Song of Arizona

I can't agree with a previous reviewer who wrote that the story here is better than most Rogers films of the period; in fact there's almost no story here at all. Most Rogers films are breezy entertainment with not much meat on the bones, but them's sometimes pretty bones, to be sure; meaning that often we get the skeleton of the story without having to look for any depth, but the action, the music, the general sense of good natured fun makes the typical Rogers film an easy way top blow an hour or so without regret.

But this film is a mess. One give-away to this is Dale Evans. Her character is introduced to sing a song, disappears, reappears to try to plug a plot hole, and then pretty much disappears until the end. She has little to do but wring her hands and look concerned.

The basic plot - an outlaw wants to leave his stolen money to the orphanage/ranch taking care of his son - never amounts to much. There's no strain to finding the loot, a couple bad guys chase around after it, daddy dies and son is redeemed, and along the way a couple songs get sung. But there's never any tension or suspense, and Rogers, who should appear in command of the material, looks lost, like the director skipped out when the filming began or something. Gabby Hayes is his typical self, but since he's trying to play Pat Obrien in "Boy's Town," there's nothing much for him to do, since that sort of thing isn't in keeping with his usual schtick. The Sons of the Pioneers appear briefly, singing a song of course, but for no other reason - usually they also double as Rogers' ranch-hand gang of friends, here they too disappear.

All in all, the worst I've seen Rogers in - not unwatchable, but little else you can say for it.

Banker Sarah Edwards is about to foreclose of Gabby Hayes' ranch, where he takes care of runaway boys, all of whom belong to the Robert Mitchell Boy Choir. Among them is Tommy Cook, whose father, Lyle Talbot, is a bank robber. Talbot is killed, but not before he leaves $60,000 in stolen money with Cook. Hayes sends Roy Rogers, graduate of the ranch and radio singer, to see Dale Evans, Cook's half-sister, with a letter from Talbot. She comes back with him to the ranch.... but so do other members of Talbot's gang, who tell him Haye shot his father, and they want the money.

Director Frank MacDonald seems to have settled on the Roy Roger vehicles as musicals far more than westerns, and there are nine musical numbers here; only a couple impress me, and except for the title number -- sung at the end by everyone -- don't seem to fit the idea of singing cowboy movies.

Tommy Cook was the original "Little Beaver" to Red Ryder in the movies. As he aged out of juvenile roles, he become a star tennis player, a promoter of such events and a writer. As I write this, he's still around, and even appeared in a couple of TV shows in 2020, 61 years after his last previous on-screen acting role.

In Song of Arizona Gabby Hayes runs a ranch for wayward boys with the same underlying premise that Spencer Tracy operated Boys Town with, that there's no such thing as a bad boy. Not even Tommy Cook who's the son of notorious outlaw Lyle Talbot. It seems that Talbot had deposited Tommy with Gabby and resumed his outlaw ways.

Not even the most successful of Gabby's graduates, western radio singer Roy Rogers, can deal with Tommy. In fact Lyle never even told Tommy about an older sister he has who's played by Dale Evans. How the two never knew each other might lead to some interesting speculation about Lyle's love life that the Saturday kiddie matinée crowd wasn't ready for.

Gabby's got a big debt to pay a $25,000.00 loan on the ranch that's due. But he's sitting on some treasure because Tommy's got all of his father's stolen loot that Talbot's been sending him bit by bit. Of course after Talbot's been killed by a posse, his henchmen led by perennial western villain Dick Curtis naturally want the money themselves.

It's a tangled mess, but Roy Rogers solves all the problems, financial, emotional, and romantic by the final reel.

Song of Arizona although I saw a really horrible VHS tape of it has some nice western songs in it. In fact during a Halloween type number, Gabby Hayes got to show off some of his old vaudeville shtick from when he was young. That is if you can ever believe Gabby was young.

The Robert Mitchell Boys Choir played the ranch kids and in fact they were the wayward kids that Bing Crosby turned into a choir of little angels in Going My Way. Just a change of setting in this film from urban to rural.

It's not a bad story actually, a bit better than a lot of Roy's films if you discount the G rated silliness in the plot situation.

This is one of those Roy Rogers films that, if not the best, has absolutely all of the right components.

Roy is great, as always, as are the wonderful Sons of the Pioneers. Then there's Gabby, being Gabby, simply the best comedy sidekick in western movies, Dale doing some pretty swish song and dance routines, a terrific snarling villain in Dick Curtis - was that really his own face or just an evil mask? - and just the right amount of Boys Town type sentiment with the Robert Mitchell Boy Choir as the wayward boys living on Gabby's Half-A-Chance Ranch. The title song is good and, shame on me, I nearly forgot Trigger: he looks stunning! There are those who say the West was never like this,that no-one dressed like Roy, that the story lines were thin or far-fetched, and who am I to argue? That's what makes these old Republic movies so irresistible!

Roy Rogers attempts to to help save Gabby Hayes' ranch for wayward boys from foreclosure, when one of Gabby's wards is targeted by the partners of outlaw Lyle Talbot, the boy's deceased father.

This one's a little sappy, even for a Saturday matinée western, though impossible to entirely dislike. Roy, Gabby, Dale Evans, Bob Nolan, and The Sons Of The Pioneers are all still fun to watch, while some of the kid actors give pretty decent performances.

There isn't much to recommend in the way of action or gun-play, but there's a few decent songs, including a neat Halloween song and dance number from Roy, Dale, and Gabby.

Though not really one of the better films in the genre, Roy Rogers fans will probably be a little bit more forgiving than the average viewer.