Heart of the Rio Grande

"Heart of the Rio Grande" must be one of the least entertaining pictures Gene Autry ever made. Never have I seen such obvious substitutions of doubles for the principal players, nor such an inept use of the process screen. The direction throughout could not justly be described as merely routine, for this level of mediocrity represents the peak of Mr Morgan's achievement. At its nadir, the handling is embarrassingly inept — for example in the way Morgan has heroine Fay McKenzie grin inanely at the camera in a reaction shot to Mr Autry's serenade.

Alas, the defects of the direction are not the picture's only handicap. Probably its chief blot on the average fan's barometer is its fatuous script. As the synopsis makes plain, the story winds around an old, tiresomely familiar theme. Worse, it's encrusted with reach-me-down dialogue and patronizing platitudes, such as Gene Autry's "Don't forget what I said about bein' pardners with your horse when you go ridin' the trail!" and "Maybe other parents don't put their business ahead of their children!"

But even worse still, "Heart of the Rio Grande" rates just about zero on the action scale. Admittedly, near the start, Gene's stuntman gallops after a train and then rescues Miss Fellows from a runaway truck. But that's the end of any action spots until five minutes before the end when the script suddenly stages a revenge shooting practically out of nowhere. The gun-shot activates a wild horse stampede, but it turns into a very mild affair with a couple of stuntmen playing leapfrog a fair distance away from the not-too-wildly onrushing herd.

Oddly enough, despite the dearth of action, there's also little comedy relief. Smiley Burnette's foolery is mercifully constrained. But sandwiched in between all the sermonizing twinkle are eight or nine songs. Autry handles most of them, Burnette has one, Miss Fellows one, The Jimmy Wakely Trio one, and even Miss McKenzie joins Gene in a duet.

Needless to say, Miss Fellows lays it on as the spoiled brat. Jean Porter hovers around in the forefront of the background. Haade emerges as a quite likable villain — which makes his sudden and unexplained action at the finish all the more incredible. Rounding out the cast are Sarah Padden in a tiny role, Eddie Cobb in a one-line bit, and Smiley's horse, "Ring-Eye", in a brief scene.

"Heart of the Rio Grande" is billed as a so-called "modern" western. Realistic! Yet the cowboys all wear Victorian six-shooters and a full orchestra suddenly sprouts up, audible but invisible, in the middle of the desert to accompany a chance song.

Sadly, production values rate as exceptionally mediocre. The photography is so flat as to make even the picture's actual locations look uninteresting. Sound recording comes over as tinny, art direction drab, costumes unattractive, and film editing heavy-handed.

This Gene Autry outing is more like a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical than a western. (Too bad Judy and Mickey weren't in the show.) There's not only singing but also a bit of dancing. Two of the songs have become standards, "Deep in the Heart of Texas," which serves as the theme and was the working title for the film, and Johnny Bond's "Cimarron" (Johnny Bond appears in the film as a member of the Jimmy Wakely Trio). Jimmy Wakely went on to star in his own shoot-'em-ups. He later teamed with pop singer Margaret Whiting to have a number one hit with the Floyd Tillman classic "Slipping Around," one of the first country pop songs to deal in an honest manner with adultery.

The story is not much, involving a spoiled rich girl who goes west to a dude ranch and is horse broken by Gene and his cowhands. Her father flies west to take his daughter away from what he considers to be a cruel, harsh environment only to rediscover himself and his daughter. In the meantime Gene has all kinds of trouble with an ornery galoot who once was the foreman.

Frog Millhouse is around for laughs as is his clone Tadpole. Tadpole looks and acts like a young Frog and is just about as humorless. This go around Frog does have a few funny lines to deliver. I'm not sure exactly what the relationship was supposed to be between Frog and Tad. Since Frog was unmarried, perhaps Tad was adopted or taken in by his older lookalike. They did relate well to each other on the screen but there's still not much to laugh about beyond their looks. Frog's real talents, his music and his songwriting, do get showcased and that's a plus for the movie.

Gene Autry fans should like this one, especially those who love his music. Others may find it a bit tedious.

"Heart of the Rio Grande" (1942) is probably the most lyrical of Autry's movies and therefore has held up better than his more action oriented films. When ranch owner Skipper Forbes hires Gene as her new foreman, the old foreman Hap Callahan (William Haade) is allowed to stay on as a ranch hand. Hap resents Gene and his plans turning the place into a dude ranch. There is a lot of friction between them culminating in a fight and Hap's dismissal. He plots revenge.

Early in the film a girls' school arrives at the dude ranch for the summer. The teacher Alice Bennett (Fay McKenzie) serves as both Gene's tame romantic interest and his sidekick Frog's (Smiley Burnett) unrequited love. Their dueling serenade of Alice is the best of a whole bunch of pretty good musical elements in the film.

All the girl students look about high school age which gives the film a lot of charm that would be missing if they had populated the cast with 20 something starlets. The most prominent of the students is Connie Lane (Edith Fellows best known as Polly Pepper in all those Pepper films of the 30's), the spoiled daughter of a rich businessman. At first Connie makes a lot of trouble for everyone but eventually she takes to Gene and works to improve his opinion of her.

Burnette can lay claim to originating the mini-me concept. In "Heart of the Rio Grande" Frog Millhouse is shadowed by a fat little boy, appropriately named Tadpole (Joe Strauch, Jr.). Tadpole dresses just like Frog including the same hat style (front brim turned up). He has a lot of precocious lines and a very bass singing voice. Jean Porter plays another of the students (mysteriously named Pudge) and soon becomes young Tadpole's first crush. The vivacious Porter is drop dead gorgeous, in the image of Vargas redhead Jean Dean.

"Heart of the Rio Grande" is mostly music and comedy, what action there is consists almost entirely of Gene rescuing Connie from an assortment of dangers. This is not a bad thing.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Like many Hollywood stars, Gene Autry put his acting aside in order to serve in the military. In his case, Autry was already a pilot and so he served domestically training young pilots...a most admirable job considering some stars just stayed home and kept making movies. Sadly, as a result of his being gone from the screens for several years, when he returned he no longer was the number one cowboy actor. "Heart of the Rio Grande" is one of the last films Autry made before he went on this hiatus.

The story begins with Connie (Edith Fellows) running away from her boarding school because she doesn't want to go on an outing with her class to a dude ranch. This apparently is Connie's m.o.....if she doesn't want to do something, she runs away or simply refuses. This is because she's a very spoiled girl whose rich father doesn't take time to parent and discipline her.

When she is forced to go to the dude ranch, at first Connie is a little monster. But instead of sending her home or punishing her, Gene tries to be very patient and caring towards this brat. The problem is that even if she does eventually behave for Gene, she still has a problem...a father who simply won't take time away from his job to be her father. Can Connie possibly get what she needs or is she destined to be a spoiled jerk-face.

This is a nice film, but if you are expecting a western, forget it. It's about the least western-like of any of Autry's films of the era. I am not complaining so much as pointing it out so you know what to expect.

Overall, a good film. Not exactly brilliant but enjoyable and it's a welcome change of pace from the usual western fare.

By the way, you can tell that this was made after the US entered WWII because there' s a not very subtle portion where Gene is encouraging the ranch hands all to invest in US Defense Bonds!