This film, like many of Gene Autry's later pictures, often blurred the time lines of American history. This one plays out a bit like an 1880's Western, but dates itself even earlier to the late 1820's. A brief origin of Michigan's Saginaw Trail states that it began as a passage for wild game, later to acquire expanded use by Indians, trappers, and settlers. The picture's story focuses on the battle between fur trappers and arriving settlers who threaten their wilderness livelihood by civilizing it. Further West, this would have been your classic range land/rancher feud, and it plays out along similar lines.
In this, the second to last movie of Autry's career, he's showing a bit of a paunch around the middle, and now that I think about it, Smiley Burnette might have trimmed a little bit of his. Smiley starts this one out as an undercover trapper (you've probably never heard that term before), helping Gene get the goods on villain Jules Brissac (Eugene Borden) and his henchman Miller Webb. Portraying Miller is one of my favorite character actors of the era, Myron Healey who has a dual role every time he applies the Indian war paint to impersonate a renegade Indian.
Backing up the principals is a secondary cast consisting of Brissac's pompous son Phillipe (Henry Blair), cousin Flora (Connie Marshall), and Randy Lane (Ralph Reed), who Gene saves from an Indian attack against his parents. Flora's the romantic interest who sides with Randy, but even though the competitive angle between both man-boys is palpable, their actual altercation comes across like one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons where they stop in the middle of a fight to avoid wrecking priceless antiques. Very goofy.
In between fisticuffs and a myriad of costume changes, Gene manages a couple of tunes, including a nice rendition of 'Beautiful Dreamer'. Once again though, in one of those chronologically challenged plot points, Gene and his partners decide to use 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' as a signal when the bad guys arrive on the scene. That tune wasn't written until 1904 when most fur trappers had already hung up their buckskins.
Autry fans will recognize this as one of his lesser outings, with a feel like it was thrown together just to get something in the can. Gene offers a sentimental finale by offering young Randy Little Champ, making a cameo appearance. The picture closes with Gene's admonition to Randy that you can't stop progress, which was probably on Gene's mind too, knowing that the traditional B movie Western was about to sunset.
