Silver Canyon

Gene Autry stars in this 1951 Sepiatone western set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Gene is sent to corral a Confederate grill and runs into a passel of trouble. The great Bob Steele has a great role here as a secret supporter of the out of control grill forces.

Autry was not the greatest actor nor singer in westerns, but he was capable in all areas and always turned out a quality product. This role is well suited to his abilities and he is fun to watch in this oater. Gail Davis was a regular in his films, always turning in a great performance.

A fun, but standard western programmer.

"Silver Canyon" is a dandy example of the Saturday matinée features Hollywood cranked out after World War II. Autry, as himself, takes on the bad guys with cool courtesy and a ready song. There's the plucky girl, the comical sidekick, the climactic shoot-out, and the Lee Van Cleef of his time, Bob Steele, lurking evilly behind the rocks. The cowboy hero archetype, taken from 19th century dime novels, played well to post-war America, and has become the equivalent of the Japanese samurai or the European knight for us. There's no confusion here... right is right and wrong is wrong.

This type of 70 minute second feature translated easily to the small TV screen so the '50's and '60's saw a profusion of derivative hour and half-hour westerns, such as "Rawhide", "Have Gun Will Travel", and "Gunsmoke". One of those featured "Silver Canyon"'s Gail Davis in 80 episodes of "Annie Oakley". Many boomers will also recognize the cast's Jim Davis from "Rescue 8" or "Dallas", and the inimitable Pat Buttram from "Green Acres".

The formula westerns of the era, and "Silver Canyon" in particular may not be the stuff of critic's dreams, (and Gene Autry singing jailhouse blues may not be the most evocative) but they constitute an unpretentious view of the world as we wanted it to be after decades of Depression and war.

"Silver Canyon" is a film with a better than usual cast for a B-western, as in addition to Gene Autry and Pat Buttram as his sidekick, Jim Davis and Bob Steele (two very good and familiar western stars in their on right) are in the movie as well.

The story was inspired by Quantrill's Raiders...a group of Confederate cavalry guerillas who were not exactly officially fighting for the South. They were, essentially, bandits who burned, robbed and killed in the name of the Confederacy....and even many in the South saw them as outlaws. Groups with names SIMILAR to Quantrill are a relatively common thing in old B-westerns. In this case, it's McQuarrie's Raiders. And, unlike Quantrill''s (who mostly were in the Midwest around Cincinnati), these folks are out west in the Utah region in this film.

The story begins with yet another outrage by McQuarrie's Raiders during the Civil War. Folks in town are excited about this, as they are mostly pro-Union (the North). In this fervor, there's a strong push for men to volunteer for the army...but Gene is told that he'd better serve the Union by investigating McQuarrie as well as being a scout. Idiot Pat, on the other hand, volunteers because he thinks Gene will be in the service....and soon goes AWOL to follow Gene in his investigations. What they find is that McQuarrie and his men are so successful because they are now posing as Union Cavalry! But, unfortunately, no one seems to believe them.

This is a better than average Gene Autry film. Part of it is the cast but much is because the story was not typical for one of his westerns. It also helped that the ending was VERY spectacular...one of the most explosive in B-movie history!

The Civil War, so narrator Paul Frees tells us, has begun. Gene Autry and Pat Buttram have joined up on the Union side. Autry is assigned as a local scout to deal with Jim Davis and his men; Davis is behaving like a Quantrill knockoff. The plot moves to a fort commanded by Colonel Edgar Dearing, which has been denuded of troops. Davis and his men, wearing stolen Union uniforms, infiltrate the fort, and make a deal with Dearing's son, Bob Steele. Meanwhile, Dearing's daughter, Gail Davis, is trying to take care of her apoplectic father.

The narration and the pace of the movie are a bit sluggish, and Autry sings only a couple of songs and a bit of a third in this outing, but the finale, a shootout in a canyon, is pretty well done. Overall it's still well above average for B Westerns, but the necessity of narration makes it apparent that Gerald Geraghty and Alan James' script needed a bit more work before director John English got his hands on it.