Don't Fence Me In 1945 Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes are at it again. It's a modern Western with Dale as a magazine reporter who goes to Roy's Dude Ranch to get a story on an outlaw who died decades ago. He might be alive and he might be Gabby. Roy helps Gabby and Dale makes their life difficult. There's some songs, punching, horse riding and some gun play.
This disc came from the Happy Trails Theatre DVD series and in the intro to the film Roy tells a story about being pushed into the pool three times because they didn't get the shot the first two times. Trouble was, it was freezing up in the high mountains. The title song Don't Fence Me In was written by Cole Porter.
Desert Pursuit 1952 I'm not sure that I remember ever seeing any other Wayne Morris movies in the past. A quick look at this IMDb listing and nothing looks familiar but some 1950s and 1960s TV. I did read that he was a decorated WWII fighter pilot. The disc is from the Warner Brothers Archive. Luckily for me I found it used and it was in good shape. The movie was based on a novel by Kenneth Perkins. The screenplay is by Scott Darling and it's directed by George Blair.
He was OK here, playing a gold miner with 80 pounds of gold to get to San Bernadino. Virginia Grey is a card dealer fired from her job in Carson City. They head out over the desert together. They are followed by George Tobias, Anthony Caruso and John Doucette, they are playing Arabs who were part of the US Cavalry's Camel Corps experiment. I had heard about this when I was a kid and was reminded about it several years ago from an episode of Have Gun - Will Travel. The Arabs heard about Wayne's gold back in Carson City and they want it. Trouble is they have no ammunition and part of the chase through the desert involves them trying to steal ammunition as they go along. At one point they run across some California Mission Indians having a Christmas Eve Mass. Some Indians have continued on with the Catholic faith after the missions were shut down. The three Arabs on camels make a big splash at that. There's a bit of a peace while everyone is in the village but the the chase is on once they leave. Luckily for our heroes they get some help from the tribe. There's plenty of good gun battles and running about, and as usual when your being chased in a Western, a romance develops between Wayne and Virginia. It was interesting enough, and a bit quirky, to be above average and I found it entertaining. I was glad to have picked it up.
Down Dakota Way 1949 Roy Rogers comes up against a cattle rancher who wants to sell his herd, unfortunately the cows have hoof and mouth disease. The rancher and his cronies will kill to keep that secret.
Roy is passing his old home town with the Riders of the Purple Sage. Roy wants to stop off to visit the town's school teacher. She was Roy's old teacher when he used to live there. Sadly, she's been fired and on top of that she's also the mother of the evil rancher's main henchman. He's the guy who does the rancher's murderin'. You can see how that's going to go. I liked it. You can catch it on YouTube in the link above. It's nice to see Roy and Dale in color, though the version on YouTube isn't as nice as the DVD. The DVD isn't any great shakes so there you go.
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