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Santa Fe Uprising (Nov. 15, 1946)

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Adam Lounsbery

R.G. Springsteen’s Santa Fe Uprising was a bittersweet viewing experience for yours truly. On the one hand, I really enjoy this series, based on Fred Harman’s comic-strip cowboy. It’s solid, fun, Saturday matinée entertainment. On the other hand, a big part of my enjoyment came from the wooden, straight-shooting acting style of “Wild” Bill Elliott as Red. Elliott’s persona was so stolid that it seemed tongue-in-cheek, and he had great chemistry with the child star who played his Indian sidekick Little Beaver (Bobby Blake, who later in life would be known as “defendant Robert Blake [9/18/33], aka Michael Gubitosi”).

After starring in 16 Red Ryder pictures from 1944 to 1946, Elliott bowed out and was replaced by square-jawed matinée idol Allan Lane. In the title sequence of Santa Fe Uprising, in which Red Ryder and Little Beaver appear in motion on the cover of a storybook, Lane bears a striking resemblance to Elliott. Up close, however, he’s more traditionally handsome and less interesting a performer.

Still, director Springsteen is a professional, and he keeps things fast-moving and exciting despite a modest budget and familiar shooting locations.

The film takes place in Bitter Springs, New Mexico, in 1894. The action kicks off when the U.S. Marshal for the territory is murdered by stagecoach robbers. The editor of the Territorial Gazette, a man named Crawford (Barton MacLane), demands that his killers be found. There is a toll road that’s safer to travel on than the main road, but the man who owns the property through which the toll road runs demands $3 a head of cattle to use it, which few ranchers can afford. When old rancher Lafe Dibble (Tom London) is killed by bandits, his son, Sonny Dibble (Pat Michaels), vows revenge.

Red takes over as U.S. Marshal of the territory, but he finds himself in hot water when it turns out that Crawford’s motives might not be as pure as they seem. When a man is murdered, and it looks as if Sonny killed him, Crawford and his boys demand that Sonny be strung up despite the fact that he professes his innocence. Things go from bad to worse when Little Beaver is kidnapped, held as a possible exchange for Sonny, after Crawford’s crew fails to bust Sonny out of jail to lynch him.

During the last part of the picture, Red is sleep-deprived after searching for Little Beaver night and day, which leads to a lot of strange acting from Lane, who keeps opening his eyes wide and half-yawning.

But if you’ve ever seen a western programmer before, you know that neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor sleep deprivation shall keep the heroes from their appointed shoot-outs, from which they will always emerge victorious.

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Conquest of Cheyenne (July 29, 1946)

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Adam Lounsbery

R.G. Springsteen’s Conquest of Cheyenne was the last Red Ryder adventure to star “Wild” Bill Elliott. Bobby Blake, who plays “Little Beaver,” the adorable little Indian boy whose biggest challenge in life is the English language, would stay with the series for seven more films, but after Conquest of Cheyenne, Allan “Rocky” Lane took over as the stalwart comic-strip cowboy Red Ryder.

As last hurrahs go, it’s not much, which is too bad. I really like Elliott’s stolid presence in these western programmers, and looked forward to each new one that came out. Unfortunately, Red Ryder, Little Beaver, and Ryder’s aunt, “The Duchess” (Alice Fleming), are barely characters in this film. For the most part, it focuses on an ambitious young man named Tom Dean (Jay Kirby) and his dream of bringing a big oil-drilling operation to west Texas.

Speaking of locations, the Duchess’s ranch sure did move around a lot. Just look at the list of Red Ryder films with a place name in them: Tucson Raiders (1944), Marshal of Reno (1944), The San Antonio Kid (1944), Cheyenne Wildcat (1944), Vigilantes of Dodge City (1944), Sheriff of Las Vegas (1944), Lone Texas Ranger (1945), Marshal of Laredo (1945), Colorado Pioneers (1945), California Gold Rush (1946), Sheriff of Redwood Valley (1946), and Sun Valley Cyclone (1946). In a lot of cases, of course, the names of the films had nothing to do with where the action actually took place, and that’s the case here. Conquest of Cheyenne takes place in Texas, and Cheyenne refers not to the city in Wyoming, but to a young woman, Cheyenne Jackson (Peggy Stewart).

