The Old Barn Dance

Gene Autry and his hands head into town to hold a barn dance preparatory to their horse auction. But all the farmers are using Ivan Miller's tractors. Joan Valerie wants to have Miller advertise on her new radio station, but he doesn't think it will do much for sales, until he hears Autry singing. Get him for the show, Miller tells her, and he'll sign a contract. Gene doesn't want to be advertising tractors, so she tells him he'll be doing it for other groups, and she'll set up a mobile hook-up. Sales of tractors zoom, but they're being bought on credit, and with the crop coming in, the finance company (also controlled by Miller) starts to repossess the tractors. Want them back? Pledge your crops.

Besides the riding, stunts, Smiley Burnette driving a tractor back and forth to wreck a sales meeting, and good country and western singing, this Autry vehicle shows that director Joseph Kane and his staff have gotten the formula down, using it to tell something more than Frank Gruber's Seven Western Plots. It also says something about the value of the older ways, and the advantages of progress -- and their risks.

Autry knew his movies made a lot of money for Republic, so he decided to negotiate. Republic caved, and Autry's next movie was released six months later. But they had a back-up plan. In December they would release their first movie starring Roy Rogers.