July 8, 2025 • 51 mins
Author and Roy Rogers aficionado Elisabeth Grace Foley joins me to discuss two of Rogers' collaborations with director William Witney. Elisabeth gives an overview of the different "eras" of Roy Rogers' films, leading into our thoughts on Bells of San Angelo and The Gay Ranchero.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My Name is Hunter. This week,
author Elizabeth Grace Foley joins me to discuss one of
the most prominent Western movie stars of the forties and fifties,
Roy Rogers, recovering two of his collaborations with director William Whitney,
The Gay Rancio and Bells of San Angelo. Before watching
the movies for this episode, I think I'd only seen
(00:37):
one Roy Rogers film. But Elizabeth really knows her stuff,
and even if these movies aren't up your alley, this
will at a minimum be an interesting film history lesson.
Here's our conversation, Elizabeth, thanks for coming on the show.
How's it going good?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for inviting me?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh yes, well, I'm happy to have you on. I've
been following you on Twitter for a little bit and
one day I saw you posted something about Roy Rogers
movies and I knew if I was ever going to
talk about Roy Rogers on the show, that you would
be the person I'd want to have the conversation with. Now,
Roy Rogers westerns, they're mostly a blind spot for me,
and I think I mentioned that to you when we
(01:12):
were messaging, so I still have a lot to learn
about him and his movies. But before we get into
our main discussion, let's get to know you a little bit.
Can you tell us about yourself and your history with westerns.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Well, I'm an author of historical fiction, mostly Westerns and
mostly mysteries. I like combining the two. I've written several
Western mysteries. I have always loved westerns since I was
a little girl. When I was growing up, my father
used to watch old Western TV shows and John Wayne movies,
and I always loved American history, and particularly frontier and
(01:46):
pioneer history. And I was horse crazy, so that played
into it too. And as I got older, I got
more interested in Western fiction and reading the history of
the West, and that has played into my writing quite
a great deal. So, yep, and Westerns are Roy Rodgers'
movies in particular.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, well, well, next, I was going to ask if
you because you had mentioned to me that Roy Rogers
movies are something that influenced your work, So I was
going to ask if you can talk about what about
his movies has inspired you.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Well, and I'm sure we'll get into this more. The
ones that I enjoy the most are the ones that
are they don't have a particularly historical setting. They're actually
like set in the era that they were filmed with,
the nineteen thirties and forties, and yet they combine Old
West plot elements with modern times in a very un
(02:43):
self conscious way. That's very funny, and that's I always
found that very fun and it's very nostalgic for me now,
and it actually has influenced for me because I enjoy
nineteen thirties and forties culture and history too, and I've
actually gotten into writing Western stories set in those eras,
(03:04):
paying much more attention to historical accuracy than Roy Rogers
movies ever did. But they were kind of the thing
that got me started on that era and also blending
those elements together of the Western in that period.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All right, excellent, Yeah, Well, so one thing you told
me while we were messaging back and forth that I
was completely unaware of is that there are I think
four distinct eras of Roy Rogers movies. And since, like
I said, this is something I really know nothing about,
So do you think that's the could you kind of
(03:39):
walk us through these eras and mention some of the
notable titles within each era.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Sure, well that's what I call it anyway. I'm not
sure anybody else actually defined it like that. But when
you go when you go over filmography, you can kind
of see the different the different styles that in different
directors they went through. The first what I call era
is from his first starring role in nineteen thirty eight,
(04:05):
that was actually a modern day one like I had
described a moment ago, But from like nineteen thirty eight
to nineteen forty one is what I call the historical era,
when most of Roy Rodgers' movies were they had a
historical setting. Again not any great attention to historical accuracy,
but they were supposed to be set in the nineteenth century,
(04:26):
and very often Roy Rodgers would play a historical figure
that for very little resemblance too, like Buffalo Bill or
wild Bill Hiccock or something like that. But that's the one.
I haven't seen everything from that period. My favorite from
that era is the Border Legion from nineteen forty that
(04:47):
was a fun one. And the second period from covering
like the Year's nineteen forty two nineteen forty three is
what I like to call the Early Modern Era, and
this is my my favorite. This again is like I
described a minute ago. The movies take place basically in
the year. They're filmed in the nineteen forties, with all
(05:08):
all modern conveniences, cars, radio, modern nineteen forties society, except
they're set on the backlot of the Republic Studio, the
old Western town streets, and they mix old West elements
with the present in a way that really comes off
as extremely funny when you look at it. You know,
(05:30):
pull on car chases with cars and horses mixed together,
everybody blazing the way at each other with six shooters
in nineteen forty two, you know, So it's it's it's
really fun if you don't take it too seriously. Through
both of these periods that I described, the main director
was Joseph Kaine. I believe he was the most prolific
(05:50):
director of Roy Rogers movies, with over forty altogether, and
also also directed Gene Autry and other Republic stars. But yes,
the Early Modern Era is my personal favorite. My favorite
from that era is Romance on the Range, which isn't
(06:10):
nearly as cheesy as the title sounds. It's kind of
just the best you know, music, humor, so really pretty
scenery and just all the classic elements all in one place.
I should have mentioned before one of the big draws
for me with the Roy Rogers movies is I love
the music of the Sons of the Pioneers and they well,
(06:34):
if you're not familiar with the background. Roy Rogers, under
his real name Leonard Sly, was one of the founding
members of the group back in the early nineteen thirties,
and then he left for a solo career in nineteen
thirty eight. A few years later, the Sons of the
Pioneers were signed by Republic Pictures to appear in his movies,
and in this early modern era, I kind of think
(06:59):
that's some of their best period for hearing some of
their best music in Roy Rogers movies. Before that, they'd
been with Columbia Pictures, appearing in Charles Stare at Westerns.
He was a non singing cowboy, so they got to
do all the music in those. But yes, from nineteen
the last film of nineteen forty one onward to nineteen
(07:20):
forty eight, there are in all of Roy Rodgers movies
and then the third era, so to speak, from nineteen
forty four to nineteen forty six thereabout is my least
favorite era. I call that the production number era. The
story goes that somebody high up public pictures, I believe,
(07:45):
as I'm remembering correctly, somebody saw Oklahoma on Broadway when
it came out in nineteen forty three, and they got
the idea to make all of Roy Rogers movies into
like a Broadway musical style productions. So that mid forties
era was one that it's not very outdoorsy. You know,
a lot of settings like in Western themed nightclubs and
(08:06):
rustic lodges and vaudeville shows and such, a lot of
elaborate musical numbers with chorus girls and such, and less
action and so forth, and so not quite my favorite
of the eras, but one of.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The that doesn't sound very appealing to me either.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Yeah, there are a few highlights. There's some that are
a little more a little more outdoors than the others.
My favorite from that period, well, I'll get to that
in a minute. But one of the one innovation from
this era that ended up having an impact is introducing
the idea of the singing leading lady, which is where
(08:48):
Dale Evans came in her first movie opposite Roy Rogers
was in nineteen forty four in The Cowboy and the Senorita,
and I believe she was pretty much the first leading
lady in his films where she actually sang and took
a full part in the musical side of things, whereas
the leading ladies happened much before, and that carried on
(09:08):
even after the production number.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Era had ended.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
My favorite from this period is Lights of Old Santa Fe,
which I think I haven't seen it in a few years,
but if I'm remembering correctly, it's one where there's actually
not a shot fired from beginning to end.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
It's all about.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
All centered around it like a traveling rodeo, and has
a very pretty theme song, which a lot of Western
artists have recorded even in recent years. So yeah, that's
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Out of that era.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And then from like late nineteen forty six onward, the
nineteen forty six to forty nine particularly is the post
war era, and that's when William Whitney took over as director.
During the mid forties, they've mostly been a couple different directors,
(10:04):
John English and Frank MacDonald, but William Whitney took over
with Roll on Texas Moon in mid nineteen forty six
and the post war era, it's like everything got a
little bit tougher. You kind of I think you see
that in films generally in the late nineteen forties, and
in the be Westerns like this, you saw a little
(10:28):
less music, a lot more action, and everything was just
a little bit more, a little bit tougher and more
hard bitten in a be Western way. You're still not
you know, it's still your Saturday afternoon matinee fair. But
there were a lot of action sequences in these films,
and even several fights and such, which among the Western
(10:52):
enthusiasts were rather infamously rough for their genre. And this
is again these were set in the modern era, the
nineteen forties, but they still had that element of, you know,
mixing in the horses and chases and gunfights and such,
just as if it was the nineteenth century. So this period,
(11:15):
the late forties is my second favorite era of the
of the ones. And I have to admit that my
familiarity with Roy Rogers' filmography kind of peters out in
nineteen forty eight when Republic dropped The Sons of the Pioneers,
Because I lose interest a little bit after that. So
(11:35):
I actually haven't seen any of his nineteen fifties films,
which were also directed by William Whitney. So I don't
know if you could call the nineteen fifties a continuation
of the post war era or if it's another sort
of distinct era of its own. You'd have to ask
somebody else who is more familiar with.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Thems, gotcha. Yeah, I wonder if if they have even
more action or if there's still like numbers and singing
in those as much. Without the Sons of the Pioneers,
it seems like there might be less music, but.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
There's always at least a little music. They were replaced
by another singing group called the Writers of the Purple Sage,
who were oh, okay, yeah to me, I mean they're
pretty good, but they're just not the Sons of the Pioneers,
so right. But yeah, just the number of songs in
the pictures decreased a little bit post war.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
They didn't take up as much of the running time anymore.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Gotcha. Now have you seen the Roy Rogers TV show
at all?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Not really, maybe a few clips, but I've mostly just
seen the movies. Yeah, when I was about oh, probably
eleven twelve years old. My parents gave my siblings and
eye a bunch of Roy Rodgers movies on VHS for
a gift one holiday, just because they heard, you know,
(12:54):
they were good, clean, family fun, and so we watched
those about a dozen and I have three younger siblings,
and we all just loved them. We thought they were
so much fun. You know, we act out play the characters,
sing all the songs in the car, that kind of thing.