Is there a conquest of her in this movie? ‘Fraid not.

The movie starts out with plenty of action. With the classic “spinning newspapers flying at the screen” gag, we learn that masked bandits have struck in Lubbock, Amarillo, and Muleshoe, where most of the rest of the action will take place. (I guess Conquest of Muleshoe wasn’t a catchy enough title.)

Cheyenne (the Duchess’s second cousin on her mother’s side) goes missing, and is believed kidnapped by the bandits, but she soon arrives in Muleshoe driving an out-of-control automobile. It turns out she wasn’t kidnapped after all, and the whole bandit subplot is largely forgotten.

Soon, the comic relief character “Daffy” (Emmett Lynn) will be forgotten, too, but at least we are treated to a good old fashioned dousing in a water trough when he falls in while attempting to get out of the way of Cheyenne’s car. And of course he emerges spitting a stream of water out of his mouth like a fountain.

Immediately following this fracas, the sheriff tries to ban cars. Tom Dean angrily tells him that he can’t do that. “Deny their use to the harebrained women drivers, but not to the horseless carriages themselves,” he says. (The movie itself sort of makes a nod towards equality by showing that Tom has some trouble starting the car himself, and by showing that Cheyenne learns to drive just fine by the end.)

Tom believes oil is the future of west Texas. There are already oil wells in east Texas, and he believes the entire state is heading in this direction, but he’ll not only have to convince the townspeople of Muleshoe, he’ll have to contend with an evil banker named Tuttle (Milton Kibbee), who plans to foreclose on Cheyenne’s ranch and take all the oil for himself. He’s aided in his crooked scheme by dependable Republic heavy Kenne Duncan as a geologist named McBride.

As I said, Red Ryder and Little Beaver don’t have much to do in this picture. It’s mostly Tom and Cheyenne’s story. Elliott does get the last words of the picture, however, when he rides in and sees Tom and Cheyenne lying on the ground, both being sprayed with oil gushing from Tom’s well on Cheyenne’s property. “Looks like the preacher’s gonna have to take care of both of ’em!” Red says happily.

OK, maybe that counts as a conquest. For Tom, at least.

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Sun Valley Cyclone (May 10, 1946)

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Adam Lounsbery

Sun Valley Cyclone, another entry in the Red Ryder film series directed by the dependable R.G. Springsteen, tells the story of how Ryder got his horse, Thunder. These kinds of stories are classic; how Sgt. Preston of the Yukon got his dog King, how the Lone Ranger got Silver, and so on. I don’t know if there was ever a film that told the story of how Roy Rogers got his horse Trigger, but if there wasn’t, then Republic Pictures really dropped the ball.

When Sun Valley Cyclone begins, Ryder (Bill Elliott) is tracking a man who last went by the name of “Blake” in Wyoming, but has probably changed his name several times to evade the law. Ryder is accompanied, as always, by his pint-sized Indian sidekick, Little Beaver (Robert “Bobby” Blake). While discussing the issue with the sheriff of a sleepy Arizona town, Blackie Blake (Roy Barcroft) draws a bead on Ryder from his hiding place. Just in the nick of time, however, the black stallion Thunder rushes to Ryder’s aid, trampling Blake. Blake is basically uninjured, but the townspeople see only a killer horse that must be put down. Ryder intervenes, and says that Thunder must first receive a fair trial.

In the best Saturday matinee tradition, this trial comes in the form of a flashback that takes up most of the running time of the picture, and which tells the story of how Ryder and Thunder came to be acquainted.

When Theodore Roosevelt (played by Ed Cassidy) was putting together his Rough Riders, Ryder headed straight for the recruitment office. In the corral, he saw a black stallion. The horse breaker told Ryder, “He’s got a mean streak in him so deep and wide that nobody’s ever going to be able to ride him. He’s black as a thunder cloud, and as violent as lightning.” Ryder responded, “Well I’ve seen a lot of horses, but not any one of them as ornery as you claim that stallion is. Fact is, horses are like most people. You get to understand them, and they understand you, you get along somehow.”

