There has probably been another Gene Autry Western without a sidekick or comedy relief character, but I can't recall one. Otherwise there's a familiar cast here with Gail Davis and Dickie Jones on hand, and Robert Armstong in an uncharacteristic heel role. There's also Clayton Moore in a pre-Lone Ranger portrayal as a villain, not unusual if you've seen a lot of older Westerns. He turned up often enough as a bad guy in pictures with Autry and Charles Starrett. One of them was Autry's "Riders of the Whistling Pines", also from 1949, the same year as this one.
What brings an element of interest to the picture are a couple of scenes involving large teams of uniformed riders from the New Mexico Military Institute, with mention of nearby Roswell. This would have been a few years before the aliens landed. I'm not talking about illegal immigrants here, but those 'real' aliens from UFO's crash landing in the desert. Now that would have been an interesting plot line for Gene.
The story segues a number of times before getting back on track, with Gene foiling Pat Feeney's (Armstrong) attempt to steal Randy Pryor's (Jones) horse and ranch by hook or by crook. I was surprised to see Frankie Darro show up here as Randy's buddy Gig Jackson. I guess I'm used to seeing him in flicks of an earlier era where he turned up as a young tough or a troubled teenager. There was no real reason given in the story for his change of heart in turning on Feeney, but that's how things often went back then, a way for the good guys to turn the table on the villains.
Maybe more so than most Westerns, this one seemed to have a lot of scenes on horseback, and not just of the chase variety. At the military academy, Dickie Jones got to show his skill playing polo. I always thought Jones was about the best stunt rider in pictures, as evidenced by his work as the Range Rider's sidekick in the early Fifties. What I got a kick out of was old Chris Dobbs (Irving Bacon) referring to the polo match as horseback croquet.
What brings an element of interest to the picture are a couple of scenes involving large teams of uniformed riders from the New Mexico Military Institute, with mention of nearby Roswell. This would have been a few years before the aliens landed. I'm not talking about illegal immigrants here, but those 'real' aliens from UFO's crash landing in the desert. Now that would have been an interesting plot line for Gene.
The story segues a number of times before getting back on track, with Gene foiling Pat Feeney's (Armstrong) attempt to steal Randy Pryor's (Jones) horse and ranch by hook or by crook. I was surprised to see Frankie Darro show up here as Randy's buddy Gig Jackson. I guess I'm used to seeing him in flicks of an earlier era where he turned up as a young tough or a troubled teenager. There was no real reason given in the story for his change of heart in turning on Feeney, but that's how things often went back then, a way for the good guys to turn the table on the villains.
Maybe more so than most Westerns, this one seemed to have a lot of scenes on horseback, and not just of the chase variety. At the military academy, Dickie Jones got to show his skill playing polo. I always thought Jones was about the best stunt rider in pictures, as evidenced by his work as the Range Rider's sidekick in the early Fifties. What I got a kick out of was old Chris Dobbs (Irving Bacon) referring to the polo match as horseback croquet.