And yeah, that's kind of how they got to be
(13:14):
a part of my childhood nostalgia.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh that's awesome. Yeah, I didn't grow up watching Roy
Rogers that I remember. I grew up watching way more
John Wayne and way more of the major kind of
A westerns. I didn't see very many B B pictures
growing up, but I am trying. It is something that
I'm kind of trying to play catch up on.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, I saw the A pictures too. The A pictures
were roast off and like on TV on some of
the channels that showed classic movies. I didn't get acquainted
with the B westerns until, like I said, we got
some on home video and it was just sort of
a random thing. And then a few years later we
got some more on DBD and I got more familiar
(13:58):
with the whole film. Most of the first ones that
I saw were actually from the post war era, directed
by William Whitney. That was where I got started. But
then once i'd seen more, the early forties ones became
my favorite. In the late forties my second favorite.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
All right, well, I think from here we can get
into the two movies that we're talking about. We're talking
about Bells of San Angelo and The Gay Ranchero, and
both of these were directed by William Whitney, and he
is someone who I think fans of westerns might be
familiar with. He didn't direct any really big major westerns,
(14:35):
but he did work with Autie Murphy a few times.
Later in his career. He directed Apache Rifles, Arizona Raiders,
and forty Guns to Apache Pass. And he started directing
serials in the thirties before he started directing features, and
he mostly made B movies and a lot of them
(14:56):
were westerns, and he also he worked in TV quite
a bit. He directed eleven episodes of Tales of Wells, Fargo,
seven episodes of Wagon Train, and twenty seven episodes of Bonanza,
and he also directed ten episodes of what I still
think is my favorite old western TV show, The Virginian.
But yeah, I'm pretty interested in exploring more of his filmography,
(15:17):
so I'm sure this isn't the last episode Robbie talking
about William Whitney. And then both movies were written by
Sloane You do say Nibley, right? Is how he pronounce
his last name?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I alwayst assumed it was Nibley, but I'm not sure,
so don't quote me.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Nibley just sounds funny to me.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But I don't know honestly.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Okay, we'll go with Nibley. It just sounds better.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But he, like like Whitney, also mostly worked in the
Western genre. And then both of these movies were shot
by Jack Marta, who later actually went on to shoot
Steven Spielberg's first made for TV movie, Duel. And then
Andy Devine is in both movies, and he was a
frequent collaborator with Rogers and then some of the other
(16:01):
key players. I mean, you mentioned Sons of the Pioneers already,
and so as the Pioneers. John Ford also used their music.
He used them in wagon Master and they did the
theme song for the Searchers. Ken Curtis was in Sons
of the Pioneers and he's in The Searchers. I don't
know if he was in Sons of the Pioneers at
(16:21):
that point.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
No, he wasn't.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
He joined in nineteen forty nine when a couple of
the original members retired and he was one of the replacements.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Okay, gotcha, yep.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Sons of the Pioneers. Yes, I'm familiar with their work
in a westerns too. I love John Ford's movies Rio Grand,
which the Sons of the Pioneers also appeared in. Is
my favorite a Western movie?
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Nice, Yeah, that's a good one. Now, I guess the
other key figure in these movies is Trigger, the smartest
horse in the movies now and Rogers worked with Trigger,
I think in his first starring role in nineteen thirty eight,
and he bought Trigger and they were in movies and
TV together for around twenty years. Now. I know you're
a fond of horses. Do you have anything else to
(17:09):
add on about Trigger?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
His original name was Golden Cloud. And I don't know
if you've ever seen this, but he was Olivia de
Havilyn's horse in the Adventures of Robin Hood in nineteen
thirty eight. You can get a glimpse of him in
that in Glorious Technicolor. That was before he became Roy
Rogers Horse. And I know I don't know all the details.
(17:35):
I'm not the expert. I believe there were several triggers
over the years, and of course he had a stunt
double for the most dangerous scenes, but the original trigger
is recognizable. Once you've seen a lot of the movies,
you can spot which one is him. One thing that
I didn't think we mentioned was that in nineteen forty
six or forty seven, Roy Rogers movies started being shot
(17:57):
in true color where they'd been black and white before.
But a lot of them the color prints have actually
not survived. Only a few have survived in the color prints,
and the rest pre nineteen fifty. I should say, most
of the fifties ones have survived in true color, but
only about three I think of the true color nineteen
(18:18):
forties ones have actually survived in their original color print.
So yes, sometimes when you're watching the late forties ones,
they look a little fuzzy sometimes compared to others that
were actually filmed in black and white, and that's because
you're seeing a print that was shown on TV later
on in black and white TV, so it's not as
clear as it would have been in the original true color.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh gotcha. I wondered about that because I had read
that The Gay Ranchero was shot in color, yes, and
that a color print no longer exists, and I assumed
that there was a black and white print made for TV.
But yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I didn't realize that he
had like mostly switched over to true color, and then
(19:03):
only a few of those color prints still remained.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yep, Bells of San Angelo is one of the few
that has survived in color, and the other one under
California Stars, and then just fairly recently a few years
back on an uncut color version of Springtime in the
Sierra's turned up. That was another Whitney directed one from
nineteen forty seven. Kind of a poor quality print, but
(19:28):
it was pretty neat to be able to see the
full uncut version in color as Another thing I forgot
to mention is that when Roy Rogers' films were later
shown on television, they were cut down to be less
than an hour long, and music that usually the musical
numbers were the first thing to go. So a lot
(19:49):
of his films, the original uncut versions are considered lost
because Republic Pictures didn't keep the original negatives. So the
un cut versions that have survived or just because somebody
else had an uncut print and it's turned up years later.
But for many of them, the cut TV versions are
(20:11):
the only ones that have survived, mostly the earlier ones.
We have the full, full length ones of most of
the postwar films.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So did any of these movies? Were any of them? Ever?
They were never like repurposed as episodes of his TV series, though?
Were they not?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
That I know us? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
All right, well, I think at this point we can
kind of get more into each movie, and we'll go
in chronological order, and we'll talk about Bells of San
Angelo first. Now, now I'm going to give you the option. Now,
I am terrible at doing plot summaries. Now, if you
feel like you are, that's something that you thrive at,
(20:54):
you can do it. Or I can just read this
wildly inadequate one that's from Iam. What would you rather do?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Why can summarize it? If you like?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
They're often quite convoluting plots for short B grade movies
in this one. This one takes place somewhere in the Southwest.
I don't know if it's actually meant to be San Angelo,
Texas or if somebody just liked the name, But in
this one, Roy Rogers plays a border investigator, whatever that means,
(21:26):
and he's supposed to be investigating some trouble down along
the Mexican border involving a silver mine, and basically that
in a nutshell, our villains in this are smuggling silver
into the country. They buying sheep silver and smuggling it
into America to resell it at a higher price and
pretending it came from their worthless mind. And so Roy
(21:46):
has to figure this out. And there's also a subplot,
a couple of subplots, I should say, there's a subplot
where all the land in where this is going on,
a ranch and a rustic lodge that's run by the
sons of the pioneers, and the silver mine are really
all owned by an absentee owner in England, and they're
trying to find the heir to the estate. And we
(22:10):
the viewor did pretty much guess who that is as
soon as they say so.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
But that's all part of the Sun.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Yeah, and this is a really fun one if you
like seeing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans together. They have
a really fun relationship in this. She plays a writer
of westerns who Roy's boss has instructed to show around
and help find local color and it's not happy about that.
(22:37):
But also there's a misunderstanding because her character's name is
supposed to be Lee Madison, and everybody mistakenly thinks that
Lee Madison, author of westerns, is a man, and so
they're expecting a male author to turn up. And when
she finds that out, and also at how unpopular she's
going to be, she quickly adopts an alias and pretends
to be someone else. So there's a lot of banter
(23:00):
between Roy and Dale, a lot of fun, stappy dialogue,
and then of course in the end they end up
working together to uh defeat the villains by taking a
leaf out of one of her books.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, So she kind of touched on it a little bit,
you know, But what are your kind of general thoughts
on on the movie.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Well, like I said, it's a lot of fun. Sometimes
the plot is not the easiest to follow, but you
just kind of like sit back and roll with it.
Also in the color print, there's actually a few few
little places where the film was evidently damaged, so you
miss a few lines of dialogue, and so that adds
(23:44):
to the complexity of the plot, you might say, because sure,
because you're not quite sure what you missed in those
few seconds. But it has h kind of all the
all the elements of the post war film, the action scenes,
a little bit of humor, some good music, and there's
(24:05):
usually at least one comedy sequence in a Roy Rogers
film that you just kind of have to see to believe,
and in this case, it's when the characters decided to
stage a fox hut in the desert for a visiting
Englishman and Andy Devine, who plays the comic sidekick, has
to lay the scent of the trail with a pat raccoon.
