Rainbow Over Texas

Here's a Roy Rogers western based on a Max Brand magazine story and starring Roy with DALE EVANS, TRIGGER and SHELDON LEONARD as the gambling villain.

It's poorly edited in the version shown on TCM with abrupt cuts from scene to scene and fadeouts that reflect the low-budget production values. The choppy editing even extends to the final "The End" credit where the music is suddenly cut off.

The story is a trifle with Dale masquerading at the start as a boy when she's a stowaway on a train carrying Roy Rogers and Trigger. GEORGE 'GABBY' HAYES gets her to admit her masquerade and before you know it the plot, with some nice musical interludes, is off on a fast pony express contest that Rogers finally wins--in time for a final musical version of a sprightly number called "Rainbow Over Texas." Roy briefly takes time out to solve the shooting incident in a crowded barroom before the fadeout.

It's nothing much, but I'm sure it pleased Roy's fans back in 1946. The very slim plot all takes place within a brisk hour.

The Sons of the Pioneers do a nice job on a couple of pleasant western numbers and both Dale and Roy sing their songs with professional ease.

This is my favorite Roy Rogers movie with a great cast and Trigger had a big part as well. Dale Evans is most fetching as a young heiress from Chicago with some wonderful singing too. Sheriff Gabby Hayes could not have been better as the sheriff who is in a heap of trouble harboring a runaway and stealing Wooster Dalrymple's (Robert Emmett Keane) horses to be used in the Pony Express race. Producer/Director Sheldon Leonard, well know in TV land played the crooked gambling hall owner and Kenne Duncan was superb as as the top henchman. Rounding out a great cast were, Minerva Urecal, George J. Lewis and Gerald Oliver Smith. All that and to top it off the fabulous Bob Nolan and the Sons of Pioneers made this a most memorable film.

Because this is a Roy Rogers picture no one could or would expect the same kind of sexual ambiguity situation with Dale Evans spending some of the film masquerading as a boy like Katharine Hepburn did in Sylvia Scarlett. At least not for long.

Dale's a young heiress from Chicago with a yen to see the place where her wealthy father sprung from, a desire not encouraged by Robert Emmett Keane as her father. She runs away and stows away on a train where her singing idol Roy Rogers is returning to Texas. It just so happens he's returning to the town of Dalrymple named for Dale's family.

Dale doesn't spend too much time in drag, Roy's fans were definitely not the kind to appreciate the subtleties of gender bending humor. The action returns to traditional western fare with Sheldon Leonard in an accustomed place as the gambler/villain looking to cash in big on a pony express style relay horse race.

Not bad, but a little out of the ordinary for Roy and Dale's fans.

Despite what the title says, this is not a gay western...and my daughter was very disappointed (she seriously said this and was disappointed!). "Rainbow Over Texas" is actually one of those films that has everything and it's the perfect film for a first-time Roy Rogers viewer. This is because it has nearly every possible element you'd expect to see in one of his films....Gabby Hayes, Dale Evans (Rogers' wife), Trigger the horse as well as Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. While Roy made about a hundred such films, many lacked one, two or even more of these elements...this one has them all.

In this story, Roy plays a movie version of himself....a singing movie cowboy. He and the Sons of the Pioneers (a group he founded in real life) are on tour when they come upon a stowaway on their rail car. It's Dale Evans dressed as a boy--a disguise that isn't super convincing. Fortunately, the writer had Roy see through this guise right away...not having him do so might have been silly. What Roy doesn't know is that his old home town to where he's now headed is that the old town was essentially bought up by a meat packing magnate...Mr. Dalrymple...and this girl is Darlymple's daughter! It seems that she is sick of her father and she longs for life back out west...and her father has his agents out looking for her. What's next? Well, a robbery in which the bandit is shot in the arm...and Roy soon helps the man accused of being this criminal. Sounds confusing? See the film to find out more.

As I said, this movie has all the Roy Rogers elements you'd want to see and because it's mad in mid-career, it's quite good (his later films were generally not quite as good). A very good film...one of Roy's better ones. However, be forewarned...the Sons of the Pioneers sing a terrific spiritual number...in black-face! Uggh!