Shooting High

During his career, Gene Autry made a bunch of films for Republic Pictures and Columbia. However, for "Shooting High", he was loaned out to 20th Century-Fox because the young actress Jane Withers campaigned to appear in a picture with him...and somehow she convinced everyone to do this. It represents the only time Autry appeared in a movie for this studio.

The story takes place in modern times in a crappy little town where the Carson and Pritchard families hate each other. They've even feuded a few times and killed each other...the animosity is THAT bad. But Jane Pritchard (Withers) liked Bill Carson (Autry) and she wants her sister to marry him...and hopefully end the feuding.

In the midst of this, a movie studio arrives in town and plan on doing a film about Bill's grandfather. But the very manipulative Jane conspires with the Constable to drive the actor out of town so Bill can assume the lead in the film...and thereby win the heart of Jane's sister. Complications, naturally, arise.

While I did not love this movie, I did appreciate how different it was from Autry's other pictures. My biggest complaint is that Withers' performance is about as subtle as a 2x2 upside the head....and a little more subtlety would have worked better. Still, it's a nice little B-movie and is worth your time.