South of Caliente

I recently watched the Roy Rogers film South of Caliente (1951) on Tubi. The storyline follows a woman trying to sell some of her horses to save the ranch her father left her. Roy Rogers and his trusty steed, Trigger, agree to help her on the journey to Caliente to make the sale. Along the way, they encounter a gypsy who warns them against continuing, but they press on regardless. As they head to Caliente, they face numerous challenges. Will Rogers and Trigger be able to help the young woman, or was the gypsy's warning justified?

Directed by William Witney (The Crimson Ghost), the film stars Roy Rogers (The Gay Ranchero), Trigger (Don't Fence Me In), Dale Evans (Apache Rose), Leonard Penn (Mysterious Island), and Willie Best (High Sierra).

This film was more entertaining than I expected. The settings, props, and costumes were well done, and I loved the addition of a gypsy to a western, giving the film a unique and mysterious feel. The comedy was clever, keeping the tone light, and the song-and-dance numbers were better than I anticipated. There's a fantastic scene where Trigger races the police, and the final shootout was thrilling. Overall, the film is a lot of fun.

In conclusion, South of Caliente is an underrated gem in the western genre and definitely worth a watch. I'd give it a 6.5-7/10 and highly recommend it to western fans.

"Often the punchline of other comedian's jokes, one Broadway critic called him "the comedian that comedians hate" because of his brash, over-the-top persona."

The above quote is from IMDB and is about Pinky Lee, a comic who was briefly popular with kids in the early days of television. And, apparently, he was so popular that they made him Roy Rogers' sidekick in this disappointing film. Much of the disappointment is because Lee is about the least enjoyable and least welcome sidekick in B-western history. Not surprisingly, I didn't particularly enjoy "South of Caliente"....and much, though not all of it, was due to Pinky.

This film was made during the 'nice guy' phase of Roy Rogers' career. In other words, instead of playing a cowboy, Roy was more playing a fictionalized version of himself...a Mr. Nice Guy of the west. In general, these later films emphasize niceness over plot or friction within the stories and are among my least favorite of his films. I much prefer the earlier and slightly grittier Rogers movies.

In this story, Roy transports horses for a living. While moving some of Dale's horses across the border, he is told by a Gypsy* woman not to continue his trip, as disaster will strike. And, soon, bandits attack and steal the horses. Surely this lady knew more about this....and finding her should help them get a step closer to finding these purloined horses.

Too much of the film is spent on Pinky...who simply annoys every time he's on screen. Now to my surprise, Willie Best comes off very much better....and isn't the 1930s caricature of a black man, but a more interesting character. Sadly, it would be his last film. Overall, because of a relatively weak plot and too much Pinky, however, it's among Rogers' worst....a film only for his most ardent fans.

South Of Caliente has Roy Rogers cast as a man who has a horse transport business and in this film he does business with Dale Evans who has a declining stable of thoroughbred horses. To meet payroll and expenses Dale is selling her prize mare Miss Glory whose a fast horse and has a come hither glance that gets Trigger's mojo going.

What she doesn't know is that there's a scheme afoot to hijack Roy's truck and kidnap Miss Glory for any number nefarious schemes. The leaders are her own foreman Douglas Fowley, neighbor Frank Richards, and gypsy Ric Roman with various members of his tribe for the grunt work.

It all goes off successfully unfortunately stable boy Willie Best in his farewell big screen performance is killed defending the thoroughbred. Willie Best has not come down with the best reputation for some of the roles he did in his prime, but I have to say here that his attempted defense and homicide being killed because he could have identified Dale's betrayers was a touching scene.

Also killed is Charlita who made a number of appearances in Roy Rogers Republic features. She plays a gypsy fortune teller who tries to warn Roy about her tribe leader's plans and pays with her life.

Playing the official sidekick part is Pinky Lee and the former burlesque comedian and future children's show host was maybe the worst sidekick Roy ever had. What possessed Republic to cast him as western sidekick God only knows, but he just doesn't cut it in the part.

Featured here in this film really earning his billing is Trigger. Always billed as 'the smartest horse in the movies' Trigger could easily have added most romantic in the movies. Nothing was going to keep him from his lady love, not bandits, not international borders, nothing I say. Trigger was a horse with a mission.

No really good songs come from South Of Caliente, but lots of action to be sure for the Saturday matinée kids who would soon be seeing Roy on the small screen.

Dale Evans is selling the best race horse in her stable, Morning Glory. Her father kept all his horses, and to continue to keep them, she has to make this tough decision. She hires Roy Rogers to move the horse down to her new owners in Mexico, but her manager, Douglas Fowley, has worked out a scheme to steal the carrier in concert with some gypsies, then fake the horse's death. He has entered the horse under a new name in a race at Agua Caliente, and expects to clean up. Stable boy Willie Best is killed in the heist, and another horse is substituted for Morning Glory's corpse, half-eaten by wild animals. But Roy has been alerted to the scheme by an honest gypsy.

Pinky Lee is on hand to offer some horrible non-comic relief, and there are some good songs, particularly "My Home Is Over Yonder." If one of the villains is a gypsy, it's an honest Rom who tries to set things aright.

This was Willie Best's last movie. He had entered the movies in the early 1930s playing stereotyped Black roles under the name "Sleep 'n Eat". By the late 1930s, he was making a name for himself, and Bob Hope noted that he was a comic equal in movies like THE GHOST BREAKERS. But drug use barred him from the big screen after this movie. He died in 1962 at the age of 45.

Forced to sell her racehorse to save the ranch, Doris Stewart (Dale Evans) hires Roy and his crew (Pinky Lee and Pat Brady) to transport her prized thoroughbred to a buyer in Mexico. Despite being warned by a gypsy fortune teller (Charlita) not to make the trip, Roy and Dale forge ahead and soon find themselves involved in murder and a horse theft scheme hatched by Dale's trainer Dave Norris (prolific western bad guy Douglas Fowley) and his thug henchman Studsy Denning (Frank Richards.

Directed by William Witney, South of Caliente teams up Roy and Dale once again after Dale's six movie, almost two year hiatus. It also marks the second pairing of Roy with new found sidekick and children's television entertainer Pinky Lee. Pinky's antics here are toned down from his first movie with Roy.

South of Caliente hearkens back to Witney's earlier movies with Roy and Dale. Beginning with "Roll on Texas Moon" Witney began to reshape Roy's movies and gradually de-emphasise the musical content. He dropped the large scale musical numbers and packed in more action sequences. Caliente" however, features more of a musical style than most of his later movies, including a a theatrical song and dance number at the gypsy camp. It also marks a bit of a change in the on-screen chemistry between Roy and Dale. The "Battle of the Sexes" featured in their earlier movies is absent here and has Dale assuming a decidedly less dominant on-screen persona. A style similar to the one they would employ for the six year run of their television series.

As B-Westerns go, pretty good. Roy Rogers Fans should enjoy.