User Reviews

While growing up, Roy Rogers was my hero, and I even got to see him live at a rodeo at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. For many years, this film was the one I most remembered of the many that showed up on television in the 1950s, usually on Saturday afternoons. So I was delighted when Encore showed the film, apparently in its entirety not too long ago; few of the Roy Rogers films survived the butchery to fit them in 60 minute slots on television.

As another of our reviewers pointed out, this is probably the best of Roy's films. After all, you can't go wrong with a Cole Porter lead song and a stellar performance by the best sidekick of them all -- Gabby Hayes. In fact, Hayes is the focus here -- as an old supposedly dead and buried outlaw. The ruse is foiled by Dale Evans, a magazine reporter. But then Gabby (Wildcat Kelly) is shot as an investigation begins into what happened to the reward money which the state paid out when he was supposedly shot dead.

It's all great fun, with the Sons Of The Pioneers along for the ride, with a short version of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" thrown in for good measure. Roy does well here...as he usually did. And, for a change, I actually enjoyed Dale Evans' performance here; in fact, it wouldn't have worked without her role. And Gabby Hayes is at his best, with a particularly funny funeral scene! This may be Hayes' best film performance...and it's pure Gabby!

There was a time I was on a roll with Roy Rogers films when I watched and reviewed a little over fifty of them here on IMDb, but I just discovered a whole slew of them courtesy of tubi.tv and grabbed a look at the first one I came across. So it was with some surprise to see Dale Evans in an opening song number at a night club in which she's probably the sexiest I've ever seen her. Dancing on a table top in what might have been the shortest skirt allowed for the 1940's, she cuts quite an impressive figure right before we learn that she's a reporter for 'Spread' magazine. Hoodwinked into thinking her boss is sending her on an expense paid vacation, Toni Ames (Dale) heads West to investigate a story on an outlaw who supposedly died forty years earlier, but who's alive and kicking in the person of Gabby Hayes, alter-ego of former bad guy, Wildcat Kelly.

Humorous moments abound in this story, as Roy's first meeting with Dale's character gets off on the wrong foot, and he sends her off in the boot of a stagecoach in which he's thrown a brick of limburger cheese. She gets her revenge by pushing Roy into a swimming pool in the next testing of their relationship. Probably the most entertaining moment of the picture occurs when Roy has his horse Trigger do some high stepping and dancing to the delight of onlookers at his dude ranch. There's a reason they call Trigger the 'Smartest Horse in the Movies'!

The story gets a little convoluted when someone takes a potshot at Gabby when news breaks that he's the original Wildcat Kelly, thought dead for the longest time. Gabby fakes his death and does a coffin scene, all the while one has to wonder how no one could have noticed. Roy and the sheriff (Tom London) come up with a scheme to smoke out the attempted killer, and you know it has to work since this is a Rogers flick.

I'm somewhat surprised to read how many reviewers here consider this to be the best Roy Rogers movie they've ever seen; for this viewer it was about average, with most of my ratings coming in at a '6', kind of my standard for a B Western. If I can direct you to some of the better Rogers films, I'd suggest "Song of Nevada", "Dark Command", "The Golden Stallion" and "My Pal Trigger". This one has the benefit of a Cole Porter title tune which opens and closes the picture, with Dale joining Roy to sing it at the finale, much like she did in her very first picture with Roy, "Cowboy and the Senorita".

To me, by far, the most interesting of the Roy Rogers film series I have seen. Besides plenty of humor, and the best lineup of music I've seen in one of his pictures, there is an interesting plot that involves a mystery about a killing that supposedly happened 30 years ago, or whether this famous outlaw is still alive. If his corpse isn't in the grave that bears his name, who or what is in there?........At another level, it's a battle between the sexes, in the form of Roy and Dale. Mostly antagonistic in the first half, they finally see eye to eye in solving the mystery. Roy and Gabby fight against Dale's obsession to obtain sufficient written, verbal and photographic evidence that the infamous Wildcat Kelly, thought dead for 30 years, is, indeed, alive, in the person of Gabby Whitaker. Dale steals the ranch open air horse drawn tour bus in a bid to escape Roy's determination to seize her little camera and destroy the film inside. Roy comes after her on Trigger. But, in the mean while, Dale gives the reigns to the petrified woman passenger behind her, so that she can roll up her exposed film in it's canister, and put a blank roll of film in the camera. When Roy finally catches up and stops the 'bus', he takes her camera and pulls out the roll of film, thinking he has destroyed her pictures. Thus, he is surprised when Dale's story and photos show up in the next issue of 'Spread' magazine, for which she works as a reporter. .......Soon after the guys at Roy's ranch see the article, Gabby is shot in the adjacent room, but the gunman escapes into his car before the others can apprehend him. Dale feels responsible for the shooting, hence jumps in the ranch vehicle, and chases after the gunman. Like the gunman , she goes at excessive speed and eventually runs into a tree. Roy takes a short cut and catches up with Dale. Dale doesn't find out for some time that Gabby survives.(One of those "it just grazed my head" cases when, at first, it appears that he is dead.) Roy wants the gunman to think that Gabby is dead. Thus, Gabby's funeral is staged. The hope is that the killer will want to come to make sure he is dead. Gabby's face is powdered white to make him look bloodless. When a lady puts a large flower on his chest, he almost sneezes. While the mourners file by, Dale secretly takes the picture of each. The hope is that Gabby can recognize the gunman from the pictures. Meanwhile, Sheriff Duncan took down notes on the features of each mourner and their car license plate number(assuming they came by a motor vehicle). When Gabby identifies the gunman, the sheriff contacts the motor vehicle administration, to ask for the owner(But the car might have been stolen or borrowed). Somehow, they find out his place of employment, which will be important. There is much more to the serious and comical aspects of the film, but I will let you discover these. .........I will mention some details of the musical aspects. As I said in the beginning, on the whole, the musical selections are superior to those of any other RR film I have seen. Of course, there is the title song, which was sung several times, including during the opening credits. Others include the easily recognizable "Tumbling Tumbleweed", also "Along the Navajo Trail". During Gabby's funeral, the appropriate "Heading for the Last Roundup" is sung. In addition, Dale got to dress up as a nightclub entertainer, and sing "A Kiss Goodnight", not once, but at 2 different nightclubs! At one, the chorus girls kissed the male patrons.........Apparently, many of the reviewers saw the chopped down 54 min. version. I saw the complete 70 min. version, which is available at YouTube.