Sunset on the Desert

Two Roys for the price of one here! There's "good" Roy - the singing cowboy we all love and admire - and "bad" Roy - or,rather, bad Bill - easy to spot because he's the one with a black eye! Roy, of course, spends most of the film pretending to be Bill in order to bring the real crooks to justice.

Sadly, the version of this movie that I watched is the shortened one - I suspect I may have lost one of the musical numbers - but there's still plenty to recommend. As well as Gabby and the Sons of the Pioneers, look out for Roy Barcroft. Although cast as a minor villain, he dominates the screen each time he appears. A really class act!

Roy Rogers reads in the paper that his father's old partner, Frank Thomas is in desert. Thomas is now a judge and has been making some peculiar rulings about a ranch in the throes of repossession. He and Gabby Hayes ride into town, where Roy is mistaken for a hired gun for the bad guys. He adopts this as a cover while he investigates.

It's another nice little B movie in the Rogers catalog directed by Joseph Kane. Lynne Carver is the ingenue, Beryl Wallace the not-so bad bad girl, and the usual complement of competent minor players fill out the cast list. Roy only sings a couple of songs, but I looked at a 52-minute TV print that had 11 minutes removed.

A county has a typical baddie. In this case, homes are being sold out from under folks and the Sheriff is impotent to help. So, when Roy and Gabby come to town, it's their job to right the wrongs and make all the good people happy.

This is a decent Roy Rogers film but like many you do have to turn off your brain in order to really enjoy it. Part of it is that weird sort of B-western mixture of the old and new---with folks riding horses AND cars! I can't blame Rogers entirely--Gene Autry films also were filled with odd anachronisms--such as folks calling the sheriff on the phone or chasing down horses with their pickup truck! Another part, and this is clearly the worst, is the use of the WAY over-used cliché of the 'identical stranger'. Now if Roy had a twin brother, that might have worked--but here we are expected that an evil killer looks exactly like good 'ol Roy! This is patently ridiculous, that's for sure. Dumb but enjoyable...and not too many songs!

A villainous lawyer, along with crooked deputy Glenn Strange, blackmails a judge in order to effect a fake tax scheme in order to steal oil rich ranches. In rides Gabby Hayes and Roy Rogers, who's immediately mistaken for one of the baddies, a situation he uses to get to the bottom of things.

Another watchable Roy Rogers vehicle, this has a few nice twists, as well as enough action and pretty girls to keep this interesting throughout.

Roy and Gabby are in fine form, having to battle the good guys and the bad guys this time around, leading to a nifty climax with Roy facing off against his double.

This marks the third time Roy played dual roles, the first two being 1938's Billy The Kid Returns and the second being 1941's Jesse James At Bay.

Plot - Roy assumes role of his visual double, a bad guy, in order to uncover a complex land-grabbing scheme that's threatening his old homesite.

Here Roy has a double role, a bad guy as well as his usual cowboy hero. So, can you keep them straight, since they dress alike. Anyway, it's an overly complex plot in my little book, but not without compensations.

There's lots of scenic hard riding, even though it's the greater LA area. And catch the scenic rock spires of Vasquez Rocks, a cheap place to film being LA county property, which is why oaters of the time loved filming there.

Also, there's some fast shooting, but no flying fists. And, be sure to catch actress Beryl Wallace as good-bad girl Julie, who almost steals the show. She reminds me of voluptuous B-movie vixen Marie Windsor, e.g. (The Killing {1956}). Too bad Beryl died young in a plane crash.

The flick's also a fine baddie threesome of Fowley, Strange, and Barcroft, enough to please any old movie fan. Happily, Gabby adds his usual toothless mugging in amusing style. But what about Trigger. Catch his and Roy's ride down that steep hillside where it looks like the palomino is about to take a bad fall just as the filming shifts away. I sure hope he didn't.

All in all, it's an okay Rogers entry, but to me, the screenplay needs a re-write into a more appropriate 55-minute format. Still, Roy, Gabby and crew carry us along as usual. Thanks guys.