Lash LaRue Collector's DVD Set | Western Movie Classics | Perfect for Film Enthusiasts & Home Entertainment

In a 1975 episode of THE ROCKFORD FILES. "A MATERIAL DIFFERENCE," Rockford asks his friend Angel,"Are you trying to channel Lash Larue?" I wonder how many people recognized the reference. Alfred "lash" Larue was an enigma. He would not tell his age or where he was born. He looked a little like Bogart and talked out the side of his mouth like a B movie gangster, yet he became a B western cowboy star from 1947-52. He played the hero but dressed all in black, rode a black horse and carried a black whip which he used to subdue outlaws. He had trouble with the law and alcohol, but worked some with an evangelist who called himself John 3:16. Wouldn't you like to see his identification cards? Lash starred in 20 B westerns, the first 8 for PRC. PRC was a small studio known for its cheap production values. the remaining 12 were produced by Ron Ormond. Ormond's productions made PRC look like MGM. The collector's set here contains the 12 Ormond films. The first 6 were directed by Ray Taylor who directed the PRC films. He was an old hand at westerns, and OUTLAW COUNTRY is above average with a 70 minute running time, good cast, and decent production values. A small problem is a rough soundtrack for some of the films. The second 6 were all directed by Ormond. Actually cut and paste would be more accurate. He shot a few minutes of new footage supplemented by many minutes of footage from the first 6. that is very confusing, if you see the first 6. KING OF THE BULLWHIP is probably the best, with Lash and the villain fighting with whips. One of the best things about all 20 of the films starring Lash is Al St. John as the sidekick, Fuzzy Q. Jones. He was a fine comic actor who started in silent films. The 12 films in the set were some of the last B westerns produced. They are still entertaining to us who remember seeing them in the forties and fifties. And the price is reasonable. I first saw Lash in the early seventies when he came to Melbourne, FL As an evangelist. I went to a service. He stood, still dressed in black, quoting poetry, some scripture, and his philosophy of life. The person in charge said Lash would be at a local topless bar the next night to ask about the closing of that establishment. I had to see that. Lash came, looked at the audience and the dancers, talked to the manager for a bit and left. The bar stayed open. I was disappointed:Lash did not bring his whip. In my imagination, I Could see lash driving all of us sinners and miscreants out of the place snapping that whip behind us. Lash's name is still heard in popular culture. I don't know why, but i do not think a character in a TV show or movie will ever say to another "Are you trying to channel Roy Rogers?"WadeI like best when Lash during a fist fight jumps in the air and comes down with a downward fist to end the fight. Uses his guns much more than the whip. What I do not like is that Fuzzy Q. Jones is completely competent during each film (great horseman, excellent shot, good Deputy) but at the end they have him do some clownish act for a cheap laugh. The entire first Disc of 6 films are good. Only 2 of the films on Disc 2 are any good, with the "Director" Ron Ormond on the others taking all the action scenes from the prior 6 films, with a few new non-action scenes to try to tell a new story. He even changes an established undercover Pinkerton good girl, Joan De Lysa, from Frontier Revenge, into a bad girl in The Black Lash, through editing only some of the material in. Not cool! 8 good films for the price is still a good deal, so still worth buying this set. The Dalton's Women and King of the Bullwhip are the two on Disc 2 that are good.The Lash La Rue western series started at PRC, one of the more prolific B-movie distributors. It was discontinued when PRC went upscale as Eagle-Lion in 1948. Producer Ron Ormond continued the series at his bottom-of-the-barrel Western Adventures Productions until it died a pitiful death in 1952. This collection from Echo Bridge contains 12 of Lash's Western Adventures pictures from 1948 through 1952. They all follow the standard PRC western format with Lash as the tough hero and Al "Fuzzy" St. John as his comic sidekick. As the market for true B-westerns dried up in the late forties, the budgets for the La Rue westerns shrunk to the point that producer Ormond was shooting entries in less than a week and recycling action sequences from prior pictures. The results are fascinatingly bad movies with garbled story lines, mismatched scenes and characters apparently travelling back and forth in time. However, the bottom line is that Lash is always fun to watch (even when he can't get his lines out) and Fuzzy can be good when he is not forced to ad-lib his comedy routines. Echo Bridge assembled some good prints for this collection, but could have taken a little more care in mastering it. in "The Daltons' Women," for example; an entire reel is placed out of sequence. Still, this is a welcome collection of hard-to-find late B-westerns.This collection of twelve movies are of any ordinary marshall who metres out justice to evil doers of the old west, with a partner called Fuzzy St. Jones, who is the show's comic, of a