Roy Rogers's Movies
 
I don't know why but I just got it into my head to watch a few old Roy Rogers Singing Cowboy films. And I could not stop. I have no idea why.  They were like salty potato chips Not all that great but I kept telling myself, just one more.



Young Buffalo Bill (1940) - 5.0



Nothing like a Western with a few songs to take you back to your childhood. That is if your childhood was spent watching B westerns on TV on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Back in the 1930s and 40s there were hundreds of these made. They are basic good guy vs bad guy films and you usually know who the villain is at first look. Just something squirmy about him. The heroes of these became big stars among movie fans. Big time stuff back then - Tim Holt, Bob Steele, Tom Keene, Charles Starrett, Red Barry, Ken Maynard, Tex Ritter, Johnny Mack Brown, William Boyd, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and their sidekicks Gabby Hayes, Andy Devine, Smiley Burnette, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor and Chill Wills. Most of them are now forgotten though a few went on to TV like Roy Rogers and William Hopalong Cassidy Boyd - and one became a huge star after being in many B films - John Wayne. A few like Gene Autry, Tex Ritter and Roy Rogers could also pick up a guitar and sing a song.



Gene Autrey in particular was a huge star and it was Rogers who came out of his shadow to become a star as well. Rogers grew up in Ohio as Leonard Slye - working in factories, construction and moving from place to place with his parents and siblings looking for work. As far from the West and horses as can be. But he could sing and play a guitar and beginning in the early 1930s he began getting gigs on the radio and clubs within a group - then he became part of the Sons of the Pioneers, which became very popular with their mellow country/Western music - songs like Tumbling Tumbleweeds became a big hit. In 1935 he got his first film role and then was in the films of Autrey as a supporting actor and singer. When Autry demanded more money from the Republic film studio they let him go, held a contest for a singing cowboy that Slye - now called Roy Rogers - won and he had his first starring role in Under Western Stars in 1938. He became a star for the next 20 years first on film, radio and finally his TV show with his wife Dale Evans and horse Trigger. And he even gave his name to a fast food restaurant where I used to love their roast beef sandwiches!



Rogers is still early in his career with this one and is teamed up with the great and ornery Gabby Hayes as his sidekick. It is directed by Joseph Kane, who directed tons of these for Republic - with Rogers and Autry in most of them. They were low budget, came in at around at hour and were knocked off in ten days or so. And you know pretty much what you are going to get - a lot of riding, some shooting, a girl in there somewhere and in the final reel the villain is caught. When you were ten that was plenty. And now much older it is still ok. I have been meaning to watch some of Rogers films for a while now. He was a part of my Saturday TV watching.



He is Bill Cody, not yet really called Buffalo Bill but he is a buffalo hunter. He comes to New Mexico with Gabby to join up with an army mission to survey the land. One of the large landowners and his daughter (Pauline Moore, a few Charlie Chan films and a bunch of B Westerns) think the US Govt will cheat them because they are of Mexican heritage. Instead it is their foreman in league with Cherokees who try to. It is up to Cody to make everything right and serenade the girl.



Saga of Death Valley (1939) - 6.0



Even after all these years of watching movies I don't think there is anything more graceful or beautiful than a horse racing at full speed across the open plains with a rider leaning forward in his saddle. Except perhaps Rita Hayworth doing anything but that is another story. This film may not have Hayworth though there is a Doris Day but it has plenty of horse riding. B films thrived on horses riding because it was cheap to hire the horses and men and you just needed a way to keep the camera up with the action. And it took up a chunk of the 60 minute running time. B Westerns died with the coming of Television in the 1950s where they dominated the tube for the next two decades. In fact, the B film in general vanished with TV over time. As best as I can figure out Roy Rogers starred in about 85 B Westerns from 1938 to 1951 - when he immediately jumped over to his TV show that ran for six seasons and 102 episodes.  It made him a rich man.



