Round-Up Time in Texas

The title of this astonishingly silly farce is somewhat misleading as the vast majority of the action, after the initial five minutes, continues in South Africa's Cape Colony, to which Gene Autry and his customary 1930s sidekick Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) have travelled in order to deliver a herd of wild horses to Gene's brother, a diamond miner who requires the steeds for his mining activity and who apparently can find no saddle horses nearer than Texas. From the moment the two cowboys arrive in Africa, there are few scenes that make any sense at all, as we see the pair captured by a native tribe, after escaping an attack by lions, and while in captivity Frog instructs a young tribal quintet (The Cabin Kids, stars of many Hal Roach shorts) in Western rhythm songs, which the youngsters sing in instantly acquired English, one of many welcome musical interludes. The title song, also known as "When the Bloom is on the Sage" is warbled by Autry and others, beautiful mezzo Maxine Doyle, Gene's love interest, sings a South African drinking song, and the grotesque tale obeys a pull into musical moments at nearly any time, yet it is the hilarious voodoo chanting by the feckless tribe and an amorous gorilla suited character which boggle, whereas to state that this is an off-beat venture is a feeble description of a film that one must see to believe, but that one probably mustn't.