sorts.Known as 'The Lash' he has three tracts that puts him apart from most others - he can use two six-guns, puts a bullwhip to good use, and when in a fight and ready to land the soccer punch, he jumps into the air just before the knockout blow.Back in Lash's day all the movies were made in the same district as the scenery stays the same throughout all the movies, but who cares, the movies are great to watch and are typical westerns.I enjoyed all the movies in the set and recommend them to western buffs and give it five stars, even though there is some copying going on.This is a good collection of movies in black and white, of course. The video is probably as good as it can be considering the age of the original films.All the films were shot in the same location and to make it seem like different places, they used different camera angles. If you remember the A and B double feature, or the Saturday matinee shows at the local theater, these B movies will bring back memories. The dialog was written to fill in between the action. And there was plenty of action: Pursuits on horseback, gunfights, fistfights and the bad guys get their comeuppance. When you were nine years old this was exciting. So exciting in fact, kids would yell at the screen. And oh, those oohs and ahs.If your too young to remember, this collection will give you a glimpse of what your parents or grandparents had for entertainment at the movies and re-shown on early tv way back when (or in the newest vernacular "back in the day")I don't understand how this DVD set is so cheap!There are 12, Yes - 12 Lash films here from his later period, all produced and or directed by Ron Ormond (not the most obvious Western producer perhaps). The films are cheap and use lots of stock footage, but that never mattered to me back in the days, and doesn't now (much). The films are: DEAD MAN'S GOLD, MARK OF THE LASH, FRONTIER REVENGE, OUTLAW COUNTRY, SON OF BILLY THR KID, SON OF A BADMAN, and on Disc 2: DALTON'S WOMEN (surely the oddest, and it leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth, there is very long, totally unecessary fight between 2 women in a saloon, which really took me by surprise. Also it does suffer from lots of the stock footage.), KING OF THE BULLWHIP, (possibly the best?), THE THUNDERING TRAIL, THE VANISHING OUTPOST, THE BLACK LASH, THE FRONTIER PHANTOM. I am afraid I don't have it in me to review each film (they are pretty similar anyway). They all have good western support casts, and here's the real nub...There is no awful "Alpha"/Elstree Hill" type quality. These prints are good, not forgetting they are all well over5 50 years old and are probably better than when seen in the cinema. Obviously some are a bit better than others, but I assure you - You don't need to worry about quality. And the price...! Do get this if you are a Lash fan, or even if you just like the very "B" Western. Long live Fuzzy and Lash.Lash LaRue wasn't the most well known of the screen's western heroes but he probably was the most original as he brandished justice with a bull whip along with his six guns. During the period 1945-52 he starred in a couple of dozen low budget quickies, with twelve of them in this collection. Accompanied by Al "Fuzzy" St. John as his comic sidekick (with antics learnt from the silent movie days when he was one of Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops), these westerns generally clocked in at under an hour and, to the delight of their original matinee audiences, were crammed with non-stop hard-hitting fights, shoot outs and chases. And, of course, Lash would frequently bring a villain to ground with a crack of his whip, this skill often outshining his acting ability.With Ron Ormand juggling screenplay, producer and directorial duties, the plots were slim, secondary and regularly padded out with stock footage, none more apparent than in "The Last Outpost" which borrows sequences from earlier productions though "Dalton's Woman" appears to have been given a greater budget with a longer running time. (Unfortunately this film has a couple of sequences in the wrong running order). But whatever the films' merits, this is an unbeatable two disc bargain package with good quality picture restoration, though the sound is sometimes a little muffled. Well worth checking out by older cinemagoers wanting to revive old memories or younger folk keen to experience the more innocence age of western movies.I would see Lash La Rue at the Regent in Birkenhead on a Saturday morning. Admittance was a Jam Jar ( from the Co-op, or maybe Woodsons or Irwin's. Didn't sit under the edge of the balcony though as the b....... upstairs would spit on you. Still enjoyed every minute of it then and I am doing so now.i love them, but many will see the same movie almost made twice, much much copying of stock footage.for this money its a steal. forget the second half of the disc, its all but the first half.look for his last punch in every fight, he jumps in the air, corny as hell,but a must view.Value for money, very good quality. A return to the days of Saturday matinees. Any lovers of the old B western movies will enjoy the 12 hours plus of the rather tame (by current standards) punch ups but nevertheless all action where good beats bad in the end.