(24:28):
So and it also includes one of the kind of
infamous post war fight scenes where Roy Rogers actually his
character ends up getting roughed up by the villains pretty
severely to try.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And warn him away from the mine.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
He has a big fight scene at the mine where
the villains are led by stuntman David Sharp, who did
a lot of stunt work and that. Yeah, the big
fist fight scene at the mine is kind of one
of the scenes that key Western enthusiasts remember. But yeah,
(25:10):
and it also has a kind of a nice little
scene at the toward the end, a sequence to the
end where Roy and Dale and Andy Devine as the
comic sidekick have to do a little detective work to
sneak into the mine and find out what the villains
are up to.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
And I think you.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
See more in these post war films where the hero
Roy Rogers in these cases is kind of allowed to
be a little bit more vulnerable, where he kind of
gets into a spot where he can't get out of
it all by himself, and the hero, the heroine and
the comic sidekicks and the sons of the Pioneers are
(25:48):
kind of the cavalry coming to the rescue. But he
always does get the final fist fight with the main
villain and handles staff all by himself.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No, I'm going to say upfront, singing cowboys, you know,
are a little outside of my wheelhouse. But you know,
I went into these, you know, like with an open mind,
and I actually think I thought both of them are
pretty good fun. Now, the bells of San Angelo. Specifically,
I do like that the there is kind of almost
like a screwball comedy plot line with Rogers and his
(26:19):
real life wife Dale Evans and having a character that's
an author get into the type of adventure they write about.
I feel like it's something you've seen so many times
at this point, but I can't actually think of an
earlier version than this, so I don't know if that
was pretty unique for the time, but that is an
(26:40):
element of the movie that I did enjoy, and I
thought Dale Evans was very charming in this. I really
enjoyed her performance. Now, some of what I have to
say about this movie is kind of in comparison to
The Gay Ranchero, so I kind of want to get
into that movie before I share more thoughts. Sure, but
(27:01):
I will say I overall I enjoyed the movie, And
like I said, I'm not an expert on singing cowboy
movies or Roy Rogers at all, but to me, this
feels like a pretty good one to start with. Potentially
if you're completely unfamiliar with this subgenre.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yes, I think it is. It was actually one of
the first ones that I saw coincidentally, and okay, yeah,
I think it has kind of all the essential elements
there that you will find in the best of the
B Westerns. And again, I think it's a pretty good
little movie on its own merits.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And you know, it has pretty.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Pretty good pacing and a pretty interesting plot. It's like
you always have to judge a B Western kind of
at a different standard than you judge inn a Western.
You know, right, you're judging it on its own merits
as for what it is. And yeah, I think Bells
of San Angelo is probably it's a good example of
(28:03):
the Roy Rogers film from the post war era, and
it's I think maybe even a little more fun than
some of the others, like you mentioned, with like the
subplot with Roy and Dale and some of the humorous scenes.
Some of the others are even a little more serious.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, now let's get into the gay range, Hiero. Now,
do you want to do the synopsis for this one
as well?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Sure? This one.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I just love the uniqueness of this one because basically
it involves airplanes and basically our villains in this one
who figured out a way to hold up airplanes on horseback?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You're not kidding?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
And this one, really the villains have quite convoluted goals
and aims. In a lot of these movies, they're sabotaging
and holding up airplanes and not just stealing the gold
cargo on them, but they're trying to put the airline
out of business so they can buy it cheap themselves,
so kind of a wheels within wheels. And in this one,
(29:05):
Roy Rogers plays the sheriff who's trying to figure out
who's doing all this and it is. It's also unique
because it's one of two movies made in the late
forties where Roy Rogers actually had a co lead, a
South American movie star Tito Gazar, who was also a
(29:28):
singing star in his own country, and they really actually
practically share the lead. They made the two movies together,
on The Old Spanish Trail and The Gay Ranchero, And
in this one, Tito Gazar plays a bullfighter who also
happens to be an amateur pilot and ends up helping
(29:50):
using both of those skills, I might say, to help
defeat the villains. And like I said, he actually gets
quite a full share of screen time and gets to
sit two solos beautiful tenor singing voice. And in this one,
the leading lady is Jane Frizzy, who also was a singer.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
She made about five.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Movies with Roy Rogers in the late forties, and when
I first watched them, I wasn't as familiar with Dale Evans.
I saw all the ones with Jane Frizzy first, and
I always liked her. She's kind of a little bit
more low key character than Dale Evans, kind of a
little bit more laid back, elegant type of character, you know,
(30:37):
for me, as like eleven twelve year old little girl,
you know, I kind of wanted to be her when
I grew up. Now she got to wear all these
lovely western outfits and ride horses and sing, and yeah,
she was always my favorite of the leading ladies. And
again the sons of the Pioneers are in it, though
in a little more of a less prominent role than
(30:58):
some of the others. And there's also a second leading lady.
Tito Gizar has a leading lady at his own in
Estelita Rodriguez, who is also a bit of a humorous character,
and then having the divine as the usual comic sidekick. Yeah,
(31:19):
this one, I think, I think it's just one of
my favorites because of that uniqueness. That I mentioned the
aspect with the airplanes. I think it kind of started
my kind of interest in vintage aviation.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
And it also has that kind of a touch more
of the seriousness that you see in the post war films.
You know, the some of the earlier scenes in the film,
the stakes actually appear to be genuinely higher. You know,
there's a scene early on, a kind of a touching
(31:53):
scene where some of the characters are going through a
missing pilot's things and reminiscing about airstrikes.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
During the war.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
And I think there's a there's a moment midway through
the film where I was supporting characters shot by the villains,
which just comes across as taken more seriously than you
usually get in a B Western. But then, on the
other hand, you also have, like I said, some genuinely
hilarious scenes with the comic release.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
And again.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
A finale that you kind of have test to be
seen to be believed that involves dynamite and airplanes and
a monkey.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, the monkey really surprised me early on. I was
not expecting him to show up in kind of a
music musical scene early on in the movie, but I thought,
now the Gayraanchiro I thought was was decent. I think
I prefer bells of St. Angelo. Now, I will say
(32:58):
I was pretty surprised by the moment early on where
Rogers has custody of two criminals who he uncuffs or
he like unties ropes around their wrists or something, and
he does this so that they can eat, and the
criminals of course attack him, and Rogers at one point
(33:18):
grabs a log from a fire and burns one of
the criminals hands. And you're right, And I thought that
was pretty well done, in kind of surprisingly brutal for
a movie from this era. And and then it's it's
interesting to go like from this scene, which this scene
feels like a move, a sequence that could take place
(33:42):
in a Western set in an earlier period. And then
the very next moment a plane flies in and and
and the pilot, you know, rescues Roy Rogers. Now I
do like the cast in the movie. Jane Frazy I
recognized from Privates and Aving Costello comedy I watched a
(34:03):
million times when I was a kid. And then Estalita Rodriguez,
she is in Rio Bravo, Yes, which is one of
my all time favorite movies. I adore that movie. And
she actually she plays a character named Kinsuela Consuelo in
each movie in this and Rio Bravo.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Oh, yes, I've forgotten that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, but she's She's always fun to watch. And I
also want to mention a couple kind of B movie
actors who are in this Leroy Mason and Dennis Moore.
They play two of the villains. And if you've watched
a good amount of B Westerns or even well, not
in Leroy Mason's case, but I think in Dennis moore case,
(34:47):
if you've watched a good amount of Western TV shows,
I think that you'll recognize them from something. I know.
Leroy Mason was in maybe like five of John Wayne's
B movies from the thirties.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I think he was probably I think he was in
some of Roy Rogers' other ones too. I'm thinking, yes, yes,
I mean this is also part of the fun of
B Westerns is that once you've watched any amount, you
start recognizing the familiar faces over and over again, especially
the bad guys. You know, they always turn up in
the same type of role, they always play the same
(35:22):
type of villain. There's a few that can surprise you
and play against type sometimes, but there is that sort
of stock company who you recognize, and also, you know,
like you said, some of them eventually moved into TV
roles too, And then the chief villain in this, George Meeker,
(35:44):
is the type that you often see in these When
my siblings and I were little, you know, we've made
up some of our own names for the different familiar elements,
and we used to call his type of villain. We
called him the suit villain because you know, that type
of villain is always wearing a suit and usually sitting
behind desk and whips out a derringer at some key
point in the story. And that is one of the
(36:06):
elements of the be Western that I just think is
so fun and a bit unintentionally funny. How you have
these villains who are, you know, in their suits and
fedoras and could walk out of any other nineteen forties movie,
but here they are battling it out with cowboys, and
that's yeah. In this one, George Meeker plays the kind
of classic version of that, you know, the villain who
(36:29):
spends most of his time in the office and has
the little pensilvan mustache and sinister glare, but he will.
