Twenty years ago, James Nolan and Grant Withers were partners in a gold mine. Grant killed Nolan, and tried his hand at a few other crimes. Currently he's rustling cattle, with lawyer George M. Carlton to act as a front. Before his death, Nolan had set up a trust fund for his daughter, Adele Mara, and left Carlton as the trustee. She's on her way to collect it, and the latest bunch of stolen cattle will just about cover the sum. Withers, however, decides that if she has an accident, it will be all to the good. Good thing sheriff Andy Devine and his deputy, Roy Rogers are on the case.
The copy of the movie I saw had been trimmed by eleven minutes, and peculiarly, it was all the musical numbers. I would have liked to hear Rogers sing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and the other three songs with the Sons of the Pioneers, but looking at this movie without them revealed what I had long suspected: they're fine movies without the musical interludes, well written and acted, and stuntman Joe Yrigoyen does a fine leap from a running horse to a moving truck. Sometimes we forget that these Republic westerns, budgeted for the Saturday morning matinee that they were, were actually put together very well, particularly when you had William Witney directing and Jack Marta handling the camera.
The copy of the movie I saw had been trimmed by eleven minutes, and peculiarly, it was all the musical numbers. I would have liked to hear Rogers sing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and the other three songs with the Sons of the Pioneers, but looking at this movie without them revealed what I had long suspected: they're fine movies without the musical interludes, well written and acted, and stuntman Joe Yrigoyen does a fine leap from a running horse to a moving truck. Sometimes we forget that these Republic westerns, budgeted for the Saturday morning matinee that they were, were actually put together very well, particularly when you had William Witney directing and Jack Marta handling the camera.