Down the Wyoming Trail

This installment of the Tex Ritter franchise must have been made for kids'. After all, the plot is extremely simple, folks behave like total idiots and it has a Santa Claus angle! As a result, it's the sort of western adults would be best to avoid.

When the film begins, Tex Yancy (Tex Ritter) arrives in Wyoming right in the middle of a cattle rustling epidemic. The baddies are stampeding the elk which, in turn, cause the cattle to stampede. The locals seem to have no idea how to handle this--mostly because they turn out to be idiots. In fact, just about EVERYONE in this film is stupid! Want an example? FIrst, Blackie, the trusted foreman, turns out to be evil! What a shock...a guy named Blackie is evil!! Second, Tex is supposed to dress up as Santa and pass out presents. The baddies find out about this and one of them dresses like Santa as well. And, after the baddie kills someone, EVERYONE believes Tex is a killer. Hello folks! It was a disguise and he was wearing a beard--this is NOT definitive evidence that Tex is a murderer! And, to provide equal time to the stupidity of the baddies, when Tex escapes prison (because the locals are going to string him up), the baddies welcome him--not remembering B-western cliché #3 (when the good guy escapes from prison, he is only POSING as a bad guy). Combining all this and the Christmas and cute little kid angle (yep, there is Jerry the cute kid), it's really hard to take this film seriously at all.

The bottom line is that there were thousands (perhaps billions) of B-westerns made and because of that, there are many, many better films you should watch first. Then, after you've seen every single one of these, only then is it worth seeing this silly film.

This film begins with a cowboy by the name of "Tex Clancey" (Tex Ritter) riding his horse up to Wyoming just before Christmas in search of work. Along the way he saves a young woman named "Candy Parker" (Mary Brodel) from being stampeded by a herd of elk. As it so happens, this particular herd was deliberately stampeded by some cattle rustlers led by a man named "George 'Red' Becker" (Charles King) who has been preying on the local ranchers in that area for quite some time. Also in this gang of rustlers is a cowboy by the name of "Blackie" (Bob Terry) who is the foreman of Candy Parker's ranch. To that effect, after failing to follow her orders, Blackie is fired and subsequently replaced by Tex Clancey. Furious at this, Blackie then frames Tex for a murder he committed which then leaves Candy Parker's ranch vulnerable to the cattle rustlers. What they don't count on, however, is the resourcefulness of Tex Clancey. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this is one of those old-style Westerns which features a singing cowboy--in this case Tex Ritter--rendering a few songs here and there to entertain the viewers along the way. Definitely a product of its time. In any case, although I don't consider this to be a terribly bad film by any means, it definitely wasn't one of the better pictures from this era, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Tex Ritter rides into Elk Valley where a gang of rustlers has been operating in the dead of winter. These varmints are even getting the elks in on it, using them to break a trail in the snow they can drive the stolen cattle. He saves the herd one time earning the gratitude of Mary Brodel and her little brother Bobby Larson.

He's even drafted into playing Santa Claus at Christmas, but the ranch payroll is rubbed and someone killed by a man wearing a Santa Claus outfit. Tex is almost lynched and even his friend sheriff Horace Murphy is at a loss. Still he escapes to find the real killer.

Which you know he will do since he is the cowboy hero. The plot here took a far turn as the outlaw leader has a terrible secret over Brodel and Larson. Everyone else and his brother knows, but the idea is to keep it from them. It got a little ridiculous in my opinion.

Tex escapes the outlaw's clutches with a little skill at a winter sport. This one was way too far fetched and at times got downright maudlin. I don't think the Saturday matinée crowd was too crazy about this one.