This one isn't bad at all - has almost a Bollywood plot to it. As a young boy Roy (in many of his films his character is named Roy Rogers - perhaps because he was making so many of them that remembering his character's name in them was more trouble than it was worth), sings to his girlfriend Ann. Two riders approach his father on his ranch and shoot him dead in cold blood and kidnap his young brother. The killer is Tasker (Frank Thomas). Jump ahead a whole bunch of years and now Tasker owns the town and the water supply that the ranchers have to pay dearly for. A young man named Roy Reynolds arrives in town from Wyoming - the new owner of the Rogers ranch. He has come for more than to run a ranch though - he has come for revenge - he is really Roy Rogers. And for the girl he left behind. Unknown to him his kidnapped brother is now the number one gun/killer for Tasker. Ann as an adult is played by Doris Day - nope not that Doris Day, the brother is played by Don "Red" Barry who was soon to become a B western star as well for Republic and by Roy's side is of course Gabby Hayes.



Days of Jessie James (1939) - 5.0




I was hoping Roy Rogers was going to play Jesse James but that honor goes to Don "Red" Barry. Nope, Roy plays  . . . yup Roy Rogers. Like so many of these westerns it romanticizes Jesse and his brother Frank (Harry Worth). Sure they are robbers and killers but they are not really bad fellows. Jesse has a wife and child he loves, loses at cards without shooting anyone and when he has a chance to take a valise of money from an old man, he leaves it alone. He would join the PTA if he could.



The James brothers hold up a train, are polite and Jesse doesn't take the money that Gabby (Gabby Hayes often used his name as well for his character) has saved up from a gold mine. He and his granddaughter (Pauline Moore, last seen in Young Buffalo Bill) are going to buy a little ranch and settle down and he later puts his money in a bank. Big mistake. It is robbed by Jesse - but not really - it is robbed by the bank owner because of course the bankers are the real crooks. Things have not changed so much. Roy is a lawman and it is up to him to prove the innocence of James and catch the real crook. He still has time to sing one nice song to the girl - Saddle Your Dreams.



Rogers was making his films primarily for children - and so he is unfailingly polite, only kills when absolutely necessary, is soft spoken, never curses, never loses his temper - a perfect model that children no doubt embraced! One of Jesse's fellow robbers is played by Glenn Strange who was in a ton of westerns but is most famous for playing Frankenstein the Monster in the Abbot and Costello monster mash, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein as well as playing him in House of Frankenstein and also in the House of Dracula.



It is interesting to note that John Ford's Stagecoach was made in the same year as this and it catapulted John Wayne from B westerns to the big time and in a sense did the same for the Western genre. There had been some fine westerns made prior to Stagecoach but this and other John Ford westerns took it out of mainly B film territory and landed it in A territory. But as far as I can see this never happened to Rogers - he just kept plodding along in these B films for the rest of his career but when he passed away in 1998 he was worth $150 million. So not so bad.



Robin Hood of the Pecos (1941) - 5.5



Well, the title is more than a little misleading. It has nothing to do with a Robin Hood type of character but I guess it sounded good. It is about Yankees. Damn Yankees. The Civil War has finished and like locusts the dirty stinking no good Carpet-Baggers have descended on Texas and the South to steal as much as they can and to keep the former Confederacy under martial law. In the town of Pecos a Carpet-Bagger by the name of Ambrose Ballard (Cy Kendall) has been put in charge. Ambrose, as Yankee a name as you would never curse your child with. He and his minions are threatening to take away the land of the ranchers unless they pay high taxes. The Night Rider aka Gabby Hornaday is trying to organize the ranchers to fight back. Played by Gabby Hayes obviously.



His young friend Vance shows up - just let out of jail for prisoners of the Confederacy - a soldier of General Lee - and joins in. Belle Star (Sally Payne) joins in as well as does a sweet young thing (Marjorie Reynolds who later played the wife of Riley on Life of Riley). The usual shoot-outs, riding the range and a couple of songs included in the price of admission. Gabby and Belle Star sing a right fine toe-tapping tune while waiting for their execution. Like a lot of old films you have to make peace with changing times - either the way minorities are presented or the South being presented as heroic in fighting their romantic cause. At first I thought the Shadow Rider was forming a branch of the KKK and I thought, please no. But it isn't - they all pledge allegiance to the good old USA by the end. But at the same time there is a black character played by Leigh Whipper, attended Howard University, who is actually portrayed quite decently.









