Apache Rose

Hoping to secure drilling rights to the oil rich Vega ranch, wildcatter Roy Rogers discovers a scheme hatched by members of a gambling operation to cheat the Vegas (Russ Vincent and Donna Martell) out of their oil rights. Roy teams up with new found sidekick Alkali and tugboat owner Billie Colby (Olin Howland and Dale Evans) to bring down the criminal racket of Reed Calhoun (George Meeker) who runs his operation from a floating casino which resides just out of jurisdiction offshore.

This was Roy's first movie after the departure of Gabby Hayes who as they say, left to pursue other opportunities. Without an apparent backup plan in place the studio plugged in veteran character actor Olin Howland for his one and only pairing as Roy's saddle pal. Actually Howland did a pretty good job. It makes you wonder why he never found a niche in this kind of sidekick role.

Apache Rose is another of Roy's films that was chopped to bits for television. The original 75 minute runtime was cut to 54 minutes. This left close to a third of the movie on the cutting room floor making it almost indecipherable. Apache Rose is still readily available in the full uncut format. It is highly recommended before watching or buying a DVD that you get the unedited version.

Neither one of Roy's best or worst movies. Probably most fans will enjoy though.

5 of 10*

Oil wildcatter Roy Rogers can smell the oil on Russ Vincent's rancho. He likes the idea, but needs the agreement of his cousin, Donna Martell. Meanwhile, Vincent owes gambler George Meeker a lot of money -- his gambling is why Dale Evans keeps turning down his marriage proposals. Meeker sees a way to add oil interests to his gambling ship, and getting rid of cousin Donna is a simple way of doing it.

The credits say it's a color film, but the otherwise excellent print is in black-and-white. Roy sings two of the five songs, and Olin Howland and Minerval Urecal offer some mediocre comic relief. It's certainly not among the best of the Roy Rogers vehicles, but his fans will be pleased to see it anyway.

I'm not a huge fan of Roy Rogers, though he has a lovely voice (and Dale Evans was CUTE!!). I don't particularly like musical westerns and singing cowboys (especially Gene Autry). And this is a fairly typical Roy Rogers film. The plot is interesting enough (and the film short enough) to keep one going, but thee films were churned out a mile a minute to keep the public happy and the dollars rolling rolling rolling, so they weren't exactly high on quality. I really didn't like his sidekick Alkali (played by Olin Howlin) which didn't help much. But Roy was good as usual, Trigger was beautiful as usual, Dale Evans was CUTE as usual, but the film didn't live up to others of his, or my expectations.

Overall: I've seen better, I've seen worse. He beats Gene Autry by a mile but I prefer his TV show. Roy Rogers fans will probably like this a whole hell of a lot more...4/10.

Songs not so western-sounding; Dale and Roy initially at odds; coastal setting; believable, interesting story with intelligent humor - elements of this film which favorably impressed me, without a "try-too-hard-to-be-different" result. "Apache Rose" is the name of a small boat, skippered by Dale. Oil prospector Roy dislikes Dale's delivery plans for his equipment, but, eventually, they warm up to each other, with disguised Dale actually assisting to apprehend the villainous Reed Calhoun, who operates a casino-boat and covets oil-rich land owned by Dale's suitor - the gambling-indebted Carlos Vega, and his sister from out-of-town, Rosa. Some of the comic relief is aptly provided by the bumbling, years-worn, Roy-admirer, Alkali. After twelve years of pretty-much formulaic Roy Rogers movies - which, by this time numbered around 75 - it's nice to see one which is not quite the same as many of them, but doesn't overdo the uncharacteristic.

Apache Rose finds Roy Rogers giving up the cowboy life and becoming an oil wildcatter although he still dresses like a cowboy and rides Trigger. He's on the Pacific shores in this film and in some beach caves finds evidence of oil. Not too hard since it's oozing right up from the ground, wouldn't need a geologist to see this one.

The oil is on an old Spanish land grant ranchero owned by Russ Vincent who is in some deep debt to gambler George Meeker. He owns the ranchero but in partnership with cousin Donna Martell. She has to be eliminated before Meeker can squeeze Vincent.

Dale Evans is in this and it would surprise a lot of fans to know that Dale was only in about half of Roy's films. Those are of course the best of the Rogers films, they do have a nice chemistry. On another of their films I said that they were a kind of red state Tracy and Hepburn and that holds true for Apache Rose.

Character actor Olin Howland had the sidekick role in this one and while he's all right, you do miss Gabby Hayes or Andy Devine.

Definitely one for fans of Roy and Dale.