Ferocious Pal

Teenage runaways Johnnie and Patricia, and her German Shepherd Kazan, meet in a freight train boxcar and travel to Oregon looking for better lives. Instead they run afoul of the meanest man in the West and his killer dog!

The trio move into the home of Patricia's uncle in a town plagued by a gang of sheep rustlers. Brownell, the secret head of the gang, is the sadistic owner of Champo, a savage dog. When Champo tears out the throat of a sheep herder, Kazan is the blamed. With a $500 reward on his head, Kazan flees into the nearby hills where he is hunted while Johnnie and Patricia race the clock to uncover the actual culprit.

The star of a trio of canine adventure tales, Kazan rose from humble beginnings: In 1931, he was a pup in a pound until he was adopted by a minor actor-stuntman, Jack King. Bought by King for 85 cents, Kazan went on to movie stardom, making as much as $250 a day during the Depression when the average working man earned about THREE dollars a day. Kazan died in the home of his master in 1941.

Spencer Gordon Bennet was the King of the Serials directing dozens of cliffhangers in his lifetime including Superman, Batman And Robin and the Adventures of Prince Valiant, and Perils Of The Wilderness (1956). He is also well known known for directing Red Barry in the popular Red Ryder series.

Intrepid low-budget entrepreneur Sol Lesser attempted to recreate the popularity of the silent dog melodramas with this mix of Depression-era mise-en-scene and Grade-Z western tropes. Juvenile runaways Johnnie Diggins (Gene Toler) and Patsy Bolivar (Ruth Sullivan) meet on a freight train bound for Oregon, where the latter has an uncle. Along the way, they are rescued from a couple of lecherous hoboes (one of whom is B-Western perennial Bud Osborne) by another stowaway, Kazan, a handsome German Shepherd, whom they quickly adopt. In the small Oregon community of Wooltown, the trio uncover a scheme by local entrepreneur Dave Brownell to rustle the area's sheep. Brownell, whose own German Shepherd Champo (Prince) is spreading terror in the small community, accuses Kazan of the widespread "sheepicide" and offers a $500 reward for his capture. But aided by Dr. Elliott (Robert Manning), who has fallen in love with Patsy, Johnnie, Patsy and Kazan unmask the real culprit, Champo, whose master is apprehended by Sheriff Henry Dunkinson.