Under California Stars

This film has about the same visual appeal as My Friend Flicka,

with it's brilliantly colorful Trucolor camerawork. The color

enhances greatly a film that is still mostly enjoyable. Though

highly dated, at times it's even suspenseful and get pretty exciting

towards the end, when Roy Rogers and his friends go to rescue

Trigger, who is billed as the smartest horse in pictures, and who

comes across as just that. Roy is charismatic and does all the

singing and horse wrangling like a pro, why shouldn't he?, and the

rest of the cast lend decent performances. Michael Chapin is

probably the best of the cast, after Roy, making his role as the

token star-struck kid seem not too predictable. Jane Frazee, on

the other hand, comes across as one of the dumbest leading

ladies ever. So, it's amusing and squeaky clean entertainment for

all the ages, but nothing superb. But then, it really wasn't

supposed to be.

In Under California Stars, Roy Rogers plays exactly who he is, Roy Rogers, B western star. The film opens with him shooting a last scene of his latest film and now he's headed back to his own ranch. In the meantime a star struck kid played by Michael Chapin gets a job at Roy's ranch and witnesses a dastardly crime, the kidnapping of Trigger by some really low criminals who want $100,000.00 or they'll shoot the palomino icon.

Every kid in America would have been up in arms over this had word got out. But as a previous reviewer said, the whole thing is handled locally. Roy's studio, which would have been Republic Pictures, raised the ransom. I can just see Herbert J. Yates of Republic caught between a rock and a hard place on this one. He had a well deserved reputation as a tightwad, but Trigger himself was part of the Roy Rogers mystique, so he HAD to raise the money. I would at least have thought that Yates would have had Trigger insured.

Of course life imitates art and Roy takes things into his own hands in ferreting out the criminals. They are in fact a pretty scurvy lot, busy doublecrossing each other as you will see if you watch the film.

And despite my description it's not a bad film. Jane Frazee pinch hits for Dale Evans because I believe Dale was either pregnant or taking care of a newborn at the time. And Andy Devine is, well Andy Devine.

This film is within Rogers' batting average for light Western fare. There's some black hats that kidnap Trigger-played with dastardly glee. There's a young kid who is star struck. There's comedy bits that mostly work. But the film's title song-and how it is worked into the film-is one of the better usages of the singing cowboy trope. I've been humming Under California Stars all day after watching the film for the first time.

UNDER CALIFORNIA STARS (1948) is a fairly typical postwar Roy Rogers vehicle with a routine B-western plot enlivened by some excellent Trucolor photography. Roy plays himself, the movie star dubbed `King of the Cowboys,' and is briefly glimpsed on the Republic Pictures soundstage before the action quickly shifts to Roy's rural property, the Double R Ranch, for the occasion of a radio broadcast celebrating the star's tenth anniversary in movies. The event is marred by the kidnapping of Roy's palomino, Trigger, by a group of henchmen working for Pop Jordan, a local horse trader. Ted, a boy who ran away to Roy's ranch after mistreatment by his stepfather, witnesses the kidnapping but is warned to keep quiet or they'll kill Ted, Trigger AND Roy.

Given the fame of Roy and his horse, it seems a mite foolhardy to go around kidnapping Trigger, especially since the event makes national headlines. But, in the insular alternate universe of the postwar B-western, the matter is left entirely up to the local sheriff of Saddleback, a town which offers no sign of a gas station, diner or paved road. Neither the FBI nor the state police nor any other pertinent law enforcement agency is called, nor do they show up on their own. (Had J. Edgar Hoover never heard of Trigger? Was he too busy chasing commies? Or did he simply not exist in this world?)

Eventually, Roy and his crew, which includes Cookie Bullfincher (Andy Devine) and Roy's backup singers, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers, work with the sheriff to come up with a plan to trap the kidnappers when they show up for the ransom money. There is lots of outdoors action and furious horse-riding, before a violent confrontation or two ends the problem. The action is shot almost entirely on location, with none of the studio-shot closeups that one finds in a later Roy western like NORTH OF THE GREAT DIVIDE (1950).

There's a surprising amount of bad behavior and violent death on display. Even though these films were set in the modern era, they featured typical B-western type villains who were invariably local businessmen who are secretly corrupt and embark on capers which threaten Roy in one way or another. A somewhat alarming development in this film is the constant threatening of Ted, the runaway boy, first by his stepfather, Lige, Pop Jordan's chief assistant, and later by another henchman, Ed, who threatens to blow Ted's head off if he says a word about who kidnapped Trigger. These darker elements serve to counterbalance the song and comic interludes. The lead villains here are authentically crusty, hefty western types, well-played by George Lloyd and Wade Crosby.

Andy Devine provides the comedy relief, a role that would be taken by Gordon Jones and Pat Brady in future Rogers westerns. Singer-actress Jane Frazee is the female lead, playing a cousin of Cookie who comes to the ranch to train horses. The catchy title song is heard more than once, culminating in a lovely duet performed by Roy and Jane. The film is not as well-plotted or packed with incident as such later Rogers Trucolor westerns as THE GOLDEN STALLION and TRIGGER JR., but it remains a must for Roy's fans. Unfortunately, public domain videotapes in circulation don't serve the Trucolor process well. This one remains a prime candidate for restoration by Republic Pictures Home Video.

Back at home after finishing his latest movie, Roy Rogers runs afoul of a nasty group of abusive wild horse-wranglers, who hatch a plot to kidnap Trigger and ransom him back to Roy for one-hundred-thousand dollars.

Roy celebrates his tenth anniversary as a feature attraction (onscreen as well as off) with this well-photographed color production. However, one wishes that he would have celebrated this milestone with a few more of his best loved co-stars, not just Andy Devine, Bob Nolan, and The Sons Of The Pioneers. Where's Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes?

Still, Under California Stars is pleasant, straight-forward, and has some great songs, with musical highlights that include the title song (not really written by Cookie Bullfincher!) and Roy joining The Sons Of The Pioneers in singing "Dust".

One unbelievable moment that has to be seen to be believed shows Trigger stomping a villains face in! For a few seconds you actually see in the background, a dummy with his face caved in!