Colonel Roosevelt arrives just as Ryder is being flung back and forth atop Thunder, but managing to stay in the saddle. Roosevelt admires the man’s bronc-busting ability, and says he’s only known one man in all his years who could break a horse like that. It turns out that Ryder and Roosevelt are old friends (who knew?), and the colonel decides that Ryder’s talents would be better served fighting range outlaws in Wyoming than waging war with the Rough Riders.

I really enjoy the Red Ryder series. Bill Elliott’s moniker of “Wild Bill Elliott” might have helped establish his western bona fides on movie posters, but he’s about the least wild actor I’ve ever seen. In fact, he’s so stolid that after watching him in several films, I can’t help but feel there’s a joke, and that he’s in on it.

For instance, after a long sequence in which the bad guys try to break Thunder, whip him viciously, and then watch him escape with the fancy new saddle belonging to black hat Dow (Kenne Duncan), the scene cuts back to the present, and Elliott, his arms crossed, says, “Of course, some of the things I’m telling you I got second hand. And a considerable time later.” And then it’s back to the flashback. His delivery is perfect, and it’s a funny line. Was it meant to be? It’s hard to say, but I couldn’t help feeling that if Elliott hadn’t died in 1965, he might have found work in Airplane!-style comedies with other deadpan funnymen like Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, and Robert Stack.

Sun Valley Cyclone is an enjoyable picture, and not just because of Elliott’s impossibly straight-shooting persona. There’s also a delightful equine love triangle between Thunder, a white mare, and a paint stallion. Their story is told through body language, which means there are plenty of lips curled back from teeth on the part of the guys, and some come-hither hoof pawing on the part of the lady.

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Colorado Pioneers (Nov. 14, 1945)

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Adam Lounsbery

Red Ryder was a comic-strip cowboy created by writer Stephen Slesinger and artist Fred Harman. Red Ryder premiered in the Sunday funnies on November 6, 1938, and soon grew into one of the largest franchises in entertainment history. In the 1940s, there was nary a kid-friendly product that didn’t have a Red Ryder tie-in; comic books, novels, Big Little Books, a radio show, and the infamous Red Ryder BB Gun, which is still in production today despite the fact that Red Ryder hasn’t appeared in newspapers since the 1960s. For thousands of baby boomers, the Red Ryder BB Gun wasn’t the only way to put an eye out, but it was the most universal.

The first appearance of Red Ryder on film was in 1940, in the Republic serial Adventures of Red Ryder, which starred Don “Red” Barry as Red Ryder and Tommy Cook as his young Indian sidekick, Little Beaver. Like all Republic chapterplays, it was quality entertainment, but Barry was a bit of a pipsqueak compared with the tall, square-jawed actor who stepped into the role next, “Wild” Bill Elliott. Starting with Tucson Raiders in 1944, Elliott was paired with future ladykiller Robert Blake (at that time credited as “Bobby Blake”) as Little Beaver in a total of 16 features over the course of two years. (Blake kept appearing as Little Beaver in the series after Elliott left. Starting with Santa Fe Uprising in 1946 he was paired with Allan “Rocky” Lane in seven more Red Ryder films.)

Colorado Pioneers begins in Chicago, where Red Ryder and Little Beaver run afoul of a couple of ragamuffins who today would be called “at-risk youth.” Red Ryder intercedes on their behalf in court, and frees them from a life of petty street crime by taking them back to the Colorado ranch run by his aunt, “The Duchess” (Alice Fleming), where he teaches them the value of hard work and fresh air. Originally planning to take just the two boys who stole his money (Billy Cummings and Freddie Chapman), Red Ryder is convinced by Little Beaver to take the whole gang, including a token black member named “Smokey,” who is played by Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas (yes, he’s the Buckwheat you’re thinking of). The situation may be hokey and formulaic, but Elliott is a strong enough presence to make you believe it when the kids start following his lead. The emotional core of the film is the most recalcitrant boy, who resists Red Ryder’s mentorship, but who can’t resist a frail colt, which he feeds and talks to in secret. The boy’s journey from a hardened little thug to a young man who is able to care for something weaker than himself and tell the truth even when it’s difficult makes for a surprisingly moving story.

Colorado Pioneers is an excellent little B western. While it’s aimed at kids, Elliott is believable and tough enough as Red Ryder for adults to enjoy the film, too. He’s not quite Henry Fonda or Randolph Scott, but he’s one of the better western stars you’ve probably never heard of.

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