Sons of the Pioneers (1942)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Absolutely the worst movie.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Copyright 2 July 1942 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 2 July 1942. Never theatrically released in Australia or broadcast on television. 6 reels. 61 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Zorro/Destry revisited.COMMENT: Our hats are off to the boys at Roadshow Video. No hard-headed theatermen these, with their eyes firmly fixed on profits. One of their first offerings in their new Republic Collection is a Roy Rogers movie originally judged so lacking in commercial appeal in some territories that it wasn't even released! Of course it's possible the original distributors were wrong. But now that we've had a chance to view the movie at long last - for which our heartfelt thanks - we're tempted to agree that it's not one of Roy's finest.Mind you, it's attractively cast. Rogers himself is at his charming best, even though he's handed only three choruses, and he's appealingly supported by Hayes doing his juggling act (a nice bit of business this), and Maris Wrixon acting perky and looking beautiful. Bradley Page is okay as the heavy, but Hal Taliaferro is more impressive as his henchman. Chester Conklin has a few close-ups to try out one or two of his comic expressions. And although unbilled, Pat Brady has a lead role as Gabby's sidekick, while Bob Nolan is oddly though not disturbingly cast as the heroine's ranch foreman.The problems are not entirely with the script either. It builds up to a double-action climax and has a few chases and stunts along the way. The trouble is that the climax is resolved too quickly, the chases are all filmed from static camera positions, and one of the stunts is so weak that I could do it myself (and I'm no athlete). A lot of the action takes place at night. While the darkened studio interiors look good, the day-for-night exteriors look very shoddy indeed. The washed out, TV-graded dupe of a 16mm print under review doesn't help either. (This video was allegedly mastered from "original film negative". I don't know about you, but I call original film negative the master negative from which the 1942 35mm theatrical prints were struck. Instead this video print was made from a 16mm dupe negative, deliberately over-exposed for TV use. A dupe negative - and a lousy one at that - is not an original film negative, boys).In short a minor western outing indeed, made on a limited budget, hastily directed and at times even clumsily edited. This one is mainly aimed for Maris Wrixon fans.Incidentally, the title has nothing to do with the plot. And as for The Sons of the Pioneers as a singing group, they figure very briefly only at the very beginning and very end of the picture.

With a little bit borrowed from Destry Rides Again, Roy Rogers gets the job as sheriff in his hometown of Rogers City where there's been a lot of rustling and even epidemics of hoof and mouth disease that are driving the local ranchers to get out. Gabby Hayes and Pat Brady go east to bring Roy back to the place where both his father and grandfather were sheriffs before and which place is also named after them.Needless to say that they're a bit disappointed that Roy is happy and content as a research chemist. But as it turns out those skills are exactly what's needed to get the evidence and then get the villains. Not that Roy eschews riding and shooting by any means.Maris Wrixson who usually plays sophisticated women or gangsters molls was an unusual choice for a leading lady for Roy. Still she acquits herself well.But I might have rated this one a bit higher if wasn't for one of the most colossal pieces of stupidity ever shone on screen. While the bad guys have Roy, Gabby, and Pat at bay, what does Gabby do but start practicing his juggling act with bottles of nitroglycerin. Damn near blows them all up. In fact Gabby also at one point tips Roy's hand to the bad guys with his big stupid mouth. Gabby is usually amusing, but never downright stupid as he is in Sons Of The Pioneers.And speaking of them Bob Nolan and the group are here lending support to their former member. Though the group really has nothing to do with the title of the film and the title gives you no information as to the story, the film is still a good Roy Rogers film even Gabby's idiocy.

When I was a kid growing up in a small Louisiana town we normally walked into town on Saturday afternoons to see western movies. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Lash Larue. A kid doesn't have much concept of passing time and I had no recollection that these were 50 to 60 minute movies. Now, through the magic of the internet and Netflix streaming video, we can re-watch some of these old classics.Roy Rogers plays, go ahead and guess it ... Roy Rogers. He is a mild-mannered scientist back East but knows he will some day go back west, to Rogersville where his father, grandfather, and grandfather are fondly remembered. All he needs is an excuse. That excuse comes when his old friend Gabby travels to encourage Roy to come back and run for sheriff. It seems some nighttime bandits are burning down barns and making livestock sick, and they need help.The actual story isn't that important, it is how Roy returns and plays dumb so that he has time to figure out who the bad guys are. We have several horseback chases, a couple of shoot-outs, and in the end the bad guys get put in their place.Then there are the 5 or 6 songs scattered through the movie. All in all a pleasant visit back to a B&W movie of my younger days.

Plenty of amusement in this Roy Rogers movie as the folks borrow the plot of DESTRY RIDES AGAIN. Roy's father and grandfather were both old-fashioned, famous western sheriffs. Gabby Hayes fetches him out to deal with cattle rustlers.... but the FGI after his name is not the Federal Gureau of Investigation, but Fellow of the Geographical Institute.As usual in these movies, a lot of care is taken for some lovely cinematography, although there are some obvious day-for-night shot given away by the shadows. The Sons of the Pioneers, as you might expect, show up to sing a few songs, and this high-class B Western is sure to please fans of the genre.