The Hills of Utah

Although IMDB says the original film was made in sepia tone, the version I found was just in black & white. To me it makes no difference....but in case you want to know.

The film starts in a most unusual way. Gene Autry himself narrates and it's a long exposition about the events that led to this day. It seems that long ago, Gene's father was shot and should have recovered, but there was no doctor about and he perished. Now, Gene's a doctor and he's returning to his old home town. The problem is in the meantime, the local miners and the ranchers all hate each other and it's more like the Hatfields and McCoys! And, while they hate each other, they REALLY hate Gene because he's willing to treat anyone...regardless of affiliation. Can Gene get these knuckleheads to stop fighting and trust him and his new skills?

It's nice that despite having already made dozens of films and this being among his last films, the plot is still quite original. That being said, it's reasonably entertaining and worth seeing. Not among Gene's best..but still good.

By the way, if you do watch, watch the first fight between Gene and Jayda....it's so very obvious they are using stunt doubles...too obvious and therefore kind of funny. The fact they didn't have Gene do these scenes isn't surprising, as he wasn't exactly a spring chicken at 44.