In the same year that producer Jed Buell and director Sam Newfield made The Terror of Tiny Town, the pair made several other musical Westerns, including a few featuring singing star Fred Scott which were partially financed by Stan Laurel Productions. In mid-1937 the famed comedian had formed a production company in a bid to gain more control of the Laurel and Hardy comedies from his producer, Hal Roach. During a brief period Laurel's company co-produced such Buell B-Westerns as The Rangers' Round-Up, Songs and Bullets, and Knight of the Plains (all 1938). Contrary to some reports, Laurel's company had nothing to do with The Terror of Tiny Town.

The screenwriter of The Terror of Tiny Town, Fred Myton (1885-1955), specialized in B-Westerns, but also wrote a few Poverty Row horror films, such as The Mad Monster (1942), and Dead Men Walk (1943), both featuring actor George Zucco.

Director Sam Newfield (1899-1964) was one of the most prolific directors in motion picture history. He worked exclusively for low-budget studios, and most often in the field of B-Westerns. It would not be unusual for him to turn out upwards of 15 movies in a single year. In the 1930s, he helmed features starring such Western standbys as Tim McCoy, Bob Steele, Ken Maynard, and Rex Bell. Even when Newfield moved to directing TV episodes in the 1950s, the shows he worked on imitated the low-budget, fast turnaround of Poverty Row films, and included episodes of such series as Captain Gallant of the Foreign legion and Hawkeye.

There are five songs featured in The Terror of Tiny Town, all credited to songwriter Lew Porter (1892-1956). (One song, "Hey, Look Out", lists Phil Stern as co-writer). Like almost every other member of the creative team on the film, Porter was prolific but toiled exclusively in the Poverty Row of Hollywood, and almost entirely for the B-Western genre. Among the very few NON-Western titles to which he contributed music were Spooks Run Wild (1941), The Corpse Vanishes (1942), and Jive Junction (1943).

The top-billed actor in The Terror of Tiny Town was Billy Curtis (1909-1988), a Little Person who remained a well-known supporting actor and a fixture as a Hollywood "character" off-screen for many years. He had a key role in The Wizard of Oz (1939), and was subsequently seen in films as diverse as Buck Privates Come Home (1947), Limelight (1952), Princess of the Nile (1954), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), High Plains Drifter (1973), and Eating Raoul (1982), among dozens of others.

The following press release appeared in the July 20, 1938 issue of Variety: "Sol Lesser has closed a deal with Jed Buell for series of films using midget cast utilized in Buell's Terror of Tiny Town. Second picture to be started within thirty days will be based on lumber camp, with a grown-up heavy portraying mythical Paul Bunyan. Upon completion of this one Buell is leaving for Europe to round up additional midgets for future productions." Jed Buell never made the announced Paul Bunyan movie, and in fact, never made another film with a cast of midgets.

In Michael and Harry Medved's 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards, The Terror of Tiny Town won in the category of P. T. Barnum Award for Worst Cinematic Exploitation of a Physical Deformity.

SOURCES:
"Tradition, Parody, and Adaptation: Jed Buell's Unconventional West" by Cynthia J. Miller, in Hollywood's West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor. University Press of Kentucky, 2005.

The 50 Worst Films of All Time by Harry Medved with Randy Dreyfuss. Warner Books, 1978.

b-westerns.com

by John M. Miller