Sing, Cowboy, Sing

The director Robert N. Bradbury had done over 100 Westerns by time he did this one in 1937. He is not lyrical like John Ford, but he does know how to keep things moving and entertaining. The budget seems to be a bit higher than the ones he was working with when he did the great John Wayne early westerns in 1934 and 1935. Although this was on a Mill Creek DVD release of 20 musicals, there are only four songs and they are short and well integrated into the story, so it is really a Western more than a musical.

Tex Ritter is charming as the lead and a bit more relaxed than John Wayne. Al Saint John, who worked with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in their early silent slapstick films, is delightful. Everyone else is competent.

Growing up on a steady diet of television westerns in the late 50's and early 60's, it is fun to see these early forerunners of the genre. The early television Westerns like "the Lone Ranger" and "Zorro" really copied the style of the 1930's westerns like this one. The later Western series, like "Maverick," "Wagon Train" and "Bonanza" took after the more dramatic/serious and slower paced ones of the 1950's like "High Noon" and "Shane."

Ridiculously bad western. So bad it's almost campy. Ritter was not much of an actor, and whoever wrote this was not much of a writer. Still, it's an interesting bit of pablum if you'd like to see what the boys were thrilling to in the Depression years.The songs are all forgettable,but virtue does triumph in the end.

I think bad editing ruined Sing Cowboy Sing a Tex Ritter western that he did for poverty row Grand National Pictures. I could have rated it a notch or two higher, but I doubt we'll ever see a director's cut.

Tex and companion Al St. John come to the aid of Louise Stanley, unfortunately too late to save her father and his men from being massacred by an outlaw gang in the pay of perennial western villain Karl Hackett trying to take over the freighting concession in the territory.

Hackett's got a sweet little racket going having intimidated Judge Robert McKenzie and Marshal Horace Murphy who would soon be a Tex Ritter sidekick in future films. McKenzie plays Judge Roy Dean who both is judge and runs the saloon. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. McKenzie is the one you'll remember from this film.

Ritter sings a few cowboy ballads including one in jail where he's being framed for a murder charge. What could have been an exciting climax was butchered by bad editing. In the final shootout with freighters and the outlaws, people keep falling off their horses without the sound of gunfire. Looked rather unreal.

Still Tex Ritter's fans will enjoy Sing Cowboy Sing.

Tex Ritter and Al St. John protect a female freight line operator from being put out of business by the villains who murdered her father in an attempt to gain control the price of goods and the means of supply.

Mostly typical, there's some good action scenes and music, including the terrific title song.

Tex is great, as usual and St. John is an animated and entertaining sidekick, showing off his credible fighting and riding skills, though not as glib as he became in many of his later pictures.

The most memorable scene of the picture is Tex's murder trial in a saloon courtroom with a bartender judge!

Good name for this film filled with western tropes and lots of cowboy songs.