During the 1950s, many of the old B-westerns were trimmed down to television time slot length. Sadly, many of Gene Autry's, Hopalong Cassidy's and Roy Rogers' films were trimmed. In some cases (all the Cassidy films, for instance) copies of the original movies were saved. In many other cases, only the trimmed versions seem to exist....and this appears true for "Young Buffalo Bill". I could not locate a 59 minute version...just this 53 minute shortened one on YouTube.
Like too many old B-westerns (especially several of Roy Rogers'), the film uses real historical figures in a completely fictional situation. So, while Roy supposedly plays the famous Bill Cody, the story has no relation to Cody's life at all and it's not the least bit 'Buffalo Billy'. My advice is to ignore the names and just enjoy it as fiction.
Don Regas is a Mexican-American whose family has lived in the western United States long before there was a United States. He control large amount of land...but the U.S. government wants to survey it in order to determine its exact boundaries. Roy, working on behalf of the government, convinces Regas to cooperate. However, the evil Montez wants the northern portion of Regas' land because there is supposedly a hidden gold mine there. To get the land, he tricks the surveyor into gambling...and makes sure the guy loses a lot. To pay back Montez, the surveyor is told to alter the boundaries....and excluding the northern range from the property. Can Buffalo Bill Cody (Rogers) and Gabby stop him?
This isn't a bad story at all. Despite the William Cody angle, it was enjoyable and worth seeing. But I was bothered by the casting of Don Regas' daughter, Tonia. She is supposed to be from a Mexican family that only recently (after 1848) became Americans following the Mexican-American War. So why doesn't she have an accent that sounds in any way Mexican? In fact, she sounds as if she was raised at a charm school....not the old west. This sort of casting wasn't unusual back in 1940...but it does look (and sound) sloppy.
By the way, it doesn't harm the movie but the retired American History teacher in me thought it ridiculous how everyone in the film seemed to have repeating pistols and rifles. While they were available back in 1860 when this film was set, they were very rare. Plus, the revolvers generally were hand-loaded and didn't have cartridges like we have today (they needed a separate percussion cap to fire). So, folks could NOT just fire again and again and again like they did in the film. I see this mistake a lot in films...not just this one. I even noticed it set in "The Alamo"...a film set in the 1830s...long before any repeating rifles or pistols were even invented.
