Colorado Sundown

After receiving a letter stating that he has inherited a ranch in Colorado a cowboy named "Joshua 'Slim' Pickens" (Slim Pickens) rides up from Texas with his good friend "Rex Allen" (Rex Allen) to claim it. When he gets there, however, he discovers that he has only been bequeathed one-third of the ranch and that two other people have also received an equal share. The first is an attractive young woman by the name of "Jackie Reynolds" (Mary Ellen Kay) who has a nice personality and is easy to get along with. The second person "Carrie Hurley" (June Vincent) is an extremely conniving woman who will do anything necessary to gain possession of the other two portions of the estate to further her financial interests-and she has two brothers who are equally vicious. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a solid, old-fashioned Western which featured singing cowboys and a little humor along the way as well. Admittedly, it was clearly a product of its time and viewers may not understand or appreciate a grade-B film of this sort. Be that as it may, I liked it for the most part and for that reason have rated it accordingly. Average.

This particular effort is not up to some of Rex Allen's best and showed some cost cutting measures. The plot is slow to get going, acting is not up to par for some of the supporting cast in particular Mary Ellen Kay. Slim Pickens is OK but not as good as some former Republic side kicks.that worked with Roy Rogers, Andy Devine and Gordon Jones spring to mind. Some good riding and fight scenes and of course some singing. Location has been used before in some Roy Rogers films such as "North Of The Great Divide" Roy of course by this time had moved to TV. Also the b western films were coming to their end and very shortly Rex would bow out with his last b western before he too turned to TV. Sad to see them go as my generation enjoyed them so much in their heyday. Rex definitely had better entries than this one.

J O'Mahony Ireland

Colorado Sundown finds Rex Allen accompanying his sidekick Slim Pickens to the reading of a will where Slim will inherit a third of a ranch along with fellow heirs Mary Louise Kay and June Vincent and Fred Graham. The last two were expecting the whole ranch and these other heirs two the two thirds they don't have throw a crimp into their plans.

Which are to denude a forest area which provides a natural flood barrier for the ranchers. These two want to open an old mill and to get permission to cut the trees have spread word of a plague of beetles in the area who would eat the trees until they rotted. They even get another idiot brother of their's to pose as a forest ranger giving them permission. They also kill the real forest ranger.

June Vincent played a lot of evil women in many a film. She's at her worst in Colorado Sundown.

Slim Pickens has some good moments himself, fighting a few losing battles with a goat that nails him every time he bends over. There's also a gag borrowed from the Road To Morocco where Pickens plays himself and his own mother. It worked well here as it did for Bob Hope.

This is a good Rex Allen feature and I'm convinced more than ever that Rex was doing a lot of material meant originally for Roy Rogers. He does it well though.

Every time I watch this film I enjoy it! No rustlers! No land grabbers or bank robbers. Instead we saw Interesting an Bad Guy & Gal. Loved Mary Ellen Kay as always and Louise Beavers gave a fine bitter sweet performance. Her scenes with the pooch were funny and touching. But it's always fun to watch a truly great guy, Rex Allen, think his way through the clues and clobber the villains. Koko is just gorgeous enough to be the icing on the cake of this very watchable film. . more than once.

Rex Allen is the classic movie cowboy: stoic, tough, and principled, as he plays a ranch foreman with the same name. He comes along to help his friend Slim Pickens (with the cowboy-turned-actor also playing a character with the same name), who's one of those who have inherited a ranch. Unfortunately, two of the other heirs, Carrie and Dan (June Vincent and Fred Graham) are unscrupulous types who want to protect their timber interests at all costs. Rest assured that Rex will do whatever it takes to expose their plot and punish the guilty.

Directed capably by Western veteran William Witney, "Colorado Sundown" gets right to the point, packing a fair bit of entertainment value into its trim 67 minute run time. We get multiple donnybrooks, chase sequences, and action scenes, as well as the atmospheric sight of characters working hard to prevent a flood. (A large part of the plot has to do with ranchers resenting the timber barons for cutting down all the trees and leaving the land vulnerable.) We also get a couple of songs, and an appreciable healthy amount of humour. (One major running joke has people getting head-butted in the posterior by an ornery goat.) There's also a comedy relief maid named Mattie (Louise Beavers), and an endearing pooch named Manhattan. While this little movie does get serious at times, it never gets too unpleasant.

The cast is thoroughly engaging, with Slim at his upbeat best. (He also plays a secondary role in drag, leading to the biggest guffaw in the entire picture, right near the end.). Mary Ellen Kay is a pretty leading lady as fellow heir Jackie Reynolds. Vincent and Graham are appropriately odious villains, especially him; John Daheim adds to the villainy as their unsavoury relative.

Overall, this is a decent enough way to kill some time if one is a real Western aficionado.

Six out of 10.