TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

JohnHowardReid Oliver Drake has around 217 writing credits (including TV eps), but this one is aimed strictly for the kids – and even they will probably resent its scanty production values and likewise be bored silly. I'll admit that Ethel Jackson is a delight, but her role is small. She made only three movies, alas, but I'll be watching out for her in Six Gun Justice. The other players in this movie are strictly from hunger. Add verbose dialogue, a routine plot, dull direction and minimal production values and we suddenly realize that "vanishing" is indeed the key word in the picture's title. Aside from Miss Jackson, I can't see how adults could relate in any way to this Poverty Row effort with its minimal budget, verbose but totally inconsequential dialogue, contrived yet boring and totally uninteresting and unengaging plot. Available on a mercifully shortened Alpha DVD on a double bill with "Frontier Days".

MartinHafer Although there are some interesting aspects to "The Vanishing Riders", exceptionally low production values doom this to the grade-C level at best. The film stars Bill Cody--and, oddly enough, that is his real name! You'd think his having the same name as Buffalo Bill Cody would have been the result of some studio, but according to IMDb that was his name. And, also interesting is that Cody's son, Bill Junior also stars in the film. However, apart from that there really isn't much to recommend this one. The reason is that it's not even good enough for most B-movies--coming from a tiny film studio and starring a bunch of folks who simply cannot act. The overall product is cheap, dull and uninspiring--with no incidental music nor money spent to make it look anything other than a cut-rate production. By the way, about seven minutes was trimmed from this one, though I doubt is anyone would care.

FightingWesterner After killing an outlaw, Bill Cody quits his job as a sheriff and vows to raise the outlaw's orphaned son. Riding off to start a new life, they soon find themselves in a creepy ghost town where Cody accepts a job working for a lady rancher alongside dubious characters that plan on rustling the cattle as well as riding off with the attractive rancher!The Vanishing Riders is kind of creaky and a bit short on action. However, it has a spirited main villain and a nifty final fifteen-minutes where Cody and son dress up like skeletal riders atop phantom horses, frightening the superstitious rustlers into submission.Things are never really boring. However, one wishes that the first half would have been more interesting.

John W Chance When Budd Buster (veteran of over 300 TV and movie westerns) says that the villain, Wolf Larsen, is "raising heck!" you can tell this one looks like it was made for children. If not, it must have been put together to follow P.T. Barnum's words of wisdom, "You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public." (Or was it Vince McMahon who said that?) It's in the long line of ghost town / ghost cave / ghost rider cheapies so common in B westerns of the thirties and forties. But even that dignifies the movie too much. Nothing worthwhile here, except to see that the real star of the film, Bill Cody, Jr. (who must have been about 10 years old) can out act his father, Bill Cody, Sr., who is best known for starring in "the worst B movie western ever made." (Let's see if you can fnd it.)The director, Robert Hill, is best known for directing 'Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars' (1938), felt by many to be the weakest of the three 'Flash Gordon' serials (though it features strong work by Charles Middleton as Ming the Merciless). In this one we see Hal Taliaferro (Wally Wales) featured prominently as the evil gang leader, but otherwise it's a double F: File and Forget. I generously give it a 2.