He was also in several but yeah. There is actually
an earlier Roy Rogers movie which is one of my favorites,
South of Santa Fe from nineteen forty two, where literally
the plot is that some gangsters who are on the
(36:52):
lamb hiding out in the West decided to try and
kidnap some wealthy businessmen and Roy and company have to
rescue that.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And it's just.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
So so like unintentionally humorous to have these gangsters with
their machine guns and fedoras creeping around behind a chuck wagon.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
It's just it's so much fuss.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Oh that sounds fantastic. Yeah, yeah, Now, I think the
thing that kept me from enjoying this movie as much
actually was the relationship between the pilot and Consuelo. I
think that part of the movie it did slow it
down for me, and then and then from here I
(37:33):
kind of wanted to get I'll talk a little bit
about the movies in comparison, so of course any divine
is in both movies. But I liked the way he
was used in Bells of San Angelo Moore. I liked
that he was more he was paired with Roy Rogers
more right, I feel like Roy Rogers was a little
(37:55):
bit more on his own in The Gay Ranchero, and
I think that I like seeing him and Divine work
together as a team.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yes, you're right. Usually the comic sidekick, whoever it is
in the film is pretty much right at the hero's
side all through it. I think in The Gay Ranchero,
Roy Rogers himself almost feels a little bit on the
sidelines of the plot himself through it, Yeah, because of
sharing the spotlight with Tito Gazar and even all the
other supporting characters.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
But you're right.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
In in Bells of San Angelo, it's much more the
traditional hero and sidekick roll.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah. And I also thought like even though The Gay
Ranchero it has a shorter running time, I mean a
shorter run time by like five or six minutes. It's
it's not that different, but it did it felt longer
to me. And I think that having too many supporting
characters did make make it feel and less time with
(38:53):
Roy Rogers kind of like I've already mentioned, did make
it feel longer to me. And now the songs I
think are pretty close. I actually don't know what I
prefer the music to Bells of St. Angelo or The
Gay Rian Hiero. What do you think you prefer music wise?
Speaker 4 (39:11):
I think, well, probably the music in Bells of Sanjo
is a much better example of what you usually find
in your typical singing cowboy western because in the Gay
Ranchero you have Tito gizar Say, who is almost a
little bit more of a classical style singer, getting two
full solos all to himself, and in that one Roy
(39:33):
Rodgers actually only sings one song, and I, yeah, I
think I think The Gay Ranchero is more one of
the what you could sort of call a novelty film
among Roy Rodgers ones. It has more unusual elements in it,
while Bells of San Angelo is more an example of
a classic style what you typically get from a Roy
(39:56):
Rogers film.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah. No, I don't have a a whole lot more
to say about these movies. I do think like they're
both like light entertainment, and for me, the Bells of
s Angelo I think you was a little more successful. Now,
I'm assuming like quite a few listeners probably haven't seen
very many Roy Rogers movies. So is there any I
know that we I mentioned I thought Bells of sant
(40:19):
Angelo might be a good place to start, but are
there any others that you would recommend that might be
a good entry.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Point problem the post war period or directed by William
Whitney in particular, or just any Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Base, yeah, or any or from any period.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Well, we'll start with the William Whitney ones.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I think.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
From the Whitney period, you'd want to see Springtime in
the Sierras and Eyes of Texas and probably under California Stars.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I think.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, you see, each one of every viewer is going
to have their own favorites, you know, they're all similar
in some ways.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Those I think are kind of the.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Ones that have the distinctive William Whitney style with the
action sequences and so forth. In the pre war period,
the early modern period, so to speak. As I mentioned,
my favorite is Romance on the Range, and I think
(41:25):
I think you want to see South of Santa Fe.
That's the one I just mentioned with the Gangsters. That
one is a lot. Yeah, that is a good one.
King of the Cowboys from nineteen forty three, that's kind
of one of the most it's one of the longest
run times and sort of the most lavish productions of
the early ones. In that one, Roy's character is trying
(41:50):
to track down wartime saboteurs while traveling with a vaudeville show.
But it's it's before the sort of the Broadway production
number period that I mentioned, so it's a lot more,
a little bit more traditional Western feeling. That one has
a lot of good music in it. That's one where
(42:11):
you want to look out for the uncut version because
both the shortened cut one and the uncut ones exist.
Sunset Serenade is another early one which is really enjoyable,
I think again. It just has all the classic elements,
a little bit of action, a little bit of humor,
good music. And I couldn't go without mentioning Gabby Hayes,
(42:33):
who was the sidekick in most of the earlier ones.
He's my favorite of Roy's comic sidekicks, and he's in
most of the pre war ones and then a few
of the post war the earliest William Whitney films before
Andy Devine came in after that. I'm working backwards here.
(42:54):
Like I said, I have not seen as many of
the historical era ones from the nineteen thirties, Okay, I
would probably recommend the Border Legion and Young Bill Hiccock
of the ones I have seen.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
All right, excellent, Well, yeah, Elizabeth, can you let listeners
know where people can follow you on social media and
where they can pick up copies of your books.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
My website is Elizabethgracefoley dot com. I'm Elizabeth spelled with
an S, and I'm also blog on substack at second
Sentenced substack dot com. I'm on Twitter and Instagram under
the user name Elizabeth G.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Foley.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
And you can find my books at Amazon and also
generally wherever books are sold Barnes and Noble, Cobo and
so forth, all in ebook and most of them in paperback.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
All right, excellent? Now did you actually I meant to
ask this before I did that, actually, but did you
have any other kind of final notes on Roy Rogers
movies or on either of these movies that you didn't
get to mention?
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I don't think so. Just like I was saying, I
think that anybody who watches b westerns is going to
have their own favorites, you know, depending on which what style,
whether they like the music the best or the action
the best, of the comedy, they'll find something that emphasizes
one of those things a little more than the others.
And everybody's going to have their favorite era. I think
(44:23):
of Roy Rogers movies, and again it's like you can't
take them too seriously. You know, it's they're fun, but
at the same time it's interesting kind of as a
like a cultural snapshot, getting a little bit of a
look at what was fun and what was popular in
(44:44):
the nineteen thirties and forties.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
And.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
As a sort of subsidiary part of the Western genre
as a whole, you know. So yeah, like I said,
it's kind of led me on to look more seriously
at the westward in that time period. But it's also
still it's a big part of childhood nostalgia for me.
(45:09):
I've actually a couple of years ago I started rewatching
the main Order, which I had never done before, and
it's fun comparing, you know, revisiting the childhood nostalgia and
yet also watching them as an adult and noticing, you know,
paying more attention to the the filmmaking and the like
(45:33):
I said, the cultural aspects of it the time period.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
So I think they might be an acquired taste. They might.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
It will depend on the viewer very much, I think.
But if you're just you know, looking for something light
and fun but also kind of an interesting window into
the past.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Kevin Ma, try.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, I think you have to go into it with
the right expectations, and maybe you kind of have to
see a few like B movies from this era, because
B movies were very much like an assembly line product.
It's not like B movies from the seventies, where you
(46:17):
had like filmmakers who were kind of aiming a little higher.
These were just, you know, jobs for hire and you know,
in the thirties, and none of these you don't get
the feeling that any of these were like passion projects
by the producers or or the directors. They were just
(46:38):
kind of assembly line stuff. But I still think that
there's interesting things about these movies. Earlier on in the podcast,
I did an episode on some of John Wayne's B
movies from the thirties, and I watched about nine of those,
and there was always something kind of surprising about them,
(46:59):
and and they were always fun or they had some
like ridiculous element that was memorable to me. Like there's
a John Wayne B Western, I can't remember which one,
but in one of the early scenes, somebody trades in
a car for a horse, and it just felt it
(47:22):
just felt so weird to see, like to imagine like
what kind of what rider was thinking. Oh yeah, so
we'll have her show up at this ranch and trade
in her car for a horse, and she doesn't. I
don't even think she rides it in the movie. So
there's just like weird things that are just kind of
interesting to see.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Yep, it's like you said, they were very much like
probably assembly line is a good way to describe it,
because very often you have the same same principal cast
and the same supporting cast a lot of the time,
and usually these films were shot in basically two weeks
at the outside. And I like what you said. There
(48:04):
is often at least one sequence in each of the
movies which is kind of like you have to see
it to believe it. And sometimes it's the comedy sequence.
Sometimes it's an action sequence, which in the context of
the film is actually supposed to be taken seriously and
that makes it even funnier. But there's usually something something
(48:26):
unique in each one of them, and I think that's
almost more true of the ones that are set in
the present day than the ones that are supposed to
be set back in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
But on the flip.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Side, for anyone who really enjoys the Western music itself.
There's a lot of very good music hidden away in
these absurd little films, especially, I think in some of
the early forties ones. If you're a Sons of the
Pioneers fan, it's neat to be able to actually see
(49:00):
them perform a lot of their classic songs on screen
where you've been familiar with the recordings, and there's some
songs that there's a few that were only sung or
recorded in a certain way in these films, so they're
kind of if you're a fan of the genre, a
fan of the group, there are curiosities in that respect,
(49:23):
and that's that's one of the big draws for me.
I love the music in them myself. You know, somebody
who doesn't care for singing cowboys and music as much.
They mighty on a little bit through the numbers. But
if you love, if you love the music, then you
enjoy that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
All right, Well, Elizabeth, this was excellent, Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thank you for inviting me. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I really enjoyed
having this conversation with Elizabeth and would love for her
to come back again soon. Let me know what you
thought of this week's episode, and let me know if
you'd like for me to cover more Roy Rogers or
William Whitney movies in the future. Next week, I have
another new guest and we've got a really fun topic.
We're talking about Sam Peck and Paw and his episodes
of The Riflemen. I'm very excited to be talking about
(50:12):
another TV series and we're gonna cover all six of
the episode sam Peck and Paw either wrote or directed
until then. If you're looking for more film related podcasts,
please check out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions
podcast network. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (50:26):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My Name is Hunter. This week,
author Elizabeth Grace Foley joins me to discuss one of
the most prominent Western movie stars of the forties and fifties,
Roy Rogers, recovering two of his collaborations with director William Whitney,
The Gay Rancio and Bells of San Angelo. Before watching
the movies for this episode, I think I'd only seen
(00:37):
one Roy Rogers film. But Elizabeth really knows her stuff,
and even if these movies aren't up your alley, this
will at a minimum be an interesting film history lesson.
