Os Sinos de San Angelo

Roy Rogers and sheriff/sidekick Andy Devine investigate the death of an alleged thief, who was supposedly shot in the act of ripping off a villain's silver-mine. Meanwhile, western-fiction writer Dale Evans comes to town under an assumed name and has to deal with Roy's patronizing of her work.

A mildly entertaining, loosely plotted Roy Rodgers picture, Bells Of San Angelo is good fun, with high production values (at least for a Republic Pictures Saturday matinée western).

The well photographed desert landscapes look nice in exaggerated Technicolor, as do Dale and Roy's spiffy outfits and good songs are the perfect antidote for slow spots, with Roy, Dale, and Bob Nolan taking turns singing with The Sons Of The Pioneers.

Here, a feistier than usual Dale Evans gives one of her best performances, stealing nearly every scene she's in! Playing the local priest is character actor Fritz Leiber, who's lookalike, also-named son was one of the great sci-fi writers of the twentieth-century!

To all of my learned comrades that posted comments insulting the late, great Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, I say from the bottom of my pea-picking, reminiscing-good old days heart, PPPPPPTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL! I honestly do realize that the color quality isn't exactly top shelf, most of the acting is sub-par & the plots are tissue paper transparent, but who gives a horses saddle bag? I love each and every dusty one of them. And this includes the 50s TV show with sidekick Pat Brady and Nellie Belle the jeep. Yes, Gaby Hayes is the best sidekick ever! I grew up watching R.R. He brought to the youth of my time, "truth, justice & the American way"! I stole that quote, by the way. It brings me back to my childhood, which I guess was worse than these movies were. Maybe that is why I enjoyed them so much. PapaLarry H

This is one of the last good Roy Rogers films, before they started recycling stories and churning them out a mile a minute. The plot is interesting and keeps you interested. The film isn't too long (about 1h20) and doesn't drag at all. The songs aren't too bad, and the absolutely *adorable* Dale Evans has lots of screen time;) Andy Devine was amusing as the sheriff, much more amusing than many of the later comic relief sidekicks, and Roy Rogers was at his best, in voice and in character.

Overall: One of the few colour Rogers films worth seeing; not the best of them, but most certainly nowhere near the worst (though I'm not much of a fan of the genre;). Entertaining, and worth seeing at least once. And, of course, Andy might be Devine , but Dale Evans is *divine*!!;) 7/10.

I've never been a fan of Roy's, even while I watched his 1950s TV

show as a kid. I wanted to buy one RR movie, just to see if I had

changed my mind about his films. I picked this one because a

couple of sources had stated that this was his best film, & was

"tougher" than most of his films. I don't like songs with my

westerns, so of course there was far too much music for my taste

here (I lost count at seven). The comedy, supplied by Andy Devine,

was pretty good (& actually quite funny near the end of the film), a

big improvement over Smiley Burnett, but nowhere near as good

as Gabby Hayes. Dale was OK as the heroine, & better than I

thought she would be, a better actor than her husband. Indeed,

there were a couple of very gritty fight scenes where RR took a

beating (& surprisingly, this was acknowledged in later scenes

where he was seen with bruises). But overall, not an exciting

experience for me. The plot was weak & the music disconnected

what little action there was. For the sake of comparison, I'm going

to try a very small dose of Gene Autry before going back to the

greatest of all cowboy stars, William Boyd!

The usual, routine, singing cowboy stuff from Roy Rogers as he is sent to investigate some shenanigans at a ranch on the US/Mexican border. The film really belongs to Andy Devine as "Sheriff Cookie"; the enthusiastic, if not desperately competent local sheriff who alongside trashy-journalist "Lee Madison" (Dale Evans) has to help Rogers get to the bottom of it all. Fritz Lieber adds a wee bit of weight to the proceedings, and if you like songs with your westerns then this is no better or worse than the norm. The story is far, far too thin for 80 minutes though, an hour would have easily sufficed.