Frontier Pony Express

Roy Rogers is the best pony express rider in the third of his nine westerns released in 1939. The Civil War is on, and the service is the vital link to California and its gold mines. But the Confederates know this, so they send Don Dilaway to spy, along with his beautiful sister, Lynn Roberts, who knows nothing about it.

Roy sings a couple of songs, and Joseph Kane does his usual fine job of making this a good singing western. What makes this 58-minute B western so very good is the fast cutting pace. B westerns were the most conservative of the film genres (with the possible exception of trailers for coming movies), and the Poverty Row producers were still leisurely in dialogue and cutting speed. People would say something, and then the next speaker might think it over. Or we might be treated to a long-distance or trucking shot of someone riding a horse past undistinguished territory for half a minute. Not this movie!

The dialogue, although not much more than adequate, crackles, and editor Gene Milford wastes no time showing you people riding along. He'll show you a riding mounting and spurring his horse, and then cut to him at the end of his run. The action sequences race. During these sequences, there's no clip longer than two seconds before a cut or a pan away, and sometimes you have only a second to grasp what is going on..... which is just right.

Milford had already won an Academy Award for co-editing LOST HORIZON, and would win another for ON THE WATERFRONT. He would work, mostly as an editor, through the late 1970s, and die in 1991, aged 89.

This film begins in California during the Civil War with "Roy Rogers" (Roy Rogers) riding from one relay station to another as a member of the pony express. Naturally, being at war, the Confederate forces desperately want to control the flow of information from the Union side. So, the first thing they do is to send a wealthy and influential person named "Senator Calhoun Lassiter" (Edward Keene) to the town of St. Joe which serves as the most important source of information from the east. Senator Lassiter then buys the local newspaper and turns it over to a young man named "Brett Langhorne" (Don Dillaway) who is secretly a Confederate spy. Additionally, Senator Lassiter has also enlisted the help of an outlaw named "Luke Johnson" (Noble Johnson) to assist him in disrupting Union dispatches being carried by the pony express as well. What nobody counts on, however, is the ability of Roy Rogers to do his job regardless of how many obstacles they throw in his path. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that--for a film that only ran for 58 minutes--this turned out to be an enjoyable Western, all the same. Admittedly, it is quite dated, and the film quality wasn't that great. But even so, I found it to be good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Frontier Pony Express finds Roy Rogers cast as the best rider that the Russell,Majors&Waddell firm employs for their new Pony Express. Though it only lasted barely a year the Pony Express has certainly become a legendary outfit. In real life they employed juveniles as they were light in the saddle and speed was essential, the same principle by which you hire jockeys. Buffalo Bill Cody worked for them when he was 13 years old.

As we also know it was that critical year of 1860 that the Pony Express operated and some southern gentleman are interested in the dispatches for the military it carries. When Roy Rogers can't be bribed the southerners resort to violence even making a deal with a notorious outlaw band headed by Noble Johnson. In fact the head southerner, a former US Senator Edward Keane has an agenda all his own.

Republic Pictures gave Roy two songs to sing the traditional Stephen Foster ballad My Old Kentucky Home and a song written for the film Rusty Spurs which Roy delivers in his warm style.

Getting the sidekick role is Raymond Hatton who played rustic types all the way back to the early silent years. Roy's leading lady is Lynne Roberts who in those early days before he met Dale Evans was his most frequent co-star.

Very traditional plot recycled thousands of times in these films and in more adult westerns. The front row kids liked this one I'm sure.

Roy shows his stuff in this 1939 programmer. It's the cowboy hero at his youthful and acrobatic best, though his screen time is limited by complex plot lines. Those lines might be hard to follow with their many twists and turns, as Union, Confederate, and grungy outlaws all compete to control Pony Express's message transfers, with Pony rider Roy in the middle. But that's okay since the hard riding and wacko shooting seldom lets up. But someone please tell old Horseshoe (Hatton) to find that cameo pin before old witch (Wales) makes a cameo out of him. And how about that joyous reception the stagecoach gets at movie's beginning; sort of makes the passengers wish they had stayed back east.

Anyway, it's Roy before Dale, even though Lynne Roberts makes a good sweetie to warm up to. Also, I hope the studio paid Trigger triple for his beautifully executed and unusual solo run. In sum, Republic popped for more than the usual programmer with a large cast and unfamiliar locations. So, you don't have to be a former front-row kid to enjoy Roy at his youthful best.

A very, very familiar theme in B-westerns, and especially Roy Rogers films, is the idea of a hero being a secret agent whose job it is to ferret out spies and pro-Confederate (South) subversives living in Union (Northern) states during the Civil War. In most cases, the evil folks actually are megalomaniacs who have visions of great power and even riches--and often want to make themselves kings in new countries splintered off from these states! Now this is not to say all the films were pro-Union--there were probably just about as many where the hero was a Southerner working to steal Union gold or the like. Regardless, this is VERY familiar territory.

Another very familiar theme, especially in Rogers films, is the Pony Express. I have always found this to be VERY curious, as this service only existed between 1860 and 1861! In other words, it was obsolete soon after it began and its importance, at least to most historians, is negligible. Simply put, the telegraph soon replaced the service and was a heck of a lot faster. So, seeing Rogers trying to insure that the Pony Express continue uninterrupted for the sake of the Union seems silly because it was unnecessary. This film manages to merge both overused themes into one film! Roy works for the Express and to St. Joseph to investigate these 'copperheads' (Southern agitators). The plan for these agents in Missouri to interrupt the flow of information to Cailfornia. And, he very soon finds them and does what all good B-movie heroes should do--beat them up or shoot them in the hand! Had the Union and Confederacy actually used these tactics, over 600,000 lives lost in this war could have been averted (though a generation of soldiers would have had to contend with debilitating injuries to their shooting hands)! Can Roy uncover the plot, get the girl (who has come to hate him) and stop the megalomaniac by the end of the film? Well, what do you think.

Considering that the plot is VERY familiar as is his relationship with the lady, there really is nothing new here. The film is pleasant but very predictable--and nothing more.

By the way, pay close attention to the words as Roy sings "Old Kentucky Home". Most people are only moderately familiar with the first verse--and are unaware how racist the song actually is. Here, you get to hear it all in all its original 'splendor'.