Wagon Team (1952)

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Gene must have been working his rear-end off in the early 50's, what with acting and producing features and TV shows, all at the same time. Anyhow, good to hear his signature tune Back in the Saddle Again, taking me back to those Saturday radio evenings at Melody Ranch. Nostalgia aside, this programmer makes good staging use of dry rocky LA locations for the many action and riding scenes. Nothing special about the plot as lawman Gene goes undercover to retrieve stolen money from outlaws. In the process he's got to sort out where the Weldon family stands. As Dave Weldon, the boyish Jones looks about 20 but is actually 25, while Davis is his tomboy sister and Harry Harvey his ambivalent dad. Jones does well as a semi-outlaw, though his stamina while supposedly at death's door is more than remarkable. Anyhow, the way a couple of action shots are aimed at the camera, I thought maybe someone had 3-D in mind, the process coming along about that time. Be that as it may, it's a solid Autry programmer even though coming late in the feature-length series.

Wagon Team finds Gene Autry cast as an agent for the stagecoach line looking to locate a missing $97,000.00 dollars stolen by Henry Rowland's gang and later stolen again by the notorious Apache Kid. The Apache Kid is Dick Jones who used to have a trick shot act with his father Harry Harvey and sister Gail Davis and their medicine show. But the outlaw life was alluring and Jones went off the straight and true path.Autry pretends to be an outlaw himself to get thrown into jail with Jones when he's caught in hopes of getting a line on the stolen loot. Rowland wants to know where the loot is hid and he wants to get his hands on Jones as well. It all works out nice in the end.Both Dick Jones and Gail Davis had ties to Autry as he would shortly produce their television series. For Jones he was involved with The Range Rider and Buffalo Bill, Jr. for Gene's Flying Crown Productions and Davis was TV's Annie Oakley under that same banner.Wagon Team also features Pat Buttram as Gene's sidekick here and on his television series and Gordon Jones who was one thick as a brick marshal.Nice, but Gene would shortly be doing these kind of films on television himself.

This is one of the few Gene Autry Westerns I've seen, at least lately, where the name of the picture doesn't establish itself as the title tune along the way. Instead, "Wagon Team" appears to derive from the quartet of white horses used by Doc Weldon for his Tonk-A-Wa Medicine Show rig. For a while I was waiting for someone to call the horses into action by way of Rudolph's reindeer team, 'On Neptune, On Mercury, On Comet, and Jupiter'. OK, I'm stretching here a bit, but the thought did cross my mind.The cast here is a familiar one if you've ever seen Gene's TV Western series where Pat Buttram, Gail Davis, and Dick Jones appeared quite regularly, often as different characters. In this one, Jones is an outlaw going by the name of Apache Kid, sharing a jail cell with Gene in the opening scene. Gene's there by design hoping to gain some information on the McClure gang who robbed a military payroll of ninety seven thousand dollars. Marshal Sam Taplin (Gordon Jones) resents Autry's help, figuring he'll have better luck by letting Apache escape and following him to the loot.Apache Kid has a connection to the Tonk-A-Wa folks, his father is Doc Weldon (Harry Harvey), and Gail Davis portrays his sister Connie. Gene has to balance family relationships against the need to recover the missing payroll, but eventually prevails, after the McClure gang captures Dave to lead them to the payroll strong-box.Also in the employ of the medicine show are the Cass County Boys, offering up an upbeat rendition of 'Jubilee'. Gene falls back on an old standard of his, singing 'Back in the Saddle Again'. Autry fans will probably find this one to be about average for his films and I'll second that. If not for the one hour run time, this could have been an episode of the Gene Autry show by cutting down on a couple of songs and moving the pace up a bit.

WAGON TEAM is one of Gene Autry's more popular vehicles. When an Army payroll is stolen, Gene has himself put in jail to get a lead on the culprits. The prime suspect, Dave Weldon(Dickie Jones), runs back to a musical medicine show run by his family. Autry joins the show to keep track of Weldon; and the singing stagecoach agent/investigator makes the acquaintance of Connie Welson(Gail Davis). When Dave Weldon is injured, Gene and Deputy Pat Buttram must decide whether or not to save the criminal at the expense of not solving the case.Gene sings "In and Out of the Jailhouse" and the classic "Back in the Saddle Again". Other medicine show talent is provided by The Cass County Boys. Also in the cast are: Gregg Barton, Henry Rowland, John Cason and Gordon Jones. If Miss Davis seems familiar; she not only has worked with Autry before, in the early 50's she often appeared on the TV shows "The Lone Ranger", "The Cisco Kid" and "The Range Rider".