Bells of Rosarita

This Roy Rogers film has everything we love about the genre. Co-starring Trigger, Gabby Hayes, Dale Evans, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. It carries the bonus of guest appearances of Wild Bill Elliott, Allan Lane, Don 'Red' Barry, Robert Livingston and Sunset Carson. The action with the good guys riding after the bad guys and realizing they are firing blanks is a great touch. The Robert Mitchell Boys Choir is terrific and blend their voices with Roy! You will really enjoy the scene featuring the rodeo/circus parade which Sheriff has said is not allowed. Our family rates this one in the top five of Roy's films. Hope you enjoy it too! Happy Trails! -Revran

Janet Martin who is listed in the supporting cast credits, has no lines and appears in only one short scene in the film Bells of Rosarita shot within the film we are watching. She played the lovely bride in the marriage scene and though she had no dialogue sang beautifully while riding off from the wedding celebration. Roy Rogers enters the scene and carries her off while riding on his horse. Miss Martin, played Mexican girls in several films though she was actually of Russian descent. Adele Mara, who was also in one of the lead roles was of Mexican descent, but rarely if ever played a Mexican seniorita. Both, played polynesians in their roles in the film "Call of the South Seas."

In Bells Of Rosarita Roy Rogers steps out of any character and simply plays himself, Roy Rogers singing cowboy movie star. He's asked by Dale Evans who is playing a character to help save her circus and her ranch which the circus uses as headquarters from the clutches of the evil Grant Withers.

It's not a request directly from Dale. Rather it comes from the kids who make up the Robert Mitchell Boys Choir who love the circus and love the Roy Rogers films. What they want him to do is be the cowboy hero in real life that he is on the screen. Whatever else he was, Roy does feel an obligation to his public.

In a move worthy of a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland film, Roy offers his services and that of fellow Republic cowboy heroes, Wild Bill Elliott, Allan Lane, Don Barry, Bob Livingston, and Sunset Carson for a show. The climax involves a robbery and a chase and these guys all form a posse with Roy. Would any gang of outlaws stand a chance with this posse?

The film also has a bit of humor with Roy remarking at one point after shooting off a tin chimney from a cabin where the outlaws are held up that he did that in a film once. And two of the others remark that in the final shootout that the blanks in their western guns aren't going to cut it. That was refreshing that these guys didn't take this all that seriously. Gave something for the adults in the audience to enjoy besides Dale Evans and her sidekick Adele Mara.

Bells Of Rosarita was a good one from Republic with Roy aided and abetted by the best posse any cowboy hero ever had. As Gabby Hayes would remark, 'you're durn tootin'.

Dale Evans and her late father's longtime friend Gabby Hayes come to see Addison Richards at his ten-in-one. Grant Withers is claiming an unpaid debt to seize all the estate's property, but Richards remembers it being paid just before he sold his share of her father's show to him. The receipt would be in the safety deposit box the two of them kept at the bank. So they all head out to California and the family ranch, where the circus is being stored, as well as the orphaned children of circus performers. Republic Pictures is shooting a Roy Rogers western on the ranch, and it's called Bells of Rosarita. When Richards is kidnapped before he can get to the bank box, Roy sees the chance to play a cowboy hero in real life, so he calls up Republic's other western stars -- Bob Nolan being allergic to horses -- and....

The music is good, if not as good as in other Rogers vehicles, but it doesn't matter, with the reality-bending jokes and general good humor. Director Frank MacDonald may not have been Republic's best western director, but he was a pretty comedy one for handling comedy, and there's plenty of that here. With Adele Mara, the Robert Mitchell Boy's Choir, AND Bill Elliott, Alan Lane, Robert Livingston, and Sunset Carson.

Here is a pacey work that employs standard elements to be found in Republic Pictures' contemporary Western films starring Roy Rogers, including the familiar plot artifice of shooting a movie within another, cowboys on horseback chasing motor vehicles bearing villains, musical interludes that interrupt the action at random, et alia, with an additional device utilized herein: "cameos" from cowpoke stars under contract with Republic: Wild Bill Elliott, Robert Livingston, Allan Lane, Don "Red" Barry, and Sunset Carson. Sue Farnum (Dale Evans) has been willed her father's traveling circus but his erstwhile partner Bill Ripley (Grant Withers) intends to take it from her as she cannot locate a receipt confirming that her sire had repaid a loan enabling him to gain title to the big top company, and when she and her employee and friend Gabby Whittaker (Gabby Hayes) accept aid from her dad's pal Slim Phillips (Addison Richards), the three, along with Slim's daughter and troupe entertainer Patty (Adele Mara), entrain to the southern California fictional town of Cabrillo wherein Slim believes he will locate the missing receipt, thereby ending Sue's plight. The Forces of Evil soon kidnap Slim but subsequent events are but ill-explained by a slapdash screenplay that accords space for eight musical numbers (not counting repeats) and while Rogers plainly is tasked, as is his wont, with rescuing a city-bred damsel in distress, he is equally motivated by a primal need to burst into song, a predilection shared with, among others, Evans, Mara, Janis Martin, and the baritone Bob Nolan-led Sons of the Pioneers. This lower case effort benefits from a panoply of Republic casting roster supporting players from whom, despite the film's following the accepted trend of Rogers "B" Westerns, a number of telling performances will be enjoyed from uncredited actors (including dancing girls!); Hayes reprises his wearisome shtick that he displays in each of his movies, even to the phrases, but Evans has a clamp on the acting laurels with a vivacious turn, while able editing supervised by Arthur Roberts makes for a snappily moving although somewhat goofy picture.