"Roaming Cowboy" (1936) has little to commend it unless you happen to be a fan of Al St. John. As usual, Mr. Sinjin (I assume that's the way he pronounces his name) kicks in a with a storm of rattle- brained dialogue and plenty of useless running around – so much so that he tends to dominate the movie and take the spotlight away from the name stars – in this case fighting Fred Scott and villainous Forrest Taylor. Little Buddy Cox is also in there pitching, but the movie is both too slight and too slipshod to sustain its feature length, although heroine, lovely Lois January (by far the best actor in the whole third-rate roundup), is in there pitching with considerable vigor once she makes her late entrance. As for Fred Scott's singing, I would venture to say that it is unlikely to win many converts away from Gene Autry. And as for Scott's charisma, it's also put in the shade by Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and company. In the movie itself, Scott has such little presence that he allows both Lois January and Al St. John to walk all over him. Available on a good Alpha DVD coupled with The Singing Buckaroo.
2 Reviews
Typical singing cowboy movie
dvdjunkie0425 November 2004
Fred Scott is billed along with Al "Fuzzy" St. John in this early oater about a banker who wants to steal a ranch for the water and ends up killing the owner in front of his son. Fred and Fuzzy happen along to break up the take over and end up getting framed for poisoning the water on the range. They escape jail and find it pretty hard to defend themselves without guns. This film moves along at nifty pace, and the songs are mostly at the front of the movie. The acting is a little cheesy and the sound effects ever more so. Fred Scott made about a dozen or so westerns and was even featured in the "Flash Gordon" serials. Not much of a singer, but I found "The Roaming Cowboy" just a plain fun movie to watch.
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