Desert Phantom

Directed by former film editor S. Roy Luby, this above-average mystery-western starred Johnny Mack Brown as Billy Donovan, a sharpshooter turned ammunitions expert coming to the aid of Jean Haloran (Sheila Mannors aka Sheila Bromley), whose ranch is the target of the "Desert Phantom," a masked killer. During his investigation of several mysterious deaths attributed to the "phantom," Billy comes across a wide range of suspects that includes Salizar (Ted Adams) a Mexican bandit trying to blackmail Jean into marrying him; Tom Jackson (Karl Hackett), Jean's somnambulistic stepfather; and Jim Day (Hal Price), a greedy neighbor. Literally stumbling over a hidden gold mine along the way, Billy manages to unmask the killer and save the girl from the usual fate worse than death. Desert Phantom was one of the last films distributed by A.W. Hackel's low-budget Supreme Pictures. Beginning with Undercover Man (1936), the Hackel/Brown series would be handled by Republic Pictures.