Apache Rose

Apache Rose finds Roy Rogers giving up the cowboy life and becoming an oil wildcatter although he still dresses like a cowboy and rides Trigger. He's on the Pacific shores in this film and in some beach caves finds evidence of oil. Not too hard since it's oozing right up from the ground, wouldn't need a geologist to see this one.

The oil is on an old Spanish land grant ranchero owned by Russ Vincent who is in some deep debt to gambler George Meeker. He owns the ranchero but in partnership with cousin Donna Martell. She has to be eliminated before Meeker can squeeze Vincent.

Dale Evans is in this and it would surprise a lot of fans to know that Dale was only in about half of Roy's films. Those are of course the best of the Rogers films, they do have a nice chemistry. On another of their films I said that they were a kind of red state Tracy and Hepburn and that holds true for Apache Rose.

Character actor Olin Howland had the sidekick role in this one and while he's all right, you do miss Gabby Hayes or Andy Devine.

Definitely one for fans of Roy and Dale.

My grandfather had mentioned Roy Rogers very few times, but, from what I could always collect, Roy seemed to be pretty popular, back in the day.

I must say, I had a good time with this flick-even as someone who's never watched any work from Rogers. This was fun, humorous, and a little silly, at times (but in a good way). It even manages to get pretty tense, every once in a while! I'm definitly glad my fiancé bought me this five-film box set from a local thrift store we recently found. Very cool stuff, so far, with this first film.

I'm genuinely surprised by how well-made this was.

Roy Rogers is cool, and he can definitely sing (which, oddly enough, I didn't expect so many songs in this fifty-five minute flick). The songs were all enjoyable. Some were even catchy, to a 2018 ear. My favorite character may be Roy's buddy, in this episode. The performance is fantastic by this actor I'm not familiar with, and his slapstick humor is brilliant. Kudos to the fellow, for his hard work. The rest of the supporting cast were impressive, as well.

The fight choreography was actually pretty awesome! I never expected to see a person jump off one horse, only to tackle another guy off his own! Very cool! A lot of this stuff looked super dangerous to pull-off, and I MUST give credit where credit is due.

I enjoyed this quite a lot! If you don't know anything of Roy Rogers, check this one out! If you do, though, I'm not sure if this is better quality than his usual work, or what. I'm just saying: I was impressed by this. "Apache Rose" was, for sure, a good time had.

Oil wildcatter Roy Rogers can smell the oil on Russ Vincent's rancho. He likes the idea, but needs the agreement of his cousin, Donna Martell. Meanwhile, Vincent owes gambler George Meeker a lot of money -- his gambling is why Dale Evans keeps turning down his marriage proposals. Meeker sees a way to add oil interests to his gambling ship, and getting rid of cousin Donna is a simple way of doing it.

The credits say it's a color film, but the otherwise excellent print is in black-and-white. Roy sings two of the five songs, and Olin Howland and Minerval Urecal offer some mediocre comic relief. It's certainly not among the best of the Roy Rogers vehicles, but his fans will be pleased to see it anyway.

I don't care how much of a fan you are of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans--you've got to admit that this is a very bad film. In fact, it's the only film they made that truly made my skin crawl...it's THAT bad. Why is it so bad? Well, a pretty senorita is hurt very badly and Dale comes up with an insane plan--to don a black wig and pose as a Mexican!! I think that the Swedish Chef would have been more convincing! She is, to put it bluntly, absolutely terrible. Later, for no apparent reason, Roy tells everyone that he's killed the senorita--and I have absolutely no idea why! On top of that, the writing isn't very good and there is the usual Rogers/Evans cliché where they meet and hate each other. A bad film in just about every way...and dumb, dumb, dumb to boot.

Songs not so western-sounding; Dale and Roy initially at odds; coastal setting; believable, interesting story with intelligent humor - elements of this film which favorably impressed me, without a "try-too-hard-to-be-different" result. "Apache Rose" is the name of a small boat, skippered by Dale. Oil prospector Roy dislikes Dale's delivery plans for his equipment, but, eventually, they warm up to each other, with disguised Dale actually assisting to apprehend the villainous Reed Calhoun, who operates a casino-boat and covets oil-rich land owned by Dale's suitor - the gambling-indebted Carlos Vega, and his sister from out-of-town, Rosa. Some of the comic relief is aptly provided by the bumbling, years-worn, Roy-admirer, Alkali. After twelve years of pretty-much formulaic Roy Rogers movies - which, by this time numbered around 75 - it's nice to see one which is not quite the same as many of them, but doesn't overdo the uncharacteristic.