Here's our conversation, Elizabeth, thanks for coming on the show.
How's it going good?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for inviting me?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh yes, well, I'm happy to have you on. I've
been following you on Twitter for a little bit and
one day I saw you posted something about Roy Rogers
movies and I knew if I was ever going to
talk about Roy Rogers on the show, that you would
be the person I'd want to have the conversation with. Now,
Roy Rogers westerns, they're mostly a blind spot for me,
and I think I mentioned that to you when we
(01:12):
were messaging, so I still have a lot to learn
about him and his movies. But before we get into
our main discussion, let's get to know you a little bit.
Can you tell us about yourself and your history with westerns.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Well, I'm an author of historical fiction, mostly Westerns and
mostly mysteries. I like combining the two. I've written several
Western mysteries. I have always loved westerns since I was
a little girl. When I was growing up, my father
used to watch old Western TV shows and John Wayne movies,
and I always loved American history, and particularly frontier and
(01:46):
pioneer history. And I was horse crazy, so that played
into it too. And as I got older, I got
more interested in Western fiction and reading the history of
the West, and that has played into my writing quite
a great deal. So, yep, and Westerns are Roy Rodgers'
movies in particular.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, well, well, next, I was going to ask if
you because you had mentioned to me that Roy Rogers
movies are something that influenced your work, So I was
going to ask if you can talk about what about
his movies has inspired you.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Well, and I'm sure we'll get into this more. The
ones that I enjoy the most are the ones that
are they don't have a particularly historical setting. They're actually
like set in the era that they were filmed with,
the nineteen thirties and forties, and yet they combine Old
West plot elements with modern times in a very un
(02:43):
self conscious way. That's very funny, and that's I always
found that very fun and it's very nostalgic for me now,
and it actually has influenced for me because I enjoy
nineteen thirties and forties culture and history too, and I've
actually gotten into writing Western stories set in those eras,
(03:04):
paying much more attention to historical accuracy than Roy Rogers
movies ever did. But they were kind of the thing
that got me started on that era and also blending
those elements together of the Western in that period.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All right, excellent, Yeah, Well, so one thing you told
me while we were messaging back and forth that I
was completely unaware of is that there are I think
four distinct eras of Roy Rogers movies. And since, like
I said, this is something I really know nothing about,
So do you think that's the could you kind of
(03:39):
walk us through these eras and mention some of the
notable titles within each era.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Sure, well that's what I call it anyway. I'm not
sure anybody else actually defined it like that. But when
you go when you go over filmography, you can kind
of see the different the different styles that in different
directors they went through. The first what I call era
is from his first starring role in nineteen thirty eight,
(04:05):
that was actually a modern day one like I had
described a moment ago, But from like nineteen thirty eight
to nineteen forty one is what I call the historical era,
when most of Roy Rodgers' movies were they had a
historical setting. Again not any great attention to historical accuracy,
but they were supposed to be set in the nineteenth century,
(04:26):
and very often Roy Rodgers would play a historical figure
that for very little resemblance too, like Buffalo Bill or
wild Bill Hiccock or something like that. But that's the one.
I haven't seen everything from that period. My favorite from
that era is the Border Legion from nineteen forty that
(04:47):
was a fun one. And the second period from covering
like the Year's nineteen forty two nineteen forty three is
what I like to call the Early Modern Era, and
this is my my favorite. This again is like I
described a minute ago. The movies take place basically in
the year. They're filmed in the nineteen forties, with all
(05:08):
all modern conveniences, cars, radio, modern nineteen forties society, except
they're set on the backlot of the Republic Studio, the
old Western town streets, and they mix old West elements
with the present in a way that really comes off
as extremely funny when you look at it. You know,
(05:30):
pull on car chases with cars and horses mixed together,
everybody blazing the way at each other with six shooters
in nineteen forty two, you know, So it's it's it's
really fun if you don't take it too seriously. Through
both of these periods that I described, the main director
was Joseph Kaine. I believe he was the most prolific
(05:50):
director of Roy Rogers movies, with over forty altogether, and
also also directed Gene Autry and other Republic stars. But yes,
the Early Modern Era is my personal favorite. My favorite
from that era is Romance on the Range, which isn't
(06:10):
nearly as cheesy as the title sounds. It's kind of
just the best you know, music, humor, so really pretty
scenery and just all the classic elements all in one place.
I should have mentioned before one of the big draws
for me with the Roy Rogers movies is I love
the music of the Sons of the Pioneers and they well,
(06:34):
if you're not familiar with the background. Roy Rogers, under
his real name Leonard Sly, was one of the founding
members of the group back in the early nineteen thirties,
and then he left for a solo career in nineteen
thirty eight. A few years later, the Sons of the
Pioneers were signed by Republic Pictures to appear in his movies,
and in this early modern era, I kind of think
(06:59):
that's some of their best period for hearing some of
their best music in Roy Rogers movies. Before that, they'd
been with Columbia Pictures, appearing in Charles Stare at Westerns.
He was a non singing cowboy, so they got to
do all the music in those. But yes, from nineteen
the last film of nineteen forty one onward to nineteen
(07:20):
forty eight, there are in all of Roy Rodgers movies
and then the third era, so to speak, from nineteen
forty four to nineteen forty six thereabout is my least
favorite era. I call that the production number era. The
story goes that somebody high up public pictures, I believe,
(07:45):
as I'm remembering correctly, somebody saw Oklahoma on Broadway when
it came out in nineteen forty three, and they got
the idea to make all of Roy Rogers movies into
like a Broadway musical style productions. So that mid forties
era was one that it's not very outdoorsy. You know,
a lot of settings like in Western themed nightclubs and
(08:06):
rustic lodges and vaudeville shows and such, a lot of
elaborate musical numbers with chorus girls and such, and less
action and so forth, and so not quite my favorite
of the eras, but one of.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The that doesn't sound very appealing to me either.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Yeah, there are a few highlights. There's some that are
a little more a little more outdoors than the others.
My favorite from that period, well, I'll get to that
in a minute. But one of the one innovation from
this era that ended up having an impact is introducing
the idea of the singing leading lady, which is where
(08:48):
Dale Evans came in her first movie opposite Roy Rogers
was in nineteen forty four in The Cowboy and the Senorita,
and I believe she was pretty much the first leading
lady in his films where she actually sang and took
a full part in the musical side of things, whereas
the leading ladies happened much before, and that carried on
(09:08):
even after the production number.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Era had ended.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
My favorite from this period is Lights of Old Santa Fe,
which I think I haven't seen it in a few years,
but if I'm remembering correctly, it's one where there's actually
not a shot fired from beginning to end.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
It's all about.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
All centered around it like a traveling rodeo, and has
a very pretty theme song, which a lot of Western
artists have recorded even in recent years. So yeah, that's
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Out of that era.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And then from like late nineteen forty six onward, the
nineteen forty six to forty nine particularly is the post
war era, and that's when William Whitney took over as director.
During the mid forties, they've mostly been a couple different directors,
(10:04):
John English and Frank MacDonald, but William Whitney took over
with Roll on Texas Moon in mid nineteen forty six
and the post war era, it's like everything got a
little bit tougher. You kind of I think you see
that in films generally in the late nineteen forties, and
in the be Westerns like this, you saw a little
(10:28):
less music, a lot more action, and everything was just
a little bit more, a little bit tougher and more
hard bitten in a be Western way. You're still not
you know, it's still your Saturday afternoon matinee fair. But
there were a lot of action sequences in these films,
and even several fights and such, which among the Western
(10:52):
enthusiasts were rather infamously rough for their genre. And this
is again these were set in the modern era, the
nineteen forties, but they still had that element of, you know,
mixing in the horses and chases and gunfights and such,
just as if it was the nineteenth century. So this period,
(11:15):
the late forties is my second favorite era of the
of the ones. And I have to admit that my
familiarity with Roy Rogers' filmography kind of peters out in
nineteen forty eight when Republic dropped The Sons of the Pioneers,
Because I lose interest a little bit after that. So
(11:35):
I actually haven't seen any of his nineteen fifties films,
which were also directed by William Whitney. So I don't
know if you could call the nineteen fifties a continuation
of the post war era or if it's another sort
of distinct era of its own. You'd have to ask
somebody else who is more familiar with.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Thems, gotcha. Yeah, I wonder if if they have even
more action or if there's still like numbers and singing
in those as much. Without the Sons of the Pioneers,
it seems like there might be less music, but.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
There's always at least a little music. They were replaced
by another singing group called the Writers of the Purple Sage,
who were oh, okay, yeah to me, I mean they're
pretty good, but they're just not the Sons of the Pioneers,
so right. But yeah, just the number of songs in
the pictures decreased a little bit post war.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
They didn't take up as much of the running time anymore.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Gotcha. Now have you seen the Roy Rogers TV show
at all?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Not really, maybe a few clips, but I've mostly just
seen the movies. Yeah, when I was about oh, probably
eleven twelve years old. My parents gave my siblings and
eye a bunch of Roy Rodgers movies on VHS for
a gift one holiday, just because they heard, you know,
(12:54):
they were good, clean, family fun, and so we watched
those about a dozen and I have three younger siblings,
and we all just loved them. We thought they were
so much fun. You know, we act out play the characters,
sing all the songs in the car, that kind of thing.
