I think if it hadn't been for the characters of Gabby (Gabby Hayes) and Purdy (Si Jenks), this film wouldn't have been very watchable. After all, the plot didn't always make sense. Another thing that didn't make sense was how the old Roy Rogers films were hacked to pieces to shorten them for TV slots. In this particular case, it was worse than usual in this regard, as Roy Rogers and the lady (Julie Bishop) begin hating each other for no reason--because their first meeting was cut out of the film! Seeing her suddenly treating him like dirt made her seem insane to say the least.
The story is set in the Republic of Texas in the 1830s. The President, Sam Houston, is away in Washington. In his place, an crooked despot is ignoring the law and exploiting the masses. And, this jerk hopes to kill Houston when he's returning and make himself the leader of Texas. So, it's up to Roy to defeat him and restore justice.
Does all this sound very familiar? Well, it should. It's the plot to Robin Hood and Ivanhoe re-worked (just a tiny bit) along with an irrelevant and difficult to believer plot involving Biship. It's all quite silly but the film has one thing going for it--the repartee between Gabby and Purdy. I am not trying to be a jerk for saying it, but they seemed just like a couple the way they bickered. And, in the end, when Gabby saw that Roy got the girl, he responds "...better off dead!"--convincing me once and for all that Purdy and Gabby, indeed, had a STRONG gay subtext. I find it hard to believe this was unintentional. But this alone isn't enough reason to seek out this film--it's just not all that good.
By the way, accuracy was never a strong point in Roy Rogers films. In this case, the cowboys all use guns circa 1870 (give or take)--firing bullet after bullet after bullet. For the most part, guns were all single-shot back then. A few RARE revolvers did exist but had to be hand-loaded--a very slow process--especially since a percussion cap needed to be affixed to each chamber as well. So, such gun fights simply weren't possible at that time--not that that ever stopped a B-western! guns were NOT period
