The Crimson Skull was Norman Film Manufacturing Company’s second Western. In it, a town is tormented by a band of outlaws led by a skeleton bandit named “Skull” (played by Bill Pickett). The film’s hero must join the gang as an undercover outlaw to end its tyranny. When accused of being a traitor, he is put to the “Crimson Skull” test in which, as the film’s pressbook describes, “one drop of blood decides his fate…” Both of the film’s leading actors began their careers in vaudeville. After seeing Bert Williams’s and George Walker’s performances in In Dahomey, Anita Bush joined their company and later founded the successful Anita Bush Stock Company (eventually called The Lafayette Players), becoming celebrated as “The Little Mother of Colored Drama.” The Crimson Skull was Bush’s second and final film before she returned briefly to theater and eventually worked with the Negro Actors Guild (NAG). The six-sheet poster exaggerates the extent of the special effects around the villain’s skeleton-like appearance. In the actual film, he is clearly wearing a black unitard painted with white bones.