And yeah, that's kind of how they got to be
(13:14):
a part of my childhood nostalgia.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh that's awesome. Yeah, I didn't grow up watching Roy
Rogers that I remember. I grew up watching way more
John Wayne and way more of the major kind of
A westerns. I didn't see very many B B pictures
growing up, but I am trying. It is something that
I'm kind of trying to play catch up on.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, I saw the A pictures too. The A pictures
were roast off and like on TV on some of
the channels that showed classic movies. I didn't get acquainted
with the B westerns until, like I said, we got
some on home video and it was just sort of
a random thing. And then a few years later we
got some more on DBD and I got more familiar
(13:58):
with the whole film. Most of the first ones that
I saw were actually from the post war era, directed
by William Whitney. That was where I got started. But
then once i'd seen more, the early forties ones became
my favorite. In the late forties my second favorite.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
All right, well, I think from here we can get
into the two movies that we're talking about. We're talking
about Bells of San Angelo and The Gay Ranchero, and
both of these were directed by William Whitney, and he
is someone who I think fans of westerns might be
familiar with. He didn't direct any really big major westerns,
(14:35):
but he did work with Autie Murphy a few times.
Later in his career. He directed Apache Rifles, Arizona Raiders,
and forty Guns to Apache Pass. And he started directing
serials in the thirties before he started directing features, and
he mostly made B movies and a lot of them
(14:56):
were westerns, and he also he worked in TV quite
a bit. He directed eleven episodes of Tales of Wells, Fargo,
seven episodes of Wagon Train, and twenty seven episodes of Bonanza,
and he also directed ten episodes of what I still
think is my favorite old western TV show, The Virginian.
But yeah, I'm pretty interested in exploring more of his filmography,
(15:17):
so I'm sure this isn't the last episode Robbie talking
about William Whitney. And then both movies were written by
Sloane You do say Nibley, right? Is how he pronounce
his last name?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I alwayst assumed it was Nibley, but I'm not sure,
so don't quote me.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Nibley just sounds funny to me.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But I don't know honestly.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Okay, we'll go with Nibley. It just sounds better.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But he, like like Whitney, also mostly worked in the
Western genre. And then both of these movies were shot
by Jack Marta, who later actually went on to shoot
Steven Spielberg's first made for TV movie, Duel. And then
Andy Devine is in both movies, and he was a
frequent collaborator with Rogers and then some of the other
(16:01):
key players. I mean, you mentioned Sons of the Pioneers already,
and so as the Pioneers. John Ford also used their music.
He used them in wagon Master and they did the
theme song for the Searchers. Ken Curtis was in Sons
of the Pioneers and he's in The Searchers. I don't
know if he was in Sons of the Pioneers at
(16:21):
that point.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
No, he wasn't.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
He joined in nineteen forty nine when a couple of
the original members retired and he was one of the replacements.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Okay, gotcha, yep.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Sons of the Pioneers. Yes, I'm familiar with their work
in a westerns too. I love John Ford's movies Rio Grand,
which the Sons of the Pioneers also appeared in. Is
my favorite a Western movie?
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Nice, Yeah, that's a good one. Now, I guess the
other key figure in these movies is Trigger, the smartest
horse in the movies now and Rogers worked with Trigger,
I think in his first starring role in nineteen thirty eight,
and he bought Trigger and they were in movies and
TV together for around twenty years. Now. I know you're
a fond of horses. Do you have anything else to
(17:09):
add on about Trigger?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
His original name was Golden Cloud. And I don't know
if you've ever seen this, but he was Olivia de
Havilyn's horse in the Adventures of Robin Hood in nineteen
thirty eight. You can get a glimpse of him in
that in Glorious Technicolor. That was before he became Roy
Rogers Horse. And I know I don't know all the details.
(17:35):
I'm not the expert. I believe there were several triggers
over the years, and of course he had a stunt
double for the most dangerous scenes, but the original trigger
is recognizable. Once you've seen a lot of the movies,
you can spot which one is him. One thing that
I didn't think we mentioned was that in nineteen forty
six or forty seven, Roy Rogers movies started being shot
(17:57):
in true color where they'd been black and white before.
But a lot of them the color prints have actually
not survived. Only a few have survived in the color prints,
and the rest pre nineteen fifty. I should say, most
of the fifties ones have survived in true color, but
only about three I think of the true color nineteen
(18:18):
forties ones have actually survived in their original color print.
So yes, sometimes when you're watching the late forties ones,
they look a little fuzzy sometimes compared to others that
were actually filmed in black and white, and that's because
you're seeing a print that was shown on TV later
on in black and white TV, so it's not as
clear as it would have been in the original true color.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh gotcha. I wondered about that because I had read
that The Gay Ranchero was shot in color, yes, and
that a color print no longer exists, and I assumed
that there was a black and white print made for TV.
But yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I didn't realize that he
had like mostly switched over to true color, and then
(19:03):
only a few of those color prints still remained.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yep, Bells of San Angelo is one of the few
that has survived in color, and the other one under
California Stars, and then just fairly recently a few years
back on an uncut color version of Springtime in the
Sierra's turned up. That was another Whitney directed one from
nineteen forty seven. Kind of a poor quality print, but
(19:28):
it was pretty neat to be able to see the
full uncut version in color as Another thing I forgot
to mention is that when Roy Rogers' films were later
shown on television, they were cut down to be less
than an hour long, and music that usually the musical
numbers were the first thing to go. So a lot
(19:49):
of his films, the original uncut versions are considered lost
because Republic Pictures didn't keep the original negatives. So the
un cut versions that have survived or just because somebody
else had an uncut print and it's turned up years later.
But for many of them, the cut TV versions are
(20:11):
the only ones that have survived, mostly the earlier ones.
We have the full, full length ones of most of
the postwar films.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So did any of these movies? Were any of them? Ever?
They were never like repurposed as episodes of his TV series, though?
Were they not?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
That I know us? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
All right, well, I think at this point we can
kind of get more into each movie, and we'll go
in chronological order, and we'll talk about Bells of San
Angelo first. Now, now I'm going to give you the option. Now,
I am terrible at doing plot summaries. Now, if you
feel like you are, that's something that you thrive at,
(20:54):
you can do it. Or I can just read this
wildly inadequate one that's from Iam. What would you rather do?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Why can summarize it? If you like?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
They're often quite convoluting plots for short B grade movies
in this one. This one takes place somewhere in the Southwest.
I don't know if it's actually meant to be San Angelo,
Texas or if somebody just liked the name, But in
this one, Roy Rogers plays a border investigator, whatever that means,
(21:26):
and he's supposed to be investigating some trouble down along
the Mexican border involving a silver mine, and basically that
in a nutshell, our villains in this are smuggling silver
into the country. They buying sheep silver and smuggling it
into America to resell it at a higher price and
pretending it came from their worthless mind. And so Roy
(21:46):
has to figure this out. And there's also a subplot,
a couple of subplots, I should say, there's a subplot
where all the land in where this is going on,
a ranch and a rustic lodge that's run by the
sons of the pioneers, and the silver mine are really
all owned by an absentee owner in England, and they're
trying to find the heir to the estate. And we
(22:10):
the viewor did pretty much guess who that is as
soon as they say so.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
But that's all part of the Sun.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Yeah, and this is a really fun one if you
like seeing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans together. They have
a really fun relationship in this. She plays a writer
of westerns who Roy's boss has instructed to show around
and help find local color and it's not happy about that.
(22:37):
But also there's a misunderstanding because her character's name is
supposed to be Lee Madison, and everybody mistakenly thinks that
Lee Madison, author of westerns, is a man, and so
they're expecting a male author to turn up. And when
she finds that out, and also at how unpopular she's
going to be, she quickly adopts an alias and pretends
to be someone else. So there's a lot of banter
(23:00):
between Roy and Dale, a lot of fun, stappy dialogue,
and then of course in the end they end up
working together to uh defeat the villains by taking a
leaf out of one of her books.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, So she kind of touched on it a little bit,
you know, But what are your kind of general thoughts
on on the movie.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Well, like I said, it's a lot of fun. Sometimes
the plot is not the easiest to follow, but you
just kind of like sit back and roll with it.
Also in the color print, there's actually a few few
little places where the film was evidently damaged, so you
miss a few lines of dialogue, and so that adds
(23:44):
to the complexity of the plot, you might say, because sure,
because you're not quite sure what you missed in those
few seconds. But it has h kind of all the
all the elements of the post war film, the action scenes,
a little bit of humor, some good music, and there's
(24:05):
usually at least one comedy sequence in a Roy Rogers
film that you just kind of have to see to believe,
and in this case, it's when the characters decided to
stage a fox hut in the desert for a visiting
Englishman and Andy Devine, who plays the comic sidekick, has
to lay the scent of the trail with a pat raccoon.
