Springtime in the Rockies

"Springtime in the Rockies" is a light-weight B-movie starring Gene Autry--the singing cowboy. As you'd expect, he sang a few songs during this hour-long film. However, one of them (the first in the film) had a rather strange setup. When the ranchers are angry at someone because he brought sheep onto the range, Gene breaks into song. Why? Because, according to him, "It's hard to sing and be mean at the same time"--among the lamest reasons I can recall in a cowboy film! Such is the sort of stuff you'll see and hear in this silly but enjoyable film.

Soon after this kerfuffle settles, the woman who owns the ranch where Gene is a foreman arrives from back East. She has never been to the ranch and she and her college friends are occasionally annoying caricatures--and Gene decides to have fun at their expense. So, instead of showing them to the beautiful ranch house, he takes them to a broken-down shack which he tells them IS the ranch house. Before he can tell them about his big joke, however, the goofy owner buys sheep! What's Gene to do? While the film is a bit fun in spots and is a rather inconsequential film, it may offend some. Again and again, the young women are the butt of jokes, as they are 'silly feminists'. While it's true that sometimes Gene and his friend Frog (Smiley Burnett) get theirs sometimes, in the end it's up to the men to save these poor women. And, the resolution to the problems seems to come way too quickly and easily. But, the songs are generally nice, Burnett makes for a nice sidekick and the film has a few good moments. On balance, a decent time-passer but not much more.

After talking an angry mob out of killing a rancher for bringing sheep into the community, Gene Autry is alarmed to find out that the livestock in question has been pawned off on his employer, an eastern tenderfoot, who's never even been to the ranch and who happens to be a lady. Gene tries to scare her back east before the neighbors discover the sheep, while nasty villains plot to swindle her out of her spread.

After scores of movies that leave the viewer (at least the ones who don't know anything about ranching) wondering why cowboys always want to kill sheep farmers, finally a film comes along that gives us the answer, Autry: "cause the sheep eat the ruts!"

As far as the movie goes, it's pretty typical, but pleasant enough entertainment. The cast, including Smiley Burnette, sings some good songs and female lead Polly Rowles is quite appealing.

Gene Autry plays himself as foreman of a cattle ranch in this engaging modern B western faced with a problem as the new owner of the ranch, Sandra Knight (Polly Rowles), a recent college graduate in animal husbandry who decides to move from the East to her inherited property, brings with her a flock of sheep that she has been gulled into purchasing by an unscrupulous local rancher. Sandra also brings three of her lady college classmates with her to vacation during the summer on her new spread and their attempts to adjust to Western life provides comic effects thanks to a well-written script and the very competent direction of Joe Kane, who always works well with his cast, in this instance abetted by the presence of three veteran cowboy villains: Al Bridge, Edward Hearn and George Chesebro. There is plenty of good riding and roping, notably by Autry upon his splendid jumper, Champion, and the action is fast-paced with an interesting plot, comedic interludes and the customary musical numbers by Gene, who takes a properly strong stance against destructive sheep grazing in this delightful low budget effort, marked by the normal rushed ending when production money is depleted.

I did a review of a Roy Rogers/Dale Evans film Utah and I said at the time that it wasn't one of their best. Before seeing Springtime In The Rockies I saw that Utah was a remake of this film. In terms of the story it isn't any better than Utah was.

Mainly because Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette decide to pull a dumb prank on Polly Rowles who's come west with some friends and thinks that a beat up piece of scrub land that Gene owns is her ranch. She actually owns a pretty nice spread that Gene is foreman of. But in her ignorance of the code of the west, Polly's bought some sheep and intends to raise them in cattle country.

Gene and Smiley get hoisted on their own petards as a very shrewd Al Bridge decides he can trick Rowles as well into selling the only piece of land she can legally sell. It was as dumb here as it was with Roy and Dale in Utah.

What makes this film better than Utah was the presence of the title song and another Autry standard You're The Only Star In My Blue Heaven that Gene sings in the film. Both sold quite a few 78 RPMs back in the day.

Gene's hardly a cowboy hero in this one, just an overage juvenile prankster who should have known better.

Pleasing oater with music has Rowles as a young woman who inherits the ranch Autry takes care of, then on impulse decides to ranch sheep there. All the other ranchers complain, and Autry manages to trick her into thinking she owns a much smaller ranch to contain the damage. Trouble comes when one whiley rancher uncovers the plan and tries to exploit it to get her to sell the land.

Minimal plot, but good action and a very nice setting well photographed. Autry sings some songs.