Barbed Wire

Watching these old Gene Autry films is, for people over 50, a blast from the way way way past. Especially fun to watch: Pat Buttram, the squeaky-voiced comedy relief sidekick. Buttram worked, often doing voice overs, right up until he died in the mid-1990s. Was also in Back To The Future III.

In "Barbed Wire", Gene Autry is a cattleman who is having difficulty because the trail is apparently blocked. While this is all being blamed on hometeaders who are putting up fences, a local baddie is actually in control. He's put fake homesteaders throughout the valley who have put up barbed wire in order to put the other cattlemen out of business. Why? Because the railroad is coming through....and if he owns all the land, he stands to make a fortune. Can Gene and the honest homesteaders defeat this menace?

"Barbed Wire" is a sloppy film that looks as if the studio didn't care if any of this made sense....nor the director. I was amazed at an early scene where two of the baddie's henchmen come into town shooting up the place. They appear to shoot their pistols anywhere from 60-100 times without reloading. Reloading one of these old west guns was NOT a quick thing....and even if they'd had modern guns, no pistol can shoot that many times without reloading! Another sloppy scene is the funeral...which is pretty illogical and dopey. And finally, there's the awful cliche of the pretty woman who hates Gene for no logical reason whatsoever...though most of her actions in the film made no sense (such as writing a story about the town being shot up while she's hiding behind a barrel trying not to get shot!). All in all, it looks as if Gene and the rest of them were just 'phoning it in', so to speak....and not a decent song in the story by Gene, either!

One of Gene's later productions (1952), with same crew as filmed his TV series (1950-1955). Some great desert scenery as backdrop for lots of hard-riding. Also, lots of flying fists, even if some are less well staged than usual. Buttram does spots of comedy relief, but he's also more serious than usual as a rather inept government agent. Familiar old coot William Fawcett (Uncle John) gets bigger role than usual and is as grouchy as ever. Bad guy here (Rutledge) is one-armed land speculator who's plotting to block trail drives so he can get railroad rights. If the storyline sounds more complicated than usual, it is. And what's with poor leading lady Anne James. She acts as though she just swallowed a lemon—see if you can spot a smile anywhere in the 60-minutes. I couldn't. Anyway it all adds up to another worthy entry in Gene's matinée series, along with two great sing-along songs. But otherwise nothing special.

A "6" on the matinée scale.