Beyond the Rockies

Westerns of the time were generally all B-movies, meaning they would occupy the bottom half of any double feature. I imagine sometimes there were double features just of B-westerns. Here's one for the history books. Near the start, a stage driver uses the exclamation, "Hopping Horned Toads!", which Yosemite Sam later turned into "Great Horney Toads". Singing cowboys was a fad back then. Even John Wayne was appearing as "Singing Sandy" in the Lone Star/Mascot westerns. Here we have a cowboy quartet, with "Lavender Joe" (!) accompanying on guitar. Their theme song has lyrics referring to themselves as "dancing caballeros." There's a reference to a "perfume-smelling foreman." And once in town, this quartet heads for the "Rainbow Bar." I kid you not. The villain in this piece is a woman, so as possibly to justify the basic sexism of the western genre. The plot holds no major surprises, and true to form, the film only runs about an hour. But there's plenty more where this came from.