Red Skins and Red Heads

Ray Whitley and his band cavort with a bevy of attractive starlets and perform four or five songs in this RKO short.

RKO had a very lively shorts department through the early 1950s, with regular series by Leon Erroll and Edgar Kennedy, a fine newsreel division, the Disney cartoons, and this series, which ran from 1938 through 1942 and seems to have consisted of 18 shorts. With a band that includes Spade Cooley on the fiddle, and Jimmy Wakely on the guitar, it's a nice potpourri of Western Swing and pretty girls.

Some films fail to pass the test of time, and the offensive title clues you in that this is one of them. In fact, the title reveals what you can expect in this dated and dull short.

Well, except the redheads, which may or may not appear in this black and white film--it is impossible to tell.

The western swing music is not bad, but even top musical talent would have failed to save this stinker. It is predictable, dull, and is missing a key element for a comedy film: comedy. It is no wonder the women playing girls in this film are uncredited, because even when this was made, it must not have been the type of thing an aspiring actress wanted her name attached to.

Ray Whitley was a singer who was the front man for a group called The Six Bar Cowboys. He also was the manager for The Sons of the Pioneers...so it's not surprising that he does a lot of yodeling in this short. Yodeling was very common in country western music back in the day...and while most today don't want to hear yodeling, you must admit that he has a nice singing voice.

As for the plot, well there's not much here. Whitley and his singing group want to make time with young ladies at a finishing school...and vice-versa. However, the old matron in charge threatens to shoot Ray and his men so they come up with a plan to trick her.

As I said, there's not much to the plot...but the singing is decent and enjoyable...especially if you like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and their style of singing.