I was looking up Gabby Hayes to see what he was all about. To watch these films you would think he was born in the sagebrush eating tumbleweed as he grew up on the plains. Always furnished with  grubby looking whiskers, in bad temper and with a twang so thick it should have been put in a museum. Not quite like that off of the screen. Born in New York into a middle class family in 1885. But he ran away at 17 and joined a stock company, got into vaudeville, married a fellow vaudevillian and was so successful that he retired in 1928. And invested his money. And lost it all in the Great Depression and went to Hollywood to get into the movies. In the real world apparently he was a well read erudite well-spoken man who was nothing like the character he became famous for. Initially in regular films, he ended up in Westerns and at the age of 50 had to learn to ride a horse. He once said he hated Westerns. They are all the same he said but they gave him a good living and over the next 15 years he showed up in close to 200 films - almost always as the sidekick. Not bad company that he kept per Wikipedia - he co-starred with Roy Rogers 44 times, Gene Autry 7 times, Bill Elliot 14 times, Randolph Scott 6 times and John Wayne 15 times. He was as famous as any of the main stars.



Cowboy and the Senorita (1944) - 5.5




This Roy Rogers film can't really be defined as a Western. It has a strange premise to it. It takes place in modern days where there are automobiles and nightclubs and yet Roy and his cohorts (including the Sons of the Pioneers) are still riding horses everywhere. There are a of couple times he needs to get somewhere fast and I keep thinking - take a cab Roy, take a cab. This is pretty much of a dud of a film in terms of plot with a very mild bad guy who barely commits a crime and there is no shootout or dramatic ending - what there was would have easily been solved if he had only taken a car. But there are a few things about the film worth mentioning.



It ends with a five minute musical extravaganza! Practically the whole cast is involved in the number plus they bring on the Specialty Dance Team of Capella and Patricia where Capella holds her above his head and twirls. The rest are singing that great classic The Tamale Man. There are a couple other songs as well as two of his co-stars are fine singers. Kids who came expecting a shoot em up Western must have gone home pissed. But I love that stuff.



Roy gets a new sidekick. Trigger. I can imagine them going to Gabby Hayes and telling him sorry you have been replaced. By who? A horse. Trigger gets second billing to Rogers which must have made him feel great. Trigger had been around for a while. In fact, one of his very first appearances was as the horse that Maid Marion rode in Robin Hood. But sadly for him he quickly fell down to B Westerns and became Rogers go to horse. He (I think) was in about 35 films in which he was not credited and it wasn't until he went to the Actors Guild and demanded a credit that he finally got one in the 1943 King of the Cowboys. Trigger continued his good work all through the Roy Rogers Show until retirement. Now he actually does nothing particularly special in this film but it was a very solid performance.



Roy and his friend played by Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams are vagabonds of a sort riding their horses from town to town looking for work - Rogers as a singer and Guinn as a hanger on. On the way they pick up a bracelet on the road that belongs to a runaway girl (Mary Lee) and when the bracelet is later spotted they are accused of kidnapping her. They escape and run into her and become friends and then meet her sister - the Senorita in the film. Some fellow is trying to flimflam the two sisters out of a mine. You know how that will end. He won't be invited to the party at the end. I just ran into Mary Lee in Nancy Drew .... Reporter a few weeks ago and was taken aback when this small girl - under 5 feet - breaks into a song and wows the house. She teamed up with Gene Autry a few times but is with Roy on this one and sings a few songs. She had a short career because when she got married she retired. Too bad. Fine singer.



Now the Senorita is played by Dale Evans. Her first film with Roy Rogers. Roy was married at the time and so was she. In fact, she had been married at 14 years old and had a child. I wonder how the publicity boys handled that. She started off as a singer but got into films and met Roy. No idea if there was any fooling around before they got hitched after Roy's wife died and she was divorced - they were both strong Christians if that means anything - but after getting married she became a regular part of his films and TV show for years to come. She looks good here and has a nice singing voice. At the end of the last musical number Roy has his arms around both women with a look on his face that might be thinking, I might get very lucky tonight.



Roll on Texas Moon (1946) - 6.0





These Roy Rogers films are so bite-sized that I keep telling myself, just one more. There are a ton of them up on YouTube. It is not that they are all that good but they take up a happy space inside me. This one is again set in modern day but most everyone is still riding a horse. In one scene Roy has to chase a runaway car. Again, Trigger gets second billing - it seems a little odd since at this point Dale Evans is his leading lady in many of his films. Perhaps after they get married, but for now Trigger is still his sweetheart. Gabby is back as well and even gets a little romance for himself. An interesting acting choice for one of the characters is Dennis Hoey - an Englishman who was Lestrade in many of the Sherlock Holmes/Rathbone films - looking very different here.



