Man from Cheyenne

There's rustling going on in Roy Rogers' home town, and old-fashioned methods won't work, this being 1942 and all. So Roy is sent in undercover to hang out with the old gang, and Lynn Carver, who looks nice enough, but the audience soon finds out is in cahoots -- wherever that might be -- with William Haade -- to vamp information out of her fellow ranchers, and to distract everyone by throwing a party for Roy so the cattle are unguarded. Meanwhile, Roy is distracted b Gabby Hayes' daughter, Sally Payne, and other local girl Gale Storm.

It's a typical B movie plot with a touch of women's lib as Miss Storm decks Miss Carver, and the Sons of the Pioneers are on hand to sing and play. We even get to hear Gabby sing a verse or two. By now the Roy Roger franchise was smoothly operating, with all the pieces in place and a cast that repeated from movie to movie under the direction of Joseph Kane and good scripts. The songs are pretty good too.

Before talking about "Man from Cheyenne", I should point out that I watched a trimmed version. During the 1950s, many old cowboy stars had television shows....and their movies were often trimmed down to TV time slot length. The trimming of this one isn't terrible...and eight minutes. Some times, 20 or more minutes are hacked out of it...and the trimming is noticeable.

An unusual feature in many old B-westerns is to set them in the present day....but with everyone dressed as cowboys and plots which would have been just as appropriate for the mid-late 19th century. So, in a film like "Man from Cheyenne" you have cattle rustlers....who use trucks! Such things were common in Roy Rogers and Gene Autry movies...as well as with a few of the other film cowboys.

When the story begins, you see cattle being stolen...and hidden in a cave! Weird...but I saw this in a Hopalong Cassidy film. Roy gets involved when the government and the local Cattlemens Association are looking for some tough guy to go investigate...and that tough guy is, naturally, Roy. But what he and the Association don't know is that the leader of these baddies is a woman!

So is the film worth your time? Yes, though I think the writer wasn't willing to quite commit to a villainess in the film. She was, in some ways, presented as a 'nice' bad girl...which isn't very realistic. I think it's probably because in B-westerns there was almost an unwritten rule against a completely sociopathic lady villain...they often had SOME good quality about them. And, they often ended up dying by the end of the film! I personally wanted to see her with no redeeming qualities whatsoever! But, I know I am in the minority on this one...and must admit that this is a very good Rogers film....enjoyable throughout.

By the way, early in the film I really enjoyed one of the musical numbers, as Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers sing a dandy rendition of "Happy Cowboy". Sometimes the music in Roy's films were more a distraction than anything else...but here it was quite welcome.

Catch those menacing clouds at beginning as Roy heads back to help his adoptive family catch up with sneaky cattle rustlers. But first Roy has to get past loving eye of his adoptive sister, the positively adorable Gale Storm. Actually, the three ladies play a big part in the plot, and thus are more than the usual break from ugly guys. And a salute to the statuesque Lynne Carver who makes a strong lordly impression as the lady rancher. Too bad she died young.

Overall, the oater's a departure from the usual cowboy flick, most of the action coming at the end, with more intrigue than gun play as Roy and family try to figure out who's who among the rustlers. Then too, don't expect usual clowning from Gabby who's instead a serious leader of the posse. Also, catch the nifty feminist version of a cowboy showdown as the girls pursue one another in their new 1941 car models. I imagine the writers had fun with that departure. Anyway, it's an entertaining hour with Roy and Trigger, and I'm not surprised our hero soon hooked up with lifetime partner Dale Evans having enjoyed the attention of her look-a-like, the sparkling Gale Storm otherwise known as TV's My Little Margie. So, git-em-up, cowboy! On to Cheyenne!

Roy Rogers is recruited by the Wyoming Cattlemen's Association and the federal government in order to go back to Gabby Hayes' ranch, where he was adopted and grew up, to ferret out a gang of cattle rustlers that are stealing beef intended for government consumption.

Good photography and some atmospheric scenes, including a neat night-time cattle rustle opening, highlight this fairly enjoyable Roy Rogers flick.

The heavies are pretty three-dimensional this time around and Roy joins Bob Nolan and The Sons Of The Pioneers for a few nice musical numbers. It's all good.

Kind of creepy though is Roy's making passes at his adoptive sister, especially the one on the street, near the beginning. That time he seemed downright lecherous!

Roy Rogers is in the title role as The Man From Cheyenne who's been hired by the federal government to investigate rustling. Remember this is 1942 and war rationing has elevated cattle rustling to the status of a federal crime. But Roy's originally from the area where a lot of rustling is taking place so it's thought he can investigate freely without necessarily being thought of as law enforcement.

It doesn't take too much investigating to discover that socialite Lynne Carver and her foreman William Haade are the organized band of rustlers who are presumably selling meat on the black market. Carver bats an eye at some of her neighbors and they spill all kinds of information that can be used by the gang. Both Sally Payne and Gale Storm are suspicious of her from the gitgo, but Roy requires more proof.

Although The Man From Cheyenne is dated in terms of the time and place that the film is in, it still holds up very well as entertainment. I definitely would put this one down as one of Roy Rogers better westerns from Republic.