Twilight in the Sierras

Edward Keane is a retired judge running a ranch where he employs paroled criminals to get them back into society. Parole officer Roy Roger is a frequent visitor, so when ex-forger Russ Vincent goes missing and his dog returns with.a bullet in his leg, everyone is concerned. The oddities continue when Vincent's sister, Estelita Rodriguez shows up believing he owns the ranch, and then vanishes, and a mountain lion starts attacking people.

There are a couple of instances of poor writing here; both the dog and Trigger get shot in a leg, but are back in full vigor as soon as the bullets are removed. By now, the Sons of the Pioneers have been replaced by Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage, and the songs are pretty good, and Dale Evans is sheriff Harry Strang's daughter and his deputy while he is gone for most of the movie. The usual good stuntwork and color cinematography by John MacBurnie keep this one watchable at all times, but the holes in the story bother me; the Roy Rogers series had long been notable for their writing.

Roy Rogers has his hands full in this western. Dale's inherited the job as sheriff and she needs lots of help. We've got a rogue mountain lion on the trail and a gang of counterfeiters who've hit upon the ingenious scheme of counterfeiting old style gold notes which went out of circulation in 1933, but are still honored abroad.

A little history is in order. One of the New Deal measures from the beginning of the Roosevelt administration called for America to be taken off the gold standard. Previous to that, our money could be redeemable in gold bullion. Presumably that's what the ultimate object of the counterfeiters.

Anyway, they've captured a ex-convict counterfeiter who's working on the Double R Bar ranch of Roy's in a work release program. In fact in this film, most of Roy's hands are ex-convicts.

The dirty villains actually shoot Trigger in this one, but of course they only wound him. Which sets the stage for Pat Brady's finest hour. He was a lovable, but terribly useless sidekick for Roy and Dale, especially on their television show. But in this one, he's a veterinarian and when called upon, saves Trigger by removing the bullet.

Nothing terribly new here, but fans of the King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the west will like it.

"Twilight in the Sierras" is a Roy Rogers film made in TruColor, a cheap two-color process that was much less expensive than Technicolor. This meant that this film (and many other B-westerns) is in color...but a very limited range of colors. It's a bit muddy for a color film...but compared to many other TruColor films I've seen, it looks pretty good. Additionally, the film is complete...something that isn't true for many of Roy's movies which were trimmed for television time slots of the 1950s.

When the film begins, Roy is a parole officer out west. He and the Judge work together hiring ex-cons. One day, one of these parolees, Ricardo, is kidnapped by Matt Brunner (George Meeker...who always seems to play baddies in these films) and his men. Why? Because they want to force Ricardo to help them with some counterfeit gold certificates....and if he doesn't cooperate, they promise to hurt his sister, Oddly, Brunner is convinced he needs to kill Rogers....and when his plan doesn't work, he blames Rogers for the death of one of his men and insist Roger be arrested. Can Roy figure out what's really going on here?

The part of the film about Roy being arrested doesn't make any sense, as the dead man was clearly mauled by a mountain lion, Roy's gun had been tampered with and he easily could have shown everyone this AND then Roy runs away....which makes no sense for a respected parole officer! Certainly not the most logical of Roy Rogers films....and it also seemed odd when the sheriff uses tear gas...something you really shouldn't see in such a setting. Overall, watchable but not especially logical.....which seems to be more likely true with his later films. And, oddly, a strange film that really seems to HATE Mountain Lions...as folks seem bent on killing them....and vice-versa.

By the way, I noticed that one reviewer says the film features the Sons of the Pioneers (a musical group created by Rogers in the 1930s). However, the group in the film is the Riders of the Purple Sage....a similar sounding group but not the Sons of the Pioneers.

I only watched this because I wanted to see how they treated the mountain lions in the film. Obviously, I am against the hunting of any animal. There were, in fact, some other interesting items in this film. It wasn't just a singing western, as I expected - they did break into song every 15 minutes - but what would you expect when you have The Sons of the Pioneers in you cast list.

The story was about counterfeiting, and Roy gave a lesson on how to tell the difference and what you should do if you spot a counterfeit bill. I did not expect a public service announcement in the middle of a western.

I was really disappointed when Ricardo's sister showed up. Could they not have found a hotter example of a Cuban singer to bring along? I am sure they could have found the Cuban version of Shakira, instead of someone who resembled an Andrews sister.

Roy, Dale and their singing pals take on a gang of counterfeiters; stopping frequently along the way for a round of song. Roy's hometown looked funny as horses and cars vied for road space - and everybody wore a sixgun. This was pretty much typical Roy and Dale fare - comedy, romance, and lots of horses. I thought this was high adventure and excitement back in the 50's, but now it seems so tame and corny.