Stars Over Texas

Eddie Dean, the jovial singin cowboy, gets involved here with cattle rustlers and has his friend go undercover to get to the bottom of the theft ring. In the course of corralling these galloots, he finds time to sing a few above average cowboy tunes ----- all in an hour of undemanding B-movie fare.

Dean was never the most convincing hero-type , but his pleasant demeanor and excellent singing & songwriting were among the best of the era. Dean was overshadowed by Gene,Roy as well as Rex Allen. Considering the low budgets and quick production times, the film could have been much worse.

This one is so-so, probably of interest only to die-hard fans of the lanky singer.

It's an Eddie Dean oater with a couple of odd tinges to it. Eddie and Roscoe Ates finish a drive to deliver cattle to Lee Roberts, to find his sister Shirley Patterson in charge. Someone's rustling cattle, and so forth, and Eddie helps them out.

All standard stuff for a singing B Western. What's odd is that, although director Robert Emmet Tansey doesn't emphasize it, there are some odd role reversals here. Lee Bennett plays two roles as unrelated lookalikes, for no clear reason. In addition, one of Eddie's songs, "On the Sands of the Rio Grande" is a love ballad about him waiting for his love to come back. Miss Patterson rides up, Eddie gets the impression she loves another, and he sulks a bit and tries to conceal his feelings for her. Normally, of course, this would be the girl's song, and the handling of the situation reverses the normal gender roles. Was this an attempt to open up the rigid roles and operations of the B western? Was this why Dean, despite his popularity as a singer, never got further than PRC?

Other than those two oddities, there's little of note in this one: just another of the seemingly thousands of westerns that had been a staple of movies since Broncho Billy Anderson, and would continue on TV until the American Mythos shifted to space in the late 1960s.

This is a typical Eddie Dean singing western churned out by PRC. Eddie and his pals Soapy and Waco deliver a herd of a cattle to a rancher, only to find a young lady in charge of the ranch, her father and brother having been wounded by rustlers. The Eddie gang decides to hang around and help smoke out this bad guys.

Watch for a real young Hal Smith playing Mr. Tucker, the salesman. This was about 13 years before he started playing town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show. He looks different that there's no mistaking that familiar voice. This was a good role for Hal.

Shirley Patterson plays Terry Lawrence, the female star of "Stars Over Texas." Shirley retired to raise a family from 1947-1953 but then returned to acting under the name "Shawn Smith." She appeared in several six-fi flicks. But, in 1958, she suffered a badly broken leg in a skiing accident at California's Big Bear mountain resort. This led to her permanent retirement from acting. Shirley was a beautiful and talented actress.

Eddie Dean came along at the tail end of the singing cowboy movie era. He had a great voice and sings several songs in "Stars Over Texas." He never became as popular as many of the other singing cowboys. Eddie was never a great actor but his singing was always a pleasant addition to any movie he appeared in.

I'm watching "Stars Over Texas" right on on the Encore Westerns Channel. It's a good enough musical b-western and Shirley Patterson looks great in a cowboy hat and jeans. Watch this one if you get the chance.