Cattleman and sheep ranchers have a history of warring over land and they are on the verge of it again when a sheep man is murdered and sheep on the ranch owned by Jill Delaney (Evans) are being roused. The cattle organization sends their man Roy from Chicago to look into it and stop it. As soon as he lays eyes on Jill he is all in. Gabby is a cattle man and doesn't understand it but a cute baby sheep is working on him. This one has what you want from a Western - even if set in contemporary times - a lot of riding and a lot of shooting and a bit of song from Roy, Dale and the Sons of the Pioneers. There are four songs in fact - not bad for a Western - The Jumping Bean, Roll On Texas Moon, What's Doing in Dreamland and Wontcha Be a Friend of Mine. Most of the songs in these films take place under natural circumstances - around a campfire, moseying along on a horse, at a party or club - but in this one they go very Hollywood and have Gabby dream a fantasy number with Roy and Dale. All the films I have seen of Rogers so far were directed by Joseph Kane but this one goes to William Witney who directed a bunch of serials of Zorro, Dick Tracy and the Lone Ranger as well as many B Westerns.



Bells of Coronado (1950) - 6.0




Coming to you in TrueVision! With Out California Way in 1946 I guess Republic upped the budget on these Roy Rogers films and shot them in lovely color. This one is up on YouTube and after all the black and whites I have watched these past few days it looked glorious. It is a pretty solid film though again I can't really call it a Western since it too takes place in the present times of the film. Still some very fancy horse riding in this one and a change of pace in the usual plot line. I read that Rogers did most of his own stunts but it is often hard to see clearly enough. Maybe in Blueray if that ever happens. Whoever is doing the riding and jumping is damn good though. It is 1950 and the Cold War is upon us and even Roy Rogers has to do his bit. Dale Evans is in it but none of his usual sidekicks. Who would think I would miss Gabby so much.



Roy is an insurance investigator and uranium ore is being hijacked by someone to sell to a foreign enemy. He goes undercover as a worker in the power company and runs into a woman on foot after her car broke down. She is ditzy. Dale Evans doing comedy. Not too bad. A big shoot out in the end though I can't quite understand why the villain climbs up a power pole to escape. Exactly where was he planning to go? And why did Rogers follow him? Just wait for him to come down. A few songs as usual - Save a Smile for a Rainy Day, Got No Time for the Blues and Bells of Coronado. All were written by Foy Willing who headed the band Riders of the Purple Sage who are all in the film. At one point Patti Page was a singer in the group, but not in this film anyway.



Utah (1945) - 6.0



I wanted to make my final Roy Rogers film a traditional Western and I thought with a title like Utah this would be it but no such luck. Again set in the modern days and pretty much a piffle. There are way more songs (8 of them) than shootouts (1) which just doesn't seem right! Come on Roy. It begins and ends with a musical number on a stage - what the hell.  Even Gabby has to sing "I am a Little Bo Peep with Whiskers". The affront to Gabby. So we have Roy, Gabby, Dale Evans and Trigger, billed as The Smartest Horse in the Movies. Autry's Champion and the Lone Ranger's Silver might want to argue that point.



It begins with show girls in Chicago practicing for the opening singing a jazzy version of Dixie - but then the manager tells them the show is going to be cancelled for lack of money. Dorothy (Evans) has a ranch that she has never seen in Utah and decides to sell it to raise money for the show. She and a few of her friends from the show decide to go see it. Roy and Gabby don't want her to sell it though and pull a switch on her. They pretend the ranch is this rundown worthless nearby one in hopes that she will just leave. Complications occur - Roy falls for her and she sells the ranch for a fraction for what it is worth.



A warning about these Rogers films that it took me a while to figure out. A lot of the ones up on YouTube are the versions Republic packaged for TV at about 53 minutes and edited out about 15 minutes of them. So if ever you get an itch to see them and I can't imagine why you ever would, look for the versions over 60 minutes.