An American western musical directed by Joseph Kane, starring Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette.
A ranch foreman averts disaster in mixed up dealings over land and sheep between a rancher who is out for money and innocent college girls who have just moved in.
The complex plot was followable, but not as clearly presented as I would have liked. The characters were identifiable, but stereotypical of the genre and time. Audio and video as expected. The only thing to note is Smiley Burnette's repeated use of low vocals during his songs. I rate it poor because I just didn't like it.
An American western musical directed by Joseph Kane, starring Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette.
A cowboy in Texas gets a letter from his brother who is mining diamonds in Africa. The American brother rounds up the horses requested and goes to Africa in search of his brother.
This was pretty standard. The plot and characters were clearly communicated and there was plenty of music and comic relief. All of the songs were diegetic, but seemed to be from pre-recorded audio with actors miming and lip synching. It just boggles my mind how few actual music performances there are in movies. The audio and video were standard for the date, but clear enough to pass my inspection. Overall, it's a standard 1937 western musical with Gene Autry. What other description would be necessary? I rate it o.k.
An American western directed by John English, starring Gene Autry.
A cowboy crashes his stagecoach in a race and meets a woman in a ghost town. The woman has been in communication with the ghosts and a plot involving 20 year old treasure, the cowboy's father and a group of bandits is revealed.
The plot and characters were clearly presented. I liked how the backstory got filled in with flashbacks. Another general aspect that I noticed was the romantic interest replacement. There were lots of underexposed shots on the video and the audio had too much dead air hiss. There were some good shots in the stagecoach race, the fist fight and the cowboy jumping onto his horse. Overall, it was a regular western with some good things and some bad things. I rate it o.k.
An American western directed by John English, starring Gene Autry.
A singing cowboy is tricked into thinking that he has killed a man who was about to report an insect problem. The man who is really the killer wants the insect problem to continue so that his lumber operation can harvest the trees that the insects kill. The singing cowboy is found innocent in court and embarks on a job to spray poison to kill the insects while the lumber baron gets another plane and sprays another poison. It's too complicated.
The complex and convoluted plot was filled with characters that were barely identifiable. The poor quality video made matching faces with names even more difficult. The lumber guy has a mustache and a black hat so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say "That's the fuckin' badguy!" and Gene Autry (poison spraying goodguy) wears an ornately embroidered cowboy shirt. Because of how poor the communication was, I'm rating this bad. Only watch it if you want to spend the whole time trying to figure out who is who and what they are doing.
An American western directed by Joseph Kane, starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette and Kay Hughes.
A Texas ranger shows up with his team to help the military protect a supply train. He finds that he is in direct competition with a military leader who is unwilling to accept help and a group of indians who are counting on one of the military men to leave the supplies unguarded.
I noticed the silent film style speeded up fight scenes and the comic relief characters most when I watched this. The plot was clearly communicated and characters identifiable. They fit into standard western roles, but that seemed to work out just fine. The black and white video was a little bit blurry/grainy and the audio was primitive, but I saw and heard everything that was going on. The pacing was very quick all the way through and barely slowed down at all. The humorous elements contained an indian chasing a ranger to scalp him and a weathered old trail hand who used snuff to cause others to sneeze. I'm rating this o.k. because I've seen much better and much worse.
An American musical comedy western directed by Joseph Kane, starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette and Ann Rutherford.
A cowboy hunts a gang of outlaws who are using technology to steal cattle.
This was actually pretty cool. In the first scene, there was a cowboy riding backwards with a mask on the back of his head to look out behind him. We got awesome camera angles in a chase scene and creative editing during Smiley's song about the detective in which he changes costumes. The music was that hokey old honky-tonk style that I like so much and there was a gag with two men in a cow costume attracting the attention of a bull. If you're looking for a western of the 53 minute variety, this is it. I rate it good.
An American western musical directed by B. Reeves Eason, starring Gene Autry.
A singing cowboy arrives in a town near a dam that is being built. There are problems surrounding the dam, with workers wanting to quit because they are not being payed and some men wanting to blow up the dam with dynamite in order to claim the land for themselves.
When I watched this, the main thing that I noticed was how old it is. Everything is done in a very '30s fashion. The plot was a little hard to follow and many of the characters were unclear as far as identification and keeping track of them. I liked the hokey old music, but some people would not find it suiting to their tastes. My favorite songs were the ones performed in the saloon with a trio of musicians switching instruments frequently. The pacing was pretty quick and only got faster in the action scenes at the end. The audio was decent, but very midrange-biased. The video had some improper exposures and some artifacts. Due to antiquity and some aspects being unclear, I will rate this tolerable.
An American western directed by David Howard and Joseph Kane, starring George Gabby Hayes, with a musical appearence by Gene Autry.
A cowboy and his sidekick are run off the road by a woman driving her car. She crashes as well and catches a ride on a passing stagecoach while the duo tow the car to town for her. The men from the stagecoach are villains who trick the cowboy's sidekick into gambling everything the duo owns on a horse race that the villains are planning to cheat at. The cowboy will not give up his horse until he finds who is responsible for injuring it and making him lose the race.
This was pretty standard for old westerns. The plot was easy to follow and the characters easy to keep track of. The audio and video were very primitive, but not bad. Gene Autry's musical numbers came as a set of 3 performed in a dance hall at about the halfway point of the film. Wikipedia identifies this as a screentest for singing cowboys that was successful. If you look closely, you will notice that Autry has a fretboard inlay of his name on the guitar. Overall, this was a very standard western of the time. It may have been a formative film in the singing cowboy genre, but 81 years later, it just seems to fit in with that crowd. I rate it o.k.
