Editorial Reviews and
DVD Information about
AMC Westerns: Utah Trail/Riders of the Rockies
Description
THE UTAH TRAIL (1938, Black & White, 56 mins. ) Tex Ritter, White Flash, Horace Murphy, ‘Snub’ Pollard, Pamela Blake The Utah Trail finds Tex and friends looking for an old friend named Jeffers who owns the railroad in town. Soon the search turns into a murder mystery involving a gang of outlaws and a ghost train rumored to ride the railroad owner’s line. The whole family will enjoy solving the action-packed mysteries of The Utah Trail! RIDERS OF THE ROCKIES (1937, Black & White, 56 mins.) Tex Ritter, Louise Stanley, Horace Murphy, ‘Snub’ Pollard, Yakima Canutt Tex Ritter and the gang, Pee Wee and Doc, take to the border-land range to help the Arizona Rangers. But when a mystery man on horseback distracts Doc and Pee Wee and makes off with the livestock they were guarding, it’s up to Tex to infiltrate a dangerous gang across the border to save his friends.
|
Customer Reviews for
AMC Westerns: Utah Trail/Riders of the Rockies
Cantankerous Tex and Everyone's Here
The Utah Trail
Yep, it sure is unusual to see Tex in a cantankerous mood, but it's for a reason - he's pretending he's the Pecos Kid, notorious outlaw. His usual lovable personality eventually comes through, though. It starts off with Tex and his two wonderfully goofy pals, Ananias and Peewee sitting on top of a swaying boxcar singing a song. The train is real and they are really on it on an obviously old track. That's the way old trains used to move. No made-up scene here.
Charlie King is back again telling Tex he doesn't like the look of him. They're into a fist fight within 6 minutes of the opening credits. Of course, they have a bigger fight later on. These two always seemed to have a good time fighting.
There are some songs with memorable lines. In one, Tex is seranading his hoss, White Flash who has a real good time mugging for the camera. That's just what it looks like. A line: "I'm a mighty good hoss with a mighty good boss, I love to be a-lopin'". Fash looks kinda lopey in the scene, too. I love little things like that in these movies. Tex does another jailhouse lament while in the hoosgow with his pals. A line - "Boys there is a moral to this tragic tale, just before election you can't get out of jail". Truer political words were never spoken so watch it all you bad boy wannabes.
Riders of the Rockies
Horace Murphy, Snub Pollard, Charlie King, Yakima Canutt and Earl Dwire all in one movie. You can't beat a supporting cast like that! And Louise Stanley as well. She's such a sweatheart when she smiles you'll fall in love with her immediately. Tex gets to complain again about one of his pal's complaining. He must have liked doing that. I'm sure it was part of his philosophy of life - life is grand if you just let it be that way, so quit complaining and enjoy what you've got. Tex is such a lucky guy to be able to ride off with Louise and his two pals at the end. Surely I haven't given anything away here, it's a B-Western - you know that's how it's going to end up. Just like in real life if you really want it to be, n'est ce pas?
There's another great barroom brawl between Tex and Charlie. These two really go at it again. No stand-ins here. They did it all themselves. I sure would like to have been around when they filmed those scenes. Yak, king of the stunt men who got a well deserved oscar for his work in Ben Hur, obviously had a hand in how the brawl was filmed. Fist fights just didn't look very good until he came along. I think the punch-straight-at-the-camera was his invention.
I love Tex's version of Home on the Range. The others are decent too. The songs in Tex's movies always seem like real cowboy songs to me, more so than in the other singing cowboys' movies. In fact Tex's movies always seem more real to me than most other B-Westerns. There are a number of exceptions to that, though. Nothing slick here.
The reproduction on this DVD isn't the best, but certainly not the worst either. Well worth the price. I just love Tex. He had such a wonderful personalilty.
