Save your money for something good and enjoyable

ridiculous rating

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

When it comes to this vintage, colour, TV Western from the 1950s - I find myself riding the fence a lot with how I feel about it.When tallying up the pros and cons of this show - For starters - I thought that actor, Duncan Renaldo (at 46) was way too old to be at all believable as the athletic hero that he portrayed himself to be as the title character.What i also didn't like was the repeated recycling of the same actors in these episodes. It sure seemed that far too often they played a villain in one episode and then the next time around they were all honest, law-abiding citizens.But, on the other hand - What appealed to me about this show was that a lot of the violence seemed to have an enjoyable slapstick edge to it.And, of course - When it came to Cisco's trusty sidekick, Pancho - His outrageous, groan-worthy one-liners and the way he deliberately chewed up the English language certainly offered the viewer some much-needed comic relief to all of the dead-serious drama.Anyway - I neither loved nor hated this old-time TV Western - For the most part - It was "OK" at best.

The cries, "Hey, Poncho! Hey, Cisco" are something none of us who grew up with this TV western will ever get out of heads and why should we? This western, I believe, is the second one I ever recall watching (after "The Range Rider") and the first recall with great fondness and a knowledge that a lot of people also liked this show. They had to, to have it run six years.To be honest, I remember the Cisco Kid's partner, "Pancho" (Leo Carillo) more than I remember him, although Duncan Renaldo is not forgettable. He was a charismatic good guy, a real straight arrow and a great role model for small kids. I was the perfect age (6-12) to enjoy these episodes of a western that was made more for us in mind than adults.Pancho, if I recall, mainly provided comedy relief...and that was fine with us kids. We loved him. You couldn't ask for a more loyal sidekick, even if he wasn't the most brilliant person.

Who can forget these two cavalier Mexican heroes, The Cisco Kid, played by the dashingly handsome Duncan Renaldo and Pancho, his loyal sidekick, played wonderfully by Leo Carillo. When I was a boy, the "Cisco Kid" was a weekly series and I never missed it. Both of these actors are long buried and mostly forgotten. The message they delivered to their young audiences each week was the same message delivered by so many other oater serials of the day; always stand up for the rights of the underdog. If your friends and neighbors need help, it's up to you and other good people to come to their assistance. After all, it's the honorable thing to do. Although Renaldo and Carillo faded into relative obscurity in the years following their T.V. series, I'm sure they went to their final rewards feeling a large measure of satisfaction for the positive affect that their little t.v. program had on the lives of so many youngsters during their formative years.

I enjoyed the Cisco Kid TV series very much when I was a kid.I frankly don't see why anyone could take offense at either of the leads. Unlike most comic reliefs,Pancho was very formidable when the chips were down. As far as O'Henry's original story,it is easily found.There was a set of books published between l900 and l9l0 with his collected stories which was printed in vast numbers which has everything he ever wrote;any large library should have it.However,the character in the story has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and TV character.He was an Anglo,not a Latino. Far more important, the character of the story was a depraved homicidal maniac,as well as an outlaw."It was the Kid's pastime to shoot Mexicans for the pleasure of watching them kick".That is as near as I can get from memory.I was pretty surprised when I first read this. As Kenneth MacGowan said in "Behind the Screen" about the movie character vs O'Henry's original creation "how this degenerate sadist" was turned into the familiar hero is anybody's guess.Some unknown scriptwriter apparently. The movie and TV figure is certainly a "Robin Hood of the Old West",but not O'Henry's. I believe that the story is to be found in the volume "The Heart of the West", but it might be in one of the others.