Virginia Dale celebrates her twenty-first birthday by selling her last unencumbered asset, the family ranch. George Meeker and her crooked business manager pay her an option, which she uses to throw a party. Her ranch manager, Gene Autry, kidnaps her to the ranch she was born on and hasn't been back to in years, where her neighbors throw a party in her honor; after all, her grandfather opened his extensive range to all of them, which has kept them going for decades. There's nothing she can do, so Autry has her declared incompetent and tries to bypass Meeker's stranglehold on te railroad by driving the cattle across state lines to raise money to buy back the option.
Miss Dale is pretty good in giving this movie a screwball comedy start. It all turns serious when Meeker forces out the other ranchers, and they're heading out like Okies fleeing the dustbowl, and it works pretty well. There's an exciting sequence during the drive when a dam bursts, and Yakima Canutt supervises the stunts as Autry -- or his stand-in, Joe Yrigoyen -- rides his horse down to a raging river to rescue Wade Boteler, Autry is also in fine voice in this one, singing "The Last Round-Up" and "Blueberry Hill." With Mary Lee, Spencer Charters, and Cactus Mack.
