Western Jamboree

Those scenes in the saloon are little musical gems. I especially liked "Cielito Lindo" and "When the Bloom is on the Sage". And catch that clever novelty act where Joe Frisco does some amazing dance contortions. Plot-wise, Gene helps out Dad by pretending that his ranch is a dude ranch belonging to Dad. It's all done to impress Dad's daughter and her snooty eastern fiancé. Plus, there's helium, of all things, under a weird trapdoor that bad guys are trying to steal. Worse, I think they want to sell it to Hitler.

A big highlight is when Frog Millhouse takes an unscheduled ride in a 98-cent balloon that actually looks kind of scary—I kept looking to see how they did it. Also, Frog does some neat trick riding that others are too busy to notice. Looks to me like old Smiley Burnett (Frog) was a man of many unsung talents. There're also a spectacular wagon crash, some hard riding, and a big shootout where surprise, surprise, nobody gets hurt. Anyway, Gene's got to untangle all of this and still get in a few more songs and he's only got 50-some minutes to do it. I'm just sorry they don't make 'em like this anymore.