Hands Across the Rockies

Bill Elliott got his "Wild Bill" from playing Wild Bill Hickok in an above average series of westerns for Columbia that began with a serial. This is one in the series which featured Cannonball Taylor as his sidekick. Bill Elliott was not a singing cowboy. So Cannonball, a very talented comedian and musician, added the musical entertainment by singing and playing his squeeze-box accordion. Although the title of Saturday matinée cowboy films seldom matched anything remotely related to the script, the title of this entry is almost surrealistic. The acting is good with standout performances by the two Crawley sons and my Eddie Waller (later Nugget Clark in the Rocky Lane westerns of the early 50's) as Judge Plunkett. If we had more Judges like Plunkett today, our criminal justice system would not be in such judicial chaos. I especially like the line he uses when summoning the first two rows of men as jurors, "Come forth and be the jury if you're not drunk or half-witted," or some words to that effect. Tom Moray, who played Hi Crawley, only made a few movies. Do any readers know why this was? Ditto for Mary Daily, who played Marsha Crowley. This was one of two movies she made in 1941, the only two movies she ever made. If you're a fan of the Saturday matinée cowboy genre, you should enjoy this movie.