Rough Riders' Round-Up

It's a boyish Roy, still a few years away from Dale and real western stardom. But already he knows how to fake a good barroom fight. Plus he manages one mean yodeling session. Then too, that eye-catching palomino looks a lot like Trigger before he got his co-starring name in lights. Nothing special here, just a solid little matinée programmer. I like the way the historical fact of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders are worked into the story. That makes Roy and his border patrolmen kind of special.

They better be because Arizona Jack and his henchmen are one mean hombres as they smuggle gold back and forth over the Mexico border. Seems that makes problems for Roy and his patrolmen since international borders are involved. But then Roy wouldn't be a matinée hero if he didn't figure something out. Anyway, the girls are a relief from all the ugly guys, and I would have gladly plunked down my dime for a ticket if I'd been around in 1939. Good thing the movie's been preserved so guys like me can still get an hour's worth of fun.

Roy Rogers and a few other veterans of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders return from the Spanish-American War and take jobs as Arizona border patrolmen. When Roy's friend is killed in a rowdy border town by men operating on both sides, he takes off his badge and crosses into Mexico to settle the score.

One of Rogers' okay early outings, there's a lot of atmosphere (something Republic Pictures was really good at when they tried), some decent action scenes, including a fun saloon brawl, and a fairly rousing finale.

This time, music is an afterthought, with Roy singing only a couple of brief songs. There's a good (probably canned) music score too.

Frankly, if it says "Roy Rogers," the odds are it will be good. And this one is. For several reasons.

One, the historical setting is very interesting. It's around the turn of the 1900s and this contingent of Rough Riders is returning to these United States ... well, actually, considering the time, to a territory of these United States: Arizona, and the border with Mexico.

The Rough Riders' leader, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, is being talked about as a vice-presidential candidate

Roy Rogers nearly always played either himself or a character named Roy Rogers, which was the case this time. It seems an odd practice, but was also done with Gene Autry, among others. Often, it detracted and/or distracted from the movie, but here it doesn't matter.

Soldier turned Border Patrol officer Rogers is joined by, among others, Rusty Coburn, played by veteran Raymond Hatton, an actor who had been around since the silent days and who often hammed it up like a B-class John Barrymore but who, here, was restrained and believable.

Other talent, and I do mean talent, included the beautiful Lynne Roberts and former chorus girl Dorothy Sebastian, as well as the prolific Eddie Acuff and the almost ubiquitous Hank Bell, again uncredited!

Seriously, it's hard to think of westerns without thinking of Hank Bell, he of the handle-bar mustache and Western drawl, and a superb character actor. Here he got some lines and again showed he should have been given many more speaking parts and many more-important parts. Maybe he never complained but many of us, his fans, do.

Amazingly, also uncredited were Duncan Renaldo and George Montgomery. The latter had a small part, but Duncan Renaldo's character was very important to the story.

Chris-Pin Martin and the really talented I. Stanford Jolley were also uncredited even though Martin also had an important part.

So, even if the story or directing or music were minor -- and they weren't; they were quite good; after all, the director was Joseph Kane - - the cast alone makes this more than worthwhile.

It's the end of the Spanish American War and newly mustered out Rough Riders Roy Rogers, Raymond Hatton, and Eddie Acuff get a letter from none other than their former commanding officer and now Vice Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt recommending them for jobs as border patrolmen in Arizona. Of course with that kind of pull, you know they get hired.

Two of their assignments get juxtaposed in Rough Rider's Roundup. The first is to stop and detain a young woman played by Lynne Roberts, but the second is to find out just who is this bandit Arizona Jack who is operating on both sides of the border. When Eddie Acuff is killed by him, the mission gets real personal.

Roy sings a song and gets to even yodel in this one and of all the singing cowboys, Rogers was the best yodeler of the bunch. He even gets to clock someone who at the very beginning downgrades the Rough Riders and calls TR an Eastern poser when he tells the guys he's voting for a real westerner in William Jennings Bryan. That's not something you say to a Rough Rider.

Funny when that was going and when the guys are hired as border patrolmen without question on TR's word, I was thinking of another Republic picture, War Of The Wildcats where former Rough Rider John Wayne got an oil lease simply because of where he served in the Spanish American War. Rough Riders could do no wrong in those years.

For Roy's fans and other aficionados of the B western.

This is one of those perfectly acceptable 30s B-movies that does exactly what it sets out to do with a refreshing degree of professionalism by all involved, but which is completely forgotten within a couple of days of viewing. Roy Rogers' fans might feel a little cheated by the fact that he doesn't sing much but it's something of a bonus for us viewers who prefer cowboys of the non-singing variety. The writers must have been struggling to find reasons to have Rogers singing in this one, and one of the few occasions when he does a little crooning is courtesy of a guitar he discovers in a deserted house in which he has been imprisoned by dastardly Arizona Jack's ragtag band of desperadoes – which is about as likely as finding an ice cube in a sauna when you think about it. Perhaps he leaves guitars dotted around the western countryside for just such an eventuality. Perhaps they're a source of energy like goblets of wine and stuff found in unlikely places in PC games. I don't know.

Anyway, the story is reasonably absorbing, although the bad guys might as well walk around with "Bad Guy" badges on their lapels. I mean, spotty tie, checked shirt and spivvy 'tache – what a giveaway! And all of a sudden Eddie Acuff as Roy's semi-comic sidekick starts riding around on his horse hollering "Hi Ho, Dinah" at every opportunity as if he fancies himself as the next Lone Ranger.

It's all pretty good, undemanding fun and, clocking in at less than an hour, it's well worth giving it a try.