Night Train to Memphis 
                                            
Director: Lesley Selander
Year: 1949
Rating: 5.5
The King of Country Music stars in this one and sings five songs. That would of course be Roy Acuff, who along with his band The Smokey Mountain Boys, was a huge country star from the 1930s through the 1940s and was the first living country star to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. You can see why in this B film with his laid-back friendly personality and his clear voice. The film isn't just a platform for Acuff though but has a real plot to it that is corny as hell but paints a sentimental picture of small-town America and its down-home values.



Roy Acuff - his name in the film also - is the station master for the railroad and breaks out his song Night Train to Memphis with everyone pitching in. The train arrives and pulls off to stop for a few days. On board is the owner of the railroad (Joesph Crehan) and his daughter played by Adele Mara.  The owner is there under false pretenses and a false name because he wants to buy land without letting the towns people know who he is. In the meantime, Roy is star struck by the daughter but so is his brother Dan (Allan Lane) and when Roy saves her from drowning, she mistakenly thinks it is Dan. A little brother rivalry but Roy is too nice a guy to push it. Some other fine songs along the way.



Allan Lane was in loads of B Westerns but more famously he was the voice for Mr. Ed for 145 episodes. Hello Wilbur. Two other actors of interest are the two black servants who have two short verbal comedy bits. The butler is played by Nick Stewart who was Lightnin' in 42 episodes of the Amos 'n Andy show and had small appearances in a number of well-known films. The maid is played by Nina Mae McKinney who had a fascinating life. Her debut was as the femme fatale in the all black cast Hallelujah in 1929. She is amazing in that - a sexual dynamo as she dances enticing men for her boyfriend to fleece.  But then reality set in and though MGM signed her to a contract, they barely used her. How do you use a sexy black woman in 1929? Back women played maids and that was about it. So, she went off to Europe to perform like many other black artists had to. She was very successful there but the war drove her back to America and here in 1946 she is playing a maid and no longer the beauty she was seventeen years before.