Range Beyond the Blue

Eddie Dean appears here in another western programmer from the late 1940's. Dean attempts to put an end to a gold theft ring, and is believed to be killed in the process. His sidekick , Soapy Ates poses as a lawman and Eddie plays a bad-guy. Along the way, a few western songs are crooned by the singin' cowboy.

This was a standard Eddie Dean film...... with a standard formula. There are no big surprises here, but Dean fans will like it well enough. I always liked to see Eddie Dean play a villain...... as he had done in a few films years before.

Look fast for singer JD Sumner, who later became a famous Gospel singer and the leader of Elvis' backup group !!

Helen Mowery runs the stage company left to her by her father. Every time it carries gold shipments, it gets robbed, and the insurance company is threatening to raise her insurance premiums to a level where the company becomes unprofitable. After twenty minutes and two songs, Eddie Dean and Roscoe Ates show up to investigate.

Normally I don't discuss the story of B westerns beyond a brief recap. What's the point? They almost invariably fall into Frank Gruber's list of seven types -- as does this one -- and the writing, while not great, is adequate. This one, however, has real problems, with plot holes, motivation that makes little sense, and a lot of exposition -- Dean and Ates spend a lot of time explaining what they already know to each other, and also what they're going to do. Miss Mowery is pretty, Dean's singing is good, and Robert E. Cline's camerawork is up to the task, but Patricia Harper's script is padded and useless.

I noted that a prior contributor stated that J. D. Sumner was in Range Beyond the Blue as a member of the Sunshine Boys. It is true that he was later the leader of the Stamps Quartet, which was Elvis' backup group for the last seven or so years of Elvis' life. J. D. had not joined the Sunshine Boys in time for Range Beyond the Blue, however, with his later arrival with the group often leading to his being improperly identified as a member in earlier films. In fact, J. D. and Fred Daniel appeared in only one movie as members of the Sunshine Boys with that being Prairie Roundup, a Durango Kid presentation, the final appearance in movies for the group. The members of the Sunshine Boys appearing in all movies except for Prairie Roundup were Ace Richman, brothers Tennessee and Smitty Smith, and Eddie Wallace. When the Smith Brothers left the group for a long tenure as The Smith Brothers in the Atlanta area, J. D. and Fred came on board. J. D. stayed from 1949 until 1954 when he left to join the Blackwood Brothers Quartet while Fred stayed until the mid sixties and later sang for several years with the Blue Ridge Quartet. The group of Richman, Wallace, Daniel, and Sumner appeared together as the Sunshine Boys for special events as late as the late 1990's, just prior to the deaths of Sumner and Richman. Daniel died in late 2007 or early 2008 while Eddie Wallace is doing well at age 84 as of July, 2008 and, as far as I know, Tennessee Smith still survives in the Atlanta area.