Silver City Bonanza

I admit that I was attracted to this movie because Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies) is in the cast. But after purchasing and viewing it, I find it to be an enjoyable movie in itself, in addition to Buddy's always welcome presence. In this one he plays sidekick/comic relief to singing cowboy Rex Allen. I'm not a big fan of singing cowboys, and Rex manages to work three songs into 67 minutes; however, only one is really an interruption to the proceedings (serenading the movie's heroine, Mary Ellen Kay), and is mercifully short. One of the other two is very enjoyable in which Rex and Mary Ellen sing a duet during a little girl's birthday party. This charming sequence also features Buddy giving out with some fancy and humorous dance steps.

This movie contains adequate amounts of the standard Republic/western trappings (several fistfights, some gunplay, rustlers stealing cattle, etc), which is of course a good thing. The movie also benefits from the presence of a trained German Shepard who gets to act as a further sidekick/assistant to Rex and Buddy, and also gets to chew up a few bad guys. Great stuff. This is one of those odd `Westerns' that is ostensibly a western on the surface, yet is sprinkled with `modern' devices (I've seen some from the `Three Mesquiteers' series that manifest this same phenomenon). In this case the old west includes an automobile, a flat bed truck, running water, telephones, a diving suit w/air pump, and a bolt action rifle with scope. Kind of weird, but ultimately not a problem.

Another point worth mentioning is that this movie features a brief cameo by Hank Patterson, otherwise known as Fred Ziffell from Petticoat Junction and Green Acres (playing the farmer who owns Arnold the famous pig who likes to watch westerns on television). You gotta love that-Jed Clampett and Fred Ziffell together in the same movie!!

My source for this review is a VHS tape recorded in the SP mode and Non-colorized (wouldn't have it any other way), unfortunately not in Wide Screen (not too surprising). Picture quality was about 8 out of 10, sound quality 7 out of 10; overall quite watchable and no complaints. The tape box says Republic Pictures, Timeless Video 1168. I think I paid about $15 for it, well worth the price.

Silver City Bonanza finds Rex Allen and Buddy Ebsen in yet another film that was obviously meant for Roy Rogers. Anytime you find kids in the film you can bank on that idea.

If it was meant for Rogers than Roy missed a good one. Rex and Buddy are on the trail of a blind relative of Buddy's played by Harry Lauter. But all they find is Lauter's dead body with his faithful seeing eye dog beside him. Lauter was on the trail of a lost silver mine with reportedly freshly mined bullion inside it.

After that the two get involved with the troubles of Rex's Dale Evans like leading lady Mary Ellen Kay and her younger brother Billy Kinkley and sister Alix Ebsen. Billy's a baseball loving kid and the only one I've ever seen play baseball with cowboy boots on. They discover the source of their troubles is the same as whoever knifed Harry Lauter.

The key here is a knife was used and you won't believe how well this mine was hidden. Can't say more it's also a key to solving the mystery and bringing the criminals to justice.

Rex gets a couple of nice songs to sing, one where Kay joins him. And for those who don't remember Buddy Ebsen before he was Davy Crockett's sidekick, Jed Clampett or Barnaby Jones, Ebsen was a pretty fair dancer with a nice style that took advantage of his bean pole build. He dances here with his own daughter Alix in a way similar to what he did with Judy Garland back in MGM days in the Thirties.

One of Rex Allen's better Republic features.

The small girl, Alix Ebsen, six or seven years old, that plays the kid sister Susie MacIntosh, was Buddy Ebsen's daughter. Part of the plot involved a birthday party for the Susie character, in which Rex Allen and Mary Ellen Kay do a duet on "Lollipop Lane" (written years ago by Fred Rose and Johnny Marvin). The singing only lasts a couple of verses, then the song becomes an extended instrumental in which ex-hoofer Buddy Ebsen does a dance with with his real-life young daughter. The enjoyment that Mr. Ebsen derives from this sequence is shown on his face throughout.

The music for this number was supplied by four uncredited members of the then-current line-up of the Sons of the Pioneers; Karl Farr, George "Shug" Fisher, Lloyd Perryman and Frankie Messina. In 1950, the Sons of the Pioneers shared a radio program with Rex Allen, sponsored by Phillips Petroleum, and in 1951 the Pioneers had their own "Lucky U Ranch Gang" program (sponsored by Planter's Peanuts, so the sponsor's initial stayed the same). Band members working on the program at the time this film was made were brothers Hugh and Karl Farr, Lloyd Perryman, Ken Curtis, George "Shug" Fisher and Tommy Doss, plus former Spade Cooley vocalist Ginnie Jackson and fiddle player Wade Ray and accordionist Frankie Messina. But only the four mentioned above were in this film, marking one of the rare times The Sons of the Pioneers didn't receive a screen credit and were seen on screen. Their uncredited music is heard in many films.

Midway through the film, Rex Allen and Gabriel Horne (Buddy Ebsen) are in town seeking information, and Rex is talking to a theatre manager played by Frank Jenks. They are standing in front of a one-sheet poster from Allan Lane's "Vigilante Hideout" (Now Playing) and behind them as a Coming Attraction is a one-sheet from Lane's "Code of the Silver Sage." It wasn't so much that theatre manager Jenks was a victim of block booking, but more like Republic Pictures Corporation never missed a chance, when the film time-period allowed (and sometimes when it didn't), to plug their own movies.