Song of Arizona

Boy's needing a second chance, i just didn't buy into it. They sang too perfectly together.

Banker Sarah Edwards is about to foreclose of Gabby Hayes' ranch, where he takes care of runaway boys, all of whom belong to the Robert Mitchell Boy Choir. Among them is Tommy Cook, whose father, Lyle Talbot, is a bank robber. Talbot is killed, but not before he leaves $60,000 in stolen money with Cook. Hayes sends Roy Rogers, graduate of the ranch and radio singer, to see Dale Evans, Cook's half-sister, with a letter from Talbot. She comes back with him to the ranch.... but so do other members of Talbot's gang, who tell him Haye shot his father, and they want the money.

Director Frank MacDonald seems to have settled on the Roy Roger vehicles as musicals far more than westerns, and there are nine musical numbers here; only a couple impress me, and except for the title number -- sung at the end by everyone -- don't seem to fit the idea of singing cowboy movies.

Tommy Cook was the original "Little Beaver" to Red Ryder in the movies. As he aged out of juvenile roles, he become a star tennis player, a promoter of such events and a writer. As I write this, he's still around, and even appeared in a couple of TV shows in 2020, 61 years after his last previous on-screen acting role.

It's a fine western. Not top notch story telling or acting but enjoyable.

Song of Arizona was made when Roy Rogers career was in full swing. Gabby Whitaker has a ranch for boys in need of a home, and every one of them is wearing his own cowboy outfit complete with chaps. Every boy had to dream of livng on a ranch with Gabby Hayes and Roy Rogers, and here it was on film! The movie centers around a boy named Chip, played by Tommy Cook. Every time he speaks I keep recognizing his voice from his work on the old time radio shows like Blondie. One of the things that set his movies apart from others was the polished look of the musical productions. Dale wears beautiful outfits and her singing is top notch in this one. Her songs are more pop-oriented than western style. The Sons of the Pioneers line-up is a little different in this one, too. Apparently this was filmed before Lloyd Perryman and Pat Brady returned from military service. Instead we have Ken Carson and Shug Fisher. Oddly, Hugh Farr was missing from the Pioneers for this film. Lyle Talbot may have been cast as the main villain, but Dick Curtis is the true bad guy in this one. I really enjoyed this movie.

I can't agree with a previous reviewer who wrote that the story here is better than most Rogers films of the period; in fact there's almost no story here at all. Most Rogers films are breezy entertainment with not much meat on the bones, but them's sometimes pretty bones, to be sure; meaning that often we get the skeleton of the story without having to look for any depth, but the action, the music, the general sense of good natured fun makes the typical Rogers film an easy way top blow an hour or so without regret.

But this film is a mess. One give-away to this is Dale Evans. Her character is introduced to sing a song, disappears, reappears to try to plug a plot hole, and then pretty much disappears until the end. She has little to do but wring her hands and look concerned.

The basic plot - an outlaw wants to leave his stolen money to the orphanage/ranch taking care of his son - never amounts to much. There's no strain to finding the loot, a couple bad guys chase around after it, daddy dies and son is redeemed, and along the way a couple songs get sung. But there's never any tension or suspense, and Rogers, who should appear in command of the material, looks lost, like the director skipped out when the filming began or something. Gabby Hayes is his typical self, but since he's trying to play Pat Obrien in "Boy's Town," there's nothing much for him to do, since that sort of thing isn't in keeping with his usual schtick. The Sons of the Pioneers appear briefly, singing a song of course, but for no other reason - usually they also double as Rogers' ranch-hand gang of friends, here they too disappear.

All in all, the worst I've seen Rogers in - not unwatchable, but little else you can say for it.