Review of Corralling a Schoolmarm

I was doing some research on the "Cowboy" record label, on which Bill Haley recorded in the late 40's, and as Ray Whitley also recorded for that label, I dug out some of the old Ray Whitley RKO Western musical shorts he made. CORRALLING A SCHOOL MARM is a nice example of the charm of this series. Ray (whose looks remind me of a cross between Rex Lease and Ralph Byrd) has a strong yet happy screen presence, he has a hot band, and his acting is as good as, say, Crash Corrigan's in the Range Busters films (and I LOVE Crash Corrigan, so that's a compliment!). There's even a well-developed plot about a school superintendent (Lee Lasses White, without a hat and bald and very funny)who has a crush on the young schoolmarm (Virginia Vale), who has a crush on Ray. It's amazing how much entertainment (both song and story) gets packed into this short. I could do without the opening scene where the school children sing a song, but it probably went over well with the kids who saw this film theatrically at the time. Director Charles E. Roberts was a regular in the RKO short subjects unit, directing Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy shorts, and writing some of the classic Lupe Velez "Mexican Spitfire" films. Unless TCM (who own the RKO archive) happens to show one of these and you happen to catch it, our best bet might be that someday Bear Family Records in Germany might want to do a region-free DVD of Ray Whitley shorts. Why not write them and request it? Definitely recommended to the lover of musical b-westerns.