Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

JohnHowardReid Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers), Smiley Burnette (Frog Millhouse), Peggy Moran (Judy Mason), Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers: Lloyd Perryman, Tim Spencer, Pat Brady, Carl Farr, Hugh Farr (themselves), Yakima Canutt ("Where am I?" outlaw at the border), Emmett Vogan ("triplet" saboteur in audience), Norman Willis (Nazi agent), Gerald Mohr (Maurice), Dorothea Kent (Ruby Smith), Lloyd Corrigan (William Kraly), James Bush (Dave Mason), Russell Hicks (Governor Shuville), Irving Bacon (Deputy Alf Cluckus), Stuart Hamblen (Duke Wilson), Eddie Dean (Tex), Forrest Taylor (cowhand), Dick Wessell (Hershel), Jack Kirk (bartender), Edward Earle (manufacturer), Charles King, Jack O'Shea (henchmen), and "Trigger".Director: Joseph KANE. Screenplay: Olive Cooper, J. Benton Cheney. Original screen story: Hal Long. Photography: Reggie Lanning. Film editor: Harry Keller. Art director: Russell Kimball. Set decorator: Charles Thompson. Music director: Morton Scott. Songs: "Gay Ranchero" (Slye), "Ride 'Em Cowboy" (Slye, Pioneers), "I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande" (Slye), "Red River Valley" (Pioneers), "Roll Along Prairie Moon" (Slye). Trainer for "Trigger": Glenn Randall. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Harry Grey. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.Copyright 1 April 1943 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 9 April 1943. Australian release through British Empire Films: 23 March 1944. 7 reels. 5,589 feet.SYNOPSIS: Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye) and Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) are hired by Governor Shuville (Russell Hicks) to crack a ring of Nazi saboteurs moving around the state under the cover of a traveling carnival. Unbeknown to the governor one of the leaders is his own secretary (Lloyd Corrigan).NOTES: Early in 1943 "Life" magazine did a cover story on Rogers under the journalistically exaggerated title "King of the Cowboys". Of course everyone knows that Gene Autry is the above-mentioned "King". But Autry was away in the war, serving his country as a GI and later as a pilot with the Air Transport Command. Republic was quick to capitalize on the Rogers' "Life" headline. In his autobiography "Back in the Saddle Again", Gene bends over backwards to say nice things about Slye. Only a few lines — and you really have to read them closely — betray a slight touch of justifiable bitterness: "My last picture before entering the service was Bells of Capistrano... Republic acknowledged my departure by proclaiming Roy Rogers as 'the King of the Cowboys', and increasing the Rogers- western budgets to the kind of dollars the Autry and other Republic units saw only once in a while."The title has zilch to do with the plot. King of the Saboteur- Busters would be more apt, if equally exaggerated. True, Rogers does appear briefly as a rodeo rider at the beginning and end of the movie, but his chief task — aside from singing, of course — is to assist the heroine in a "Nightmare Alley" mind-reading act!Peggy Moran is the heroine — and a real nice girl too. Smiley is along mostly to cover up or back up Roy. His comic opportunities in this one (at least in the print under review) are severely limited. But at least he's in the movie, something that can't really be said for Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. Blink and you'll miss them. Hissable Lloyd Corrigan and the other villains led by Gerald Mohr have more than their fair share of footage, whilst Irving Bacon as a comic jailer makes hay for a couple of scenes.There's a fair action climax (obviously inspired by "For Whom the Bell Tolls") but otherwise production values are generally "B". And aside from the action set-ups (which were probably mounted by a professional), Kane's direction is unremittingly routine.

bkoganbing Roy apparently earns his title as King of the Cowboys by helping out Governor Russell Hicks of Texas track down a nest of Nazi saboteurs who are wreaking havoc across the Lone Star State. Did Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson know about this?Herbert J. Yates put the best creative minds at Republic Pictures to work on this and they came up with a script that's a combination of The Thirty Nine Steps and This Is My Affair. Like the Robert Taylor MGM classic where he's a secret agent working directly and reporting to President McKinley because McKinley like Governor Hicks can't seem to trust anyone in his official capacity. And like The Thirty Nine Steps the key is Gerald Mohr with a carnival memory act. If you're going to borrow at least Yates felt you should borrow from the best. You can't do too much better than Alfred Hitchcock.Roy gets a nice group of songs and I particularly liked the fact that he gets to sing I'm An Old Cowhand which in fact he had a hand in introducing seven years earlier. When Roy was just one of the Sons of the Pioneers who also appear in King of the Cowboys he backed Bing Crosby when he introduced the Johnny Mercer classic in Rhythm on the Range. Now Roy's a star and does a nice solo turn accompanying himself on the guitar.While Republic's other big singing cowboy Gene Autry was off to war, Roy inherited for a while, Smiley Burnette who does his usual comedy bit.Sadly though the film that gives Roy the title he was forever known by is a badly dated war propaganda flick that simply doesn't wear well or age well. The King had been better served by his subjects at Republic before and after this film. They'd also done worse by him as well.

classicsoncall It's only appropriate that the King of the Cowboys would appear in a movie of the same name. Roy Rogers was always my favorite Western hero, and he appears here as an undercover agent for Texas Governor Shuville (Russell Hicks), investigating sabotage in the territory. The story itself however, turns out to be rather ordinary, as Roy and his crew of Pioneers bring the bad guys to justice.Roy's sidekick here is Smiley Burnette, in one of his few outings where he doesn't go by his own name. His character is Frog Millhouse in deference to the particular guttural sound he can produce at will; fortunately it's not overdone. We're still a few pictures away from Dale Evans' first appearance with Roy (1944, Cowboy and the Senorita), so the female lead falls to Peggy Moran, a performer with the Merry Makers Carnival and Tent Show. "Following Merry" is the only clue Roy has, so when he hooks up with the traveling show as a singer, he hopes to uncover the plot.As with most of Roy's films, there are a host of songs performed by the cowboy crooner, including the opener - "Ride 'Em Cowboy". They're followed up by "I'm An Old Cowhand", "A Gay Ranchero" and "Roll Along Prairie Moon". All of them conjure up memories of a youth spent viewing hours of Western thrills following Roy, Gene, Hoppy and plenty of other stars getting the drop on the bad guys. So when you hear Bruce Willis mutter Yippie Ki Yay in "Die Hard", it just doesn't ring the same.I always get a kick out of the perspective offered in these old films. How excited is the café cook when he sees the prospect of two paying customers at thirty five cents each! I know I haven't seen it in a movie before, but what's with the giant mirror in the road trick?Of course in the end, Roy races to the rescue aboard Trigger to save the day, defusing a bomb and saving a railroad train from destruction. The Sons of the Pioneers round up the baddies, and the Governor proclaims Roy "King of the Cowboys" for his heroic assistance. It should be so easy in real life, but this was a simpler time when the guys in white hats always won. Yippee I-O-Ki-Yay!

state40 If you like Roy, you will like this movie.It has a good story line about sabotage and Roy's under cover work to capture the saboteurs.Roy also sings some songs.Smiley Burnett does his usual fine act as a funny sidekick.I was surprised to see Gerald Mohr as a "BAD GUY" in a western.The movies and T.V.I have seen him in he usually plays a sophisticated type of character.If you don't blink your eyes,you will see Eddie Dean as a policeman who has been tied up in his patrol car.