GospelAMC Westerns: Utah Trail/Riders of the Rockies
Not Tex's best, but two of his more interesting B westerns
Boy, it was tough being a cow in the Old West. It's bad enough that cowboys keep marching you across the sparse landscape, but then every time you Moo some gang of cattle rustlers rides over the hill shooting all over the place and stampeding the whole lot of you, and that usually leads you right back to a branding iron - when once was quite enough, thank you very much. In this 1937 Grand National picture, there's a gang of cattle rustlers operating from just south of the border - and neither the Arizona Rangers nor the Mexican Rurales have been able to get the goods on them yet. Then Tex Rand (Tex Ritter) and his two goofy sidekicks, Doc Thornton (Horace Murphy) and Pee Wee McDougal ("Snub" Pollard) arrive to join up with the local Rangers. Doc and Pee Wee are a little slow on the draw (and I'm not talking about guns), and they manage to get themselves framed for conspiring with the cattle rustlers. Determined to prove their innocence, Tex deserts the Rangers, crosses the border, and insinuates himself into the cattle rustling gang. In his spare time, he pours a little of that old Tex charm on Louise Rogers (Louise Stanley). Things don't quite go exactly to plan, but have you ever heard of Tex Ritter failing and riding off without a pretty girl beside him?
Riders of the Rockies is actually a fairly interesting Tex Ritter film. The plot isn't all that much to brag about, but it works. "Pee Wee" is just really weird, but this character went on to accompany Tex Ritter in a number of B-westerns. The man behind the mustache, Snub Pollard himself, was a silent film comedic actor, and his clownish look and mannerisms call to mind the kind of exaggerated performances you saw in silent films. You might also notice Yakima Canutt, who appeared in a number of early John Wayne B-westerns, among the villains here. Perhaps the most interesting thing of all about Riders of the Rockies is the fact that Tex Ritter actually sings a duet - with leading lady Louise Stanley. Stanley has a voice akin to that of an opera singer, and it really, really doesn't sound right alongside Ritter's good old cowboy vocals (and that humongous bow Stanley wears on top of her head looks downright ridiculous). With the exception of an incredibly annoying "I'm Tex, I'm Doc, I'm Pee Wee" ditty that will ingrain itself deeply into your brain, the rest of the music is great, though, especially Tex's rousing rendition of Home on the Range.
Riders of the Rockies is far from the best of Tex Ritter's early films, but it is one that fans will certainly want to watch.
1938's Utah Trail was the last of twelve films Tex Ritter made for Grand National Films; money problems at the studio soon resulted in Tex's move over to Monogram (where he would star in twenty films over the course of the next three years). Utah Trail was built on the same template as Tex's previous films, but there were some key differences in the details this time around. When Tex - accompanied, of course, by his comic relief sidekicks Ananias (Horace Murphy) and Pee Wee ("Snub" Pollard) - comes riding into town this time, he's singing atop a railroad car rather than a horse; conversely, the big chase scene at the end also involves a train rather than bad guys on horses, which means you won't get to see Tex leap and drag some hombre off his horse at the climax. Tex's character is also a little different here - but only because he's playing the part of a notorious outlaw and trying not to blow his cover as a Ranger sent to investigate the strange goings-on of a "ghost train" plaguing the town. He's rather pushy and rude at first, even to the little sweetie he's trying to protect. The gal's father is the local railroad owner who called Tex in to help, but the poor old guy's dead by the time Tex arrives. Among the bad guys, there's a familiar face gunning for Tex as soon as he hops off the train. Charles King, who plays an hombre named Badger, made a living out of being beaten up and bested by Tex Ritter in film after film.
The best part of this film is the singing, as Tex was in fine voice indeed. Tex not only serenades a little lady, he also serenades White Flash, his good old four-hoofed pal (and the only horse in this movie fast enough to run down a moving train); as an extra bonus, he delivers another classic jailhouse lament designed to perturb Ananias and Pee Wee, who just never seem to enjoy sitting around in the pokey the way Tex does.
All things considered, this isn't a "must see" Tex Ritter film, but it's still quite enjoyable - and notable as his last film for the studio that first brought this beloved singing cowboy to the big screen.AMC Westerns: Utah Trail/Riders of the Rockies
|
