Heldorado

Heldorado finds Roy Rogers as a Nevada State Ranger who gets pulled into a most modern of rackets, money laundering though it wasn't called that back in those days. Impoverished playboy Brad Dexter in only his second film is working out this racket in the casinos there. When he's discovered they find his body at Boulder Dam.

For the Saturday matinée crowd Roy was finally getting in enough action to satisfy them. Some of his films in the Mid Forties could more properly be classed as musicals. Still he gets a few numbers in here.

Dale Evans plays a society girl visiting out in Las Vegas and she's made an honorary deputy sheriff. Which title she takes most seriously when her friend Dexter is murdered. She annoys Roy all to Heldorado with her interference, but actually does have some good instincts.

When I wrote a review of Home In Oklahoma which is my favorite Roy and Dale film, I said the two of them exhibited a chemistry that was very similar to Tracy and Hepburn. I could also cite Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck for the films they did together. Of course Roy and Dale didn't have the benefit of the writers that these folks had working for the major studios. Heldorado most definitely shows the same kind of chemistry that Home In Oklahoma did.

Herbert J. Yates opened his tight fisted pocketbook and splurged for location shooting in Las Vegas and at Boulder Dam. Remember this was Las Vegas before Ben Siegel and Meyer Lansky opened the Flamingo and made it what it is today. So for a look at Las Vegas before the Mob got there, this is a good film to view it.

Roy and Dale are in top form in Heldorado.