Rolling Home was produced by Robert Lippert who was soon to found his own studio to produce B films of varying quality. This film is varying quality throughout although it is sincerely made and rather cheaply done.
Russell Hayden appears in one of his few non-western roles as an earnest pastor of a church which as churches always do, has money problems. He's got one easy way of making money if he marries wealthy widow Jean Parker, but Hayden has eyes for her younger sister Pamela Blake.
Into everyone's life comes Raymond Hatton, a veteran rodeo performer who's had his best years way behind him and his young grandson Robert Henry. They have a trailer and an injured horse and no place to stay. Being the good man he is, Hayden takes them in and that raises a few eyebrows though God only knows why.
Jean Parker is the villain of the piece until almost the very end of the film. But she's more like a Cruela DeVille type villainess than anything else. What a woman scorned won't do.
An important plot element is young Henry, Jo Ann Marlowe who is Parker's daughter and best remembered on screen for being Joan Crawford's younger daughter in Mildred Pierce, and Jimmy Conlin all train the horse after he's recovered to enter a trotting race to win a purse and solve all their problems. Even the most naive racing fan knows that pacing and trotting horse have to be taught that gate almost from birth and a horse used to being a roping horse in a rodeo has too much to unlearn to be any good. But why let that little fact get in the way of a good story?
Rolling Home is a sincere enough film and the players have nothing to be ashamed of. But it was a bit ridiculous as well.
