What!?!? - Gene Autry has a brother!?!? - and the story takes place in Africa!!!! Wow, if there's a dumber Autry flick I've yet to see it, and I've reviewed sixty two of them here on the IMDb so far. Don't get me wrong, I'm as solid an Autry fan as the next guy, but this one didn't make sense on so many levels that you're probably going to love it.
The first thing that blew me away was the mere idea that Gene gets a letter from his brother Tex (Ken Cooper) in South Afrioa asking him to bring over fifty horses to work his diamond mine, and Gene just gets up and does it - like he's got nothing better to do! Then, once Gene and partner Smiley Burnette hit the town of Dunbar, it looks just like any other Western movie town of the late 1800's, complete with a Western saloon and cowboys in full gear. At least director Joseph Kane had the good sense to hang a pair of antelope horns on the wall instead of a steer.
From there the story just zig-zags it's way through a number of zany predicaments that involve Gene and Smiley attacked by a lion, getting arrested for engaging in illicit diamond trade, and escaping on horseback using the old rope across the trail trick. Hey if it works in Texas, why not here? You know, as soon as that big ape showed up I just knew it was Ray 'Crash' Corrigan up to his old monkey-shines again. If you needed a guy with a gorilla suit back in the Thirties and Forties, Corrigan was the guy you called. Don't believe me? Check any mystery or horror flick of the era involving gorillas and you'll find his name attached to the project.
Well I don't know that this story made any sense or not, so don't watch watch it through the same lens you'd use on your average B Western. Sure, bad guy Cardigan (LeRoy Mason) gets nailed for setting up Gene's brother for murder, but that's about the only genre standard that this one follows. The stereotypes used to portray the jungle natives are typical for the era, which is to say they'd never pass the PC police today. Even the musical selections stray from the norm, with pretty Maxine Doyle offering up a lively drinking song and a chorus of black youngsters, The Cabin Kids, sounding rather good on a revival song with Smiley in the lead. As for the picture's title, it has no bearing on the story at all, but who'd go see a film called 'Round-Up Time in South Africa'?
The first thing that blew me away was the mere idea that Gene gets a letter from his brother Tex (Ken Cooper) in South Afrioa asking him to bring over fifty horses to work his diamond mine, and Gene just gets up and does it - like he's got nothing better to do! Then, once Gene and partner Smiley Burnette hit the town of Dunbar, it looks just like any other Western movie town of the late 1800's, complete with a Western saloon and cowboys in full gear. At least director Joseph Kane had the good sense to hang a pair of antelope horns on the wall instead of a steer.
From there the story just zig-zags it's way through a number of zany predicaments that involve Gene and Smiley attacked by a lion, getting arrested for engaging in illicit diamond trade, and escaping on horseback using the old rope across the trail trick. Hey if it works in Texas, why not here? You know, as soon as that big ape showed up I just knew it was Ray 'Crash' Corrigan up to his old monkey-shines again. If you needed a guy with a gorilla suit back in the Thirties and Forties, Corrigan was the guy you called. Don't believe me? Check any mystery or horror flick of the era involving gorillas and you'll find his name attached to the project.
Well I don't know that this story made any sense or not, so don't watch watch it through the same lens you'd use on your average B Western. Sure, bad guy Cardigan (LeRoy Mason) gets nailed for setting up Gene's brother for murder, but that's about the only genre standard that this one follows. The stereotypes used to portray the jungle natives are typical for the era, which is to say they'd never pass the PC police today. Even the musical selections stray from the norm, with pretty Maxine Doyle offering up a lively drinking song and a chorus of black youngsters, The Cabin Kids, sounding rather good on a revival song with Smiley in the lead. As for the picture's title, it has no bearing on the story at all, but who'd go see a film called 'Round-Up Time in South Africa'?