This was Crabbe's third of five serials for Universal, and was "sandwiched" between the first two FLASH GORDON escapades and the later BUCK ROGERS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE.

From L-To-R are Crabbe, Jean Rogers (as Dale Arden) and Frank Shannon (as Professor Zarkov) in the second of the Flash Gordon chapterplays.

The B film production company known as PRC had been formed in the late 1930s by Ben Judell, and had quickly gone through several name variations --- they were initially known as Producers Pictures, then PDC (Producers Distributing Corporation), and finally PRC, short for Producers Releasing Corporation.   PRC was a low budget film factory, and B westerns were among their wares.

In 1940, Bob Steele was starring as PRC's 'Billy the Kid' (who, in these films, was a good guy wrongfully blamed for various misdeeds).  But Steele received a better offer from Republic Pictures, where he would become one of the Three Mesquiteers.

To fill Steele's slot, PRC hired Buster Crabbe, and from 1941-1946, he would appear in three dozen western programmers.  The initial entries had Crabbe continuing the 'Billy the Kid' role, but his screen name was later changed to 'Billy Carson' (supposedly because of the negative connotation associated with 'Billy the Kid').

Crabbe's sidekick in all these range epics was Al 'Fuzzy' St. John, who had become entrenched as a cowboy saddle pal and had developed a great screen character named 'Fuzzy Q. Jones'.  St. John even took center stage in several of the entries, FUZZY SETTLES DOWN (PRC, 1944) and HIS BROTHER'S GHOST (PRC, 1945).   'Fuzzy' was a busy performer at PRC in the 1940s, working with Steele in the initial 'Billy the Kid' yarns as well as with George Houston and Bob Livingston in the Lone Rider films.  When the Crabbe series ended, ol' Fuzz went to work in a new PRC series with Al 'Lash' LaRue.

On the right is a trade ad promoting Crabbe as PRC's New King Of The Wild West.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above, Buster gives some support to Kay Hughes in FIGHTING BILL CARSON (PRC, 1945). (Courtesy of Les Adams) The above crop is from a lobby card from BILLY THE KID TRAPPED (PRC, 1942), and shows from L-to-R, Bud McTaggart, Al 'Fuzzy' St. John and Buster. In the initial PRC Billy the Kid flicks, hero Bob Steele was assisted by a pair of saddle pals, Al 'Fuzzy' St. John and Carleton Young as 'Jeff' (Rex Lease subbed for Young in one film).  When Crabbe took over the role, PRC continued the trio approach for about a half-dozen films before Buster and Fuzzy were on their own as a duo.  In those initial half-dozen, the third member was most often Dave O'Brien, but Carleton Young and Bud McTaggart were the third member in one film each.  Malcolm 'Bud' McTaggart (1910-1949) was married at one time to western and serial heroine Pamela Blake and he died in a swimming pool accident.