No Velho Rancho

This is a great Autry outing with a very young 24? year old Leonard Slye with the newly formed Sons of the Pioneers. One of the most beautiful of the Pioneers recordings is here "Silent Trails" to this fan a better song than "Tumbling Tubleweeds" or "Cool Water." The exterior scenes were the oft-used Iverson Ranch, very recognizable by the chase roads and rock formations. The town scenes were the Republic Studios western set which i think was new at this 1936 time frame. It became in the 1960's CBS Studio Center, back lot location for Gunsmoke, Big Valley, Cimmaron Strip and other westerns of the time. As far as Old Corral is concerned its a fine movie, some say hokey but not this fan. I'd rather see these than some newer westerns. Autry and the pioneers, Smiley and the rest are fine in the film. Only bad stuff to this fan were Oscar and Elmer, who I guess were maybe a radio duo or something similar at the time. Could have done without those two. They were in a couple of Autry films.

Gene Autry and Smiley Burnett (Frog) are singing and croaking their way through another Saturday matinee. Look for a very young Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye) and the Sons of the Pioneers.

Old Corral is a very enjoyable film. Gene Autry proves that he stands in a class on his own, showing good acting skills, a great singing voice (as always) and the proper energy that the role demands. Hope (Irene) Manning is pretty good as Eleanor Spencer aka June Edwards, but one can easily tell why most people still don't know her as a great actress. And, of course, Smiley Burnett is the quintescential Gene Autry sidekick, always a welcome screen presence as far as I'm concerned.

Since I do enjoy some country music, I liked the appearance of the Sons of the Pioneers, and a young Roy Rogers was supposed to be among them. I only really noticed him at the beginning, when he and his gang hold up the tour bus. After that, he drifts in with the background extras.

Then there's the action scenes. They hold up pretty well, although the immobility of the camera, some fairly transparent visual effects and clunky editing kind of hinder the climax from being as climactic as it could be. All in all, though, it's a good film that I recommend for anybody who wants to watch a enjoyable classic western.

"The Old Corral" became famous for its fight scene between Gene Autry and his future competitor at Republic, Roy Rogers, known at that time as Dick Weston. Rogers was part of the Sons of the Pioneers musical group featured in Autry's pictures. In this film, they play highwaymen (overland bus robbers) who also known how to warble a tune. While most of them are captured and put in jail, young Weston gets away and Autry has to go after him, not only for the robbery but because the group needs his harmony. After he is subdued, Autry asks him to yodel. Rogers then learns why he was captured. In the next scene, the group is shown singing "Silent Trail," a moving ballad about the passing of the old West. The sincere expressions on their faces as they sing compliments their harmonious treatment. They always gave their songs a bit more class than the usual "hillbilly" groups Autry had in his films, who had been taken from the National Barn Dance radio show.

The Old Corral starts out a whole lot like the Bing Crosby Paramount classic, She Loves Me Not. If you'll remember chorus girl Miriam Hopkins witnesses a gangland murder and flees from the mob. Here it's Irene Manning who's a nightclub entertainer who sees John Bradford do the same thing and flees out west.

Well, those big city gangsters are way out of their element when they're tangling with Gene Autry. Of course not everyone in the west is as friendly as Autry. There's Cornelius Keefe and Lon Chaney, Jr. who recognize who Manning is before Autry does. They own the local saloon and under the guise of giving her a break, hire Manning to entertain, but in the mean time call Bradford hoping to curry favor with the gangland boss.

If that's not enough sheriff Gene has to contend with the Sons of the Pioneers and their lead singer, one Leonard Slye who play a brother singing group who take to being outlaws as a way to gain notoriety and a radio contract. Of course in two years that lead singer left the group and started putting out his own westerns for Republic and Herbert J. Yates under the name of Roy Rogers.

I agree with a previous reviewer that Manning's soprano and Autry's western twang don't exactly mesh. It might be why Gene mostly didn't go in for singing co-stars throughout his career, unlike his famous rival at Republic. Of course Gene didn't marry a co-star the way Roy did.

The scene where Manning is trying to make a go of saloon singing and falling on her derrière until Gene helps out is reminiscent of Jeanette MacDonald trying to sing for her supper in Rose Marie. Jeanette had a co-star though who was more suitable to her voice.

The Old Corral is kind of dopey, especially the bit about The Sons of the Pioneers. Still it's a great bit of history, an historic meeting between Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.