Shadow Valley

Eddie Dean moseys into town and discovers a murder. He's not entirely sure of what's going on, but realizes that someone wants Jennifer Holt's ranch. It's lawyer George Cheseboro, who has a secret gold mine on the place.

It's impossible to write a one-hour B western in more than broad strokes, but Arthur Sherman's script handles all the issues pretty well: Holt seems to be falling in love with Dean, and also annoyed by his not explaining himself. When he and sdekick Roscoe Ates finds a corpse, Dean observes it was moved: no blood. How simple it is to explain an oddity and make it clear a character is smart!

Dean sings three songs. Ernest Miller's camerawork is mixed. The sequences shot on the Iverson ranch are quite lovely; a few indoors seem dull and a bit overexposed. Not a bad way to kill sixty minutes.

Into Shadow Valley ride Eddie Dean and Roscoe Ates who get themselves involved with Jennifer Holt and her troubles. Her father and uncle have been killed and she's not sure she wants to run the ranch they've left her.

Of course there's skullduggery afoot and it's being caused by perennial western villain George Chesebro. He's found out there's gold on that property and he's manipulating quite a scheme to get it.

This one came from Producer's Releasing Corporation which apparently as per its poverty row status had the same players in all its westerns and would just recycle the plots with the same writers.

Jennifer Holt must have wished she was over at RKO working in brother Tim's westerns which were much better quality. Ditto for Eddie Dean who like Gene Autry came from the country music scene and was a talented singer and songwriter.

Nothing new here folks.

To my way of thinking Eddie Dean was one of the best singer-song writers of the 1940's. He wrote the country western classic "One Has My Name The Other Has My Heart," which has been recorded many times by many different artists, also being a big hit for Jerry Lee Lewis when Jerry Lee switched from rock to country. So why didn't Eddie Dean write the music for this movie? Instead he sings three songs that are trite and forgettable. He was also a much better singer-song writer than he was an actor. One thing that impressed me about this movie was the appearance of the very lovely Jennifer Holt, Tim Holt's sister. She adds much to the movie and plays a strong-willed determined young woman, much more independent minded than the usual Saturday matinée cowgirl, including Dale Evans. The low-budget nature of the film is obvious in the cabin that serves as the ranch. The "ranch" looks more like a hideout for the bad guys. In fact, the hideout for the outlaws in the film isn't much smaller than the "ranch." Soapy Jones is no Gabby Hayes or Fuzzy St. John, but he does a creditable job as the comical sidekick who has fun trying to learn how to shoot, usually in the direction of the "ranch house." It's too bad that Eddie Dean wasn't given better songs to sing, but the movie is still a lot of fun to watch, if you don't expect too much.