Silver Spurs (1943)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This "B" Western from Republic probably won't appeal to too many people today but it's your typical Roy Rogers vehicle, which gets some added spice with one of the bad guys being played by John Carradine. In the film Roy is accused of killing his boss but of course he's innocent so he must break free from the Sheriff and try to clear his name. Along the way a female reporter is on the case and discovers that the murder might have something to do with a valuable piece of property. Apparently there are quite a few different versions of this film available from countless public domain companies. I had this film on three different sets and the running time varied on each of them. I went ahead and watched the longest (just at 60-minutes) but from the reviews I've read it appears the shorter versions are missing some of the music from Roy Rogers and the Son of the Pioneers. Overall this is a fairly entertaining Western as long as you don't go into it expecting something like John Ford would give you. At this point I really haven't seen too many films from Rogers but I certainly enjoyed his performance here and look forward to other movies. I thought the story was your typical stuff that had been going around Hollywood since the silent era and we even had some 30s stuff thrown in like the subplot with the reporter. For the most part the story is decent enough to keep you entertained but I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the short running time. Rogers was pretty charming in his role as he has to flirt with the ladies while trying to track down the bad guys. I guess it goes without saying but Rogers was at ease in the role and was quite believable during the action pieces. I'm sure the events going on in Carradine's personal life caused him to take this part and to be honest there's not too much he or anyone else could have done with it. It's clear the studio didn't take advantage of having him in the picture by making the part bigger because it really doesn't stand out and in fact any actor could have done it. Carradine is decent in the part but it's just strange seeing even him in something like this. Trigger, the horse, appears and gets to do a couple stunts as well. The action in the film is pretty good including one scene where a car goes off a cliff and Roy has to use his rope to get to the bottom.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This "B" Western from Republic probably won't appeal to too many people today but it's your typical Roy Rogers vehicle, which gets some added spice with one of the bad guys being played by John Carradine. In the film Roy is accused of killing his boss but of course he's innocent so he must break free from the Sheriff and try to clear his name. Along the way a female reporter is on the case and discovers that the murder might have something to do with a valuable piece of property. Apparently there are quite a few different versions of this film available from countless public domain companies. I had this film on three different sets and the running time varied on each of them. I went ahead and watched the longest (just at 60-minutes) but from the reviews I've read it appears the shorter versions are missing some of the music from Roy Rogers and the Son of the Pioneers. Overall this is a fairly entertaining Western as long as you don't go into it expecting something like John Ford would give you. At this point I really haven't seen too many films from Rogers but I certainly enjoyed his performance here and look forward to other movies. I thought the story was your typical stuff that had been going around Hollywood since the silent era and we even had some 30s stuff thrown in like the subplot with the reporter. For the most part the story is decent enough to keep you entertained but I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the short running time. Rogers was pretty charming in his role as he has to flirt with the ladies while trying to track down the bad guys. I guess it goes without saying but Rogers was at ease in the role and was quite believable during the action pieces. I'm sure the events going on in Carradine's personal life caused him to take this part and to be honest there's not too much he or anyone else could have done with it. It's clear the studio didn't take advantage of having him in the picture by making the part bigger because it really doesn't stand out and in fact any actor could have done it. Carradine is decent in the part but it's just strange seeing even him in something like this. Trigger, the horse, appears and gets to do a couple stunts as well. The action in the film is pretty good including one scene where a car goes off a cliff and Roy has to use his rope to get to the bottom.