The Musquite Kid Rides Again
The Musquite Kid Rides Again is a film made by science fiction fans and fanzine editors from the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.
The story for the film came from the fanzine The Ballard Chronicles, created by Lee Jacobs for the APA Spectator Amateur Press Society. The Ballard Chronicles was fan fiction, a series of pulp magazine style adventure stories starring a fictionalized version of science fiction fan Wrai Ballard. Wrai Ballard, at the time, was the official editor of SAPS.
The third installment of The Ballard Chronicles was a western entitled "The Musquite Kid Rides Again", included in the 51st SAPS mailing of April 1960. Many thinly disguised fanzine editors and contributors appear as characters in the story, including F.M. Busby (Cry of the Nameless) as "Big Daddy Effem Busby", Elinor Busby (Cry of the Nameless, Salud) as "Mother Busby", Ted Johnstone (Mest, I Palantir) as "Tombstone Johnstone", Earl Kemp (Destiny, later el) as "Killer Kemp", Eva Firestone as "L'il Eva", Bruce Pelz (Glamdring, I Palantir) as "Peco Pelz", and Bjo Trimble (Shangri L'Affaires) as "Bjo".
A number of fans, including Bjo Trimble, Al Lewis, Dale Frey, Ernie Wheatley, John Trimble, and Steve Tolliver, got together and created the film company Unicorn Productions in order to make this story into a movie, in which many of the real life fans would play their fictionalized characters. It was filmed in Calico Ghost Town, California, U.S.A., known as "Corflu Creek" in the film.
The Cast
- Ron Ellik - Wrai Ballard the Musquite Kid
- John Trimble - Cyclone Coswal
- Charles Burbee - Big Daddy Effem Busby
- Ingrid Fritsch - Mother Busby
- Terry Carr - Terry Carr
- Bruce Pelz - Pecos Pelz
- Robert Lichtman - Rebel Lee
- Ted Johnstone - Tombstone Johnstone
- Ernie Wheatley - Killer Kemp
- Jack Harness - B.R. Toskey, Editor of the Corflu Creek Gazette
- Jim Caughran - Doc Eney
- Karen Anderson - L'il Eva Firestone
- Bjo Trimble - Bjo Trimble
- Dean Dickensheet - Bartender
The song "The Ballad of Killer Kemp" was sung by Ted Johnstone on the soundtrack of the movie.
The Musquite Kid Rides Again was frequently shown at science fiction conventions throughout the 1960s, but as the decades passed copies disappeared, so that now it is a very rare film, and difficult to find.