(24:28):
So and it also includes one of the kind of
infamous post war fight scenes where Roy Rogers actually his
character ends up getting roughed up by the villains pretty
severely to try.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And warn him away from the mine.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
He has a big fight scene at the mine where
the villains are led by stuntman David Sharp, who did
a lot of stunt work and that. Yeah, the big
fist fight scene at the mine is kind of one
of the scenes that key Western enthusiasts remember. But yeah,
(25:10):
and it also has a kind of a nice little
scene at the toward the end, a sequence to the
end where Roy and Dale and Andy Devine as the
comic sidekick have to do a little detective work to
sneak into the mine and find out what the villains
are up to.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
And I think you.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
See more in these post war films where the hero
Roy Rogers in these cases is kind of allowed to
be a little bit more vulnerable, where he kind of
gets into a spot where he can't get out of
it all by himself, and the hero, the heroine and
the comic sidekicks and the sons of the Pioneers are
(25:48):
kind of the cavalry coming to the rescue. But he
always does get the final fist fight with the main
villain and handles staff all by himself.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No, I'm going to say upfront, singing cowboys, you know,
are a little outside of my wheelhouse. But you know,
I went into these, you know, like with an open mind,
and I actually think I thought both of them are
pretty good fun. Now, the bells of San Angelo. Specifically,
I do like that the there is kind of almost
like a screwball comedy plot line with Rogers and his
(26:19):
real life wife Dale Evans and having a character that's
an author get into the type of adventure they write about.
I feel like it's something you've seen so many times
at this point, but I can't actually think of an
earlier version than this, so I don't know if that
was pretty unique for the time, but that is an
(26:40):
element of the movie that I did enjoy, and I
thought Dale Evans was very charming in this. I really
enjoyed her performance. Now, some of what I have to
say about this movie is kind of in comparison to
The Gay Ranchero, so I kind of want to get
into that movie before I share more thoughts. Sure, but
(27:01):
I will say I overall I enjoyed the movie, And
like I said, I'm not an expert on singing cowboy
movies or Roy Rogers at all, but to me, this
feels like a pretty good one to start with. Potentially
if you're completely unfamiliar with this subgenre.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yes, I think it is. It was actually one of
the first ones that I saw coincidentally, and okay, yeah,
I think it has kind of all the essential elements
there that you will find in the best of the
B Westerns. And again, I think it's a pretty good
little movie on its own merits.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And you know, it has pretty.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Pretty good pacing and a pretty interesting plot. It's like
you always have to judge a B Western kind of
at a different standard than you judge inn a Western.
You know, right, you're judging it on its own merits
as for what it is. And yeah, I think Bells
of San Angelo is probably it's a good example of
(28:03):
the Roy Rogers film from the post war era, and
it's I think maybe even a little more fun than
some of the others, like you mentioned, with like the
subplot with Roy and Dale and some of the humorous scenes.
Some of the others are even a little more serious.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, now let's get into the gay range, Hiero. Now,
do you want to do the synopsis for this one
as well?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Sure? This one.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I just love the uniqueness of this one because basically
it involves airplanes and basically our villains in this one
who figured out a way to hold up airplanes on horseback?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You're not kidding?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
And this one, really the villains have quite convoluted goals
and aims. In a lot of these movies, they're sabotaging
and holding up airplanes and not just stealing the gold
cargo on them, but they're trying to put the airline
out of business so they can buy it cheap themselves,
so kind of a wheels within wheels. And in this one,
(29:05):
Roy Rogers plays the sheriff who's trying to figure out
who's doing all this and it is. It's also unique
because it's one of two movies made in the late
forties where Roy Rogers actually had a co lead, a
South American movie star Tito Gazar, who was also a
(29:28):
singing star in his own country, and they really actually
practically share the lead. They made the two movies together,
on The Old Spanish Trail and The Gay Ranchero, And
in this one, Tito Gazar plays a bullfighter who also
happens to be an amateur pilot and ends up helping
(29:50):
using both of those skills, I might say, to help
defeat the villains. And like I said, he actually gets
quite a full share of screen time and gets to
sit two solos beautiful tenor singing voice. And in this one,
the leading lady is Jane Frizzy, who also was a singer.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
She made about five.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Movies with Roy Rogers in the late forties, and when
I first watched them, I wasn't as familiar with Dale Evans.
I saw all the ones with Jane Frizzy first, and
I always liked her. She's kind of a little bit
more low key character than Dale Evans, kind of a
little bit more laid back, elegant type of character, you know,
(30:37):
for me, as like eleven twelve year old little girl,
you know, I kind of wanted to be her when
I grew up. Now she got to wear all these
lovely western outfits and ride horses and sing, and yeah,
she was always my favorite of the leading ladies. And
again the sons of the Pioneers are in it, though
in a little more of a less prominent role than
(30:58):
some of the others. And there's also a second leading lady.
Tito Gizar has a leading lady at his own in
Estelita Rodriguez, who is also a bit of a humorous character,
and then having the divine as the usual comic sidekick. Yeah,
(31:19):
this one, I think, I think it's just one of
my favorites because of that uniqueness. That I mentioned the
aspect with the airplanes. I think it kind of started
my kind of interest in vintage aviation.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
And it also has that kind of a touch more
of the seriousness that you see in the post war films.
You know, the some of the earlier scenes in the film,
the stakes actually appear to be genuinely higher. You know,
there's a scene early on, a kind of a touching
(31:53):
scene where some of the characters are going through a
missing pilot's things and reminiscing about airstrikes.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
During the war.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
And I think there's a there's a moment midway through
the film where I was supporting characters shot by the villains,
which just comes across as taken more seriously than you
usually get in a B Western. But then, on the
other hand, you also have, like I said, some genuinely
hilarious scenes with the comic release.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
And again.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
A finale that you kind of have test to be
seen to be believed that involves dynamite and airplanes and
a monkey.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, the monkey really surprised me early on. I was
not expecting him to show up in kind of a
music musical scene early on in the movie, but I thought,
now the Gayraanchiro I thought was was decent. I think
I prefer bells of St. Angelo. Now, I will say
(32:58):
I was pretty surprised by the moment early on where
Rogers has custody of two criminals who he uncuffs or
he like unties ropes around their wrists or something, and
he does this so that they can eat, and the
criminals of course attack him, and Rogers at one point
(33:18):
grabs a log from a fire and burns one of
the criminals hands. And you're right, And I thought that
was pretty well done, in kind of surprisingly brutal for
a movie from this era. And and then it's it's
interesting to go like from this scene, which this scene
feels like a move, a sequence that could take place
(33:42):
in a Western set in an earlier period. And then
the very next moment a plane flies in and and
and the pilot, you know, rescues Roy Rogers. Now I
do like the cast in the movie. Jane Frazy I
recognized from Privates and Aving Costello comedy I watched a
(34:03):
million times when I was a kid. And then Estalita Rodriguez,
she is in Rio Bravo, Yes, which is one of
my all time favorite movies. I adore that movie. And
she actually she plays a character named Kinsuela Consuelo in
each movie in this and Rio Bravo.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Oh, yes, I've forgotten that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, but she's She's always fun to watch. And I
also want to mention a couple kind of B movie
actors who are in this Leroy Mason and Dennis Moore.
They play two of the villains. And if you've watched
a good amount of B Westerns or even well, not
in Leroy Mason's case, but I think in Dennis moore case,
(34:47):
if you've watched a good amount of Western TV shows,
I think that you'll recognize them from something. I know.
Leroy Mason was in maybe like five of John Wayne's
B movies from the thirties.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I think he was probably I think he was in
some of Roy Rogers' other ones too. I'm thinking, yes, yes,
I mean this is also part of the fun of
B Westerns is that once you've watched any amount, you
start recognizing the familiar faces over and over again, especially
the bad guys. You know, they always turn up in
the same type of role, they always play the same
(35:22):
type of villain. There's a few that can surprise you
and play against type sometimes, but there is that sort
of stock company who you recognize, and also, you know,
like you said, some of them eventually moved into TV
roles too, And then the chief villain in this, George Meeker,
(35:44):
is the type that you often see in these When
my siblings and I were little, you know, we've made
up some of our own names for the different familiar elements,
and we used to call his type of villain. We
called him the suit villain because you know, that type
of villain is always wearing a suit and usually sitting
behind desk and whips out a derringer at some key
point in the story. And that is one of the
(36:06):
elements of the be Western that I just think is
so fun and a bit unintentionally funny. How you have
these villains who are, you know, in their suits and
fedoras and could walk out of any other nineteen forties movie,
but here they are battling it out with cowboys, and
that's yeah. In this one, George Meeker plays the kind
of classic version of that, you know, the villain who
(36:29):
spends most of his time in the office and has
the little pensilvan mustache and sinister glare, but he will.
He was also in several but yeah. There is actually
an earlier Roy Rogers movie which is one of my favorites,
South of Santa Fe from nineteen forty two, where literally
the plot is that some gangsters who are on the
(36:52):
lamb hiding out in the West decided to try and
kidnap some wealthy businessmen and Roy and company have to
rescue that.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And it's just.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
So so like unintentionally humorous to have these gangsters with
their machine guns and fedoras creeping around behind a chuck wagon.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
It's just it's so much fuss.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Oh that sounds fantastic. Yeah, yeah, Now, I think the
thing that kept me from enjoying this movie as much
actually was the relationship between the pilot and Consuelo. I
think that part of the movie it did slow it
down for me, and then and then from here I
(37:33):
kind of wanted to get I'll talk a little bit
about the movies in comparison, so of course any divine
is in both movies. But I liked the way he
was used in Bells of San Angelo Moore. I liked
that he was more he was paired with Roy Rogers
more right, I feel like Roy Rogers was a little
(37:55):
bit more on his own in The Gay Ranchero, and
I think that I like seeing him and Divine work
together as a team.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yes, you're right. Usually the comic sidekick, whoever it is
in the film is pretty much right at the hero's
side all through it. I think in The Gay Ranchero,
Roy Rogers himself almost feels a little bit on the
sidelines of the plot himself through it, Yeah, because of
sharing the spotlight with Tito Gazar and even all the
other supporting characters.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
But you're right.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
In in Bells of San Angelo, it's much more the
traditional hero and sidekick roll.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah. And I also thought like even though The Gay
Ranchero it has a shorter running time, I mean a
shorter run time by like five or six minutes. It's
it's not that different, but it did it felt longer
to me. And I think that having too many supporting
characters did make make it feel and less time with
(38:53):
Roy Rogers kind of like I've already mentioned, did make
it feel longer to me. And now the songs I
think are pretty close. I actually don't know what I
prefer the music to Bells of St. Angelo or The
Gay Rian Hiero. What do you think you prefer music wise?
Speaker 4 (39:11):
I think, well, probably the music in Bells of Sanjo
is a much better example of what you usually find
in your typical singing cowboy western because in the Gay
Ranchero you have Tito gizar Say, who is almost a
little bit more of a classical style singer, getting two
full solos all to himself, and in that one Roy
(39:33):
Rodgers actually only sings one song, and I, yeah, I
think I think The Gay Ranchero is more one of
the what you could sort of call a novelty film
among Roy Rodgers ones. It has more unusual elements in it,
while Bells of San Angelo is more an example of
a classic style what you typically get from a Roy
(39:56):
Rogers film.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah. No, I don't have a a whole lot more
to say about these movies. I do think like they're
both like light entertainment, and for me, the Bells of
s Angelo I think you was a little more successful. Now,
I'm assuming like quite a few listeners probably haven't seen
very many Roy Rogers movies. So is there any I
know that we I mentioned I thought Bells of sant
(40:19):
Angelo might be a good place to start, but are
there any others that you would recommend that might be
a good entry.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Point problem the post war period or directed by William
Whitney in particular, or just any Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Base, yeah, or any or from any period.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Well, we'll start with the William Whitney ones.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I think.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
From the Whitney period, you'd want to see Springtime in
the Sierras and Eyes of Texas and probably under California Stars.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I think.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, you see, each one of every viewer is going
to have their own favorites, you know, they're all similar
in some ways.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Those I think are kind of the.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Ones that have the distinctive William Whitney style with the
action sequences and so forth. In the pre war period,
the early modern period, so to speak. As I mentioned,
my favorite is Romance on the Range, and I think
(41:25):
I think you want to see South of Santa Fe.
That's the one I just mentioned with the Gangsters. That
one is a lot. Yeah, that is a good one.
King of the Cowboys from nineteen forty three, that's kind
of one of the most it's one of the longest
run times and sort of the most lavish productions of
the early ones. In that one, Roy's character is trying
(41:50):
to track down wartime saboteurs while traveling with a vaudeville show.
But it's it's before the sort of the Broadway production
number period that I mentioned, so it's a lot more,
a little bit more traditional Western feeling. That one has
a lot of good music in it. That's one where
(42:11):
you want to look out for the uncut version because
both the shortened cut one and the uncut ones exist.
Sunset Serenade is another early one which is really enjoyable,
I think again. It just has all the classic elements,
a little bit of action, a little bit of humor,
good music. And I couldn't go without mentioning Gabby Hayes,
(42:33):
who was the sidekick in most of the earlier ones.
He's my favorite of Roy's comic sidekicks, and he's in
most of the pre war ones and then a few
of the post war the earliest William Whitney films before
Andy Devine came in after that. I'm working backwards here.
(42:54):
Like I said, I have not seen as many of
the historical era ones from the nineteen thirties, Okay, I
would probably recommend the Border Legion and Young Bill Hiccock
of the ones I have seen.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
All right, excellent, Well, yeah, Elizabeth, can you let listeners
know where people can follow you on social media and
where they can pick up copies of your books.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
My website is Elizabethgracefoley dot com. I'm Elizabeth spelled with
an S, and I'm also blog on substack at second
Sentenced substack dot com. I'm on Twitter and Instagram under
the user name Elizabeth G.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Foley.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
And you can find my books at Amazon and also
generally wherever books are sold Barnes and Noble, Cobo and
so forth, all in ebook and most of them in paperback.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
All right, excellent? Now did you actually I meant to
ask this before I did that, actually, but did you
have any other kind of final notes on Roy Rogers
movies or on either of these movies that you didn't
get to mention?
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I don't think so. Just like I was saying, I
think that anybody who watches b westerns is going to
have their own favorites, you know, depending on which what style,
whether they like the music the best or the action
the best, of the comedy, they'll find something that emphasizes
one of those things a little more than the others.
And everybody's going to have their favorite era. I think
(44:23):
of Roy Rogers movies, and again it's like you can't
take them too seriously. You know, it's they're fun, but
at the same time it's interesting kind of as a
like a cultural snapshot, getting a little bit of a
look at what was fun and what was popular in
(44:44):
the nineteen thirties and forties.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
And.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
As a sort of subsidiary part of the Western genre
as a whole, you know. So yeah, like I said,
it's kind of led me on to look more seriously
at the westward in that time period. But it's also
still it's a big part of childhood nostalgia for me.
(45:09):
I've actually a couple of years ago I started rewatching
the main Order, which I had never done before, and
it's fun comparing, you know, revisiting the childhood nostalgia and
yet also watching them as an adult and noticing, you know,
paying more attention to the the filmmaking and the like
(45:33):
I said, the cultural aspects of it the time period.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
So I think they might be an acquired taste. They might.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
It will depend on the viewer very much, I think.
But if you're just you know, looking for something light
and fun but also kind of an interesting window into
the past.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Kevin Ma, try.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, I think you have to go into it with
the right expectations, and maybe you kind of have to
see a few like B movies from this era, because
B movies were very much like an assembly line product.
It's not like B movies from the seventies, where you
(46:17):
had like filmmakers who were kind of aiming a little higher.
These were just, you know, jobs for hire and you know,
in the thirties, and none of these you don't get
the feeling that any of these were like passion projects
by the producers or or the directors. They were just
(46:38):
kind of assembly line stuff. But I still think that
there's interesting things about these movies. Earlier on in the podcast,
I did an episode on some of John Wayne's B
movies from the thirties, and I watched about nine of those,
and there was always something kind of surprising about them,
(46:59):
and and they were always fun or they had some
like ridiculous element that was memorable to me. Like there's
a John Wayne B Western, I can't remember which one,
but in one of the early scenes, somebody trades in
a car for a horse, and it just felt it
(47:22):
just felt so weird to see, like to imagine like
what kind of what rider was thinking. Oh yeah, so
we'll have her show up at this ranch and trade
in her car for a horse, and she doesn't. I
don't even think she rides it in the movie. So
there's just like weird things that are just kind of
interesting to see.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Yep, it's like you said, they were very much like
probably assembly line is a good way to describe it,
because very often you have the same same principal cast
and the same supporting cast a lot of the time,
and usually these films were shot in basically two weeks
at the outside. And I like what you said. There
(48:04):
is often at least one sequence in each of the
movies which is kind of like you have to see
it to believe it. And sometimes it's the comedy sequence.
Sometimes it's an action sequence, which in the context of
the film is actually supposed to be taken seriously and
that makes it even funnier. But there's usually something something
(48:26):
unique in each one of them, and I think that's
almost more true of the ones that are set in
the present day than the ones that are supposed to
be set back in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
But on the flip.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Side, for anyone who really enjoys the Western music itself.
There's a lot of very good music hidden away in
these absurd little films, especially, I think in some of
the early forties ones. If you're a Sons of the
Pioneers fan, it's neat to be able to actually see
(49:00):
them perform a lot of their classic songs on screen
where you've been familiar with the recordings, and there's some
songs that there's a few that were only sung or
recorded in a certain way in these films, so they're
kind of if you're a fan of the genre, a
fan of the group, there are curiosities in that respect,
(49:23):
and that's that's one of the big draws for me.
I love the music in them myself. You know, somebody
who doesn't care for singing cowboys and music as much.
They mighty on a little bit through the numbers. But
if you love, if you love the music, then you
enjoy that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
All right, Well, Elizabeth, this was excellent, Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thank you for inviting me. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I really enjoyed
having this conversation with Elizabeth and would love for her
to come back again soon. Let me know what you
thought of this week's episode, and let me know if
you'd like for me to cover more Roy Rogers or
William Whitney movies in the future. Next week, I have
another new guest and we've got a really fun topic.
We're talking about Sam Peck and Paw and his episodes
of The Riflemen. I'm very excited to be talking about
(50:12):
another TV series and we're gonna cover all six of
the episode sam Peck and Paw either wrote or directed
until then. If you're looking for more film related podcasts,
please check out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions
podcast network. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (50:26):
Have you ever wanted to dive deeper into the horror
movies you love? Beyond the Blood is a horror podcast
for fans who want more than just surface level screams.
We do deep dives into the movies that shaped us,
digging into director commentaries, behind the scenes stories, deleted scenes,
and the special features that most people skip. Each episode
is a love letter to the genre. We break down
(50:48):
how these films were made, the creative risks that paid
off or didn't, and the lasting impact they've had on
the genre. As a whole. From seventy Slashers to modern nightmares.
We celebrate the crafts and characters that keep us coming back.
If you're the kind of fan who rewatches movies with
the commentary on, or you simply grew up in the
video store horror isle, the Beyond the Blood Podcast was
(51:10):
made for you. New episodes every single week. Subscribe Let's
dig Deep. Welcome to the Beyond the Blood Podcast.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Thank you for listening to hear more shows from the
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the description.
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