Sing Cowboy Sing (1937)

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I sentence this silly musical western to a low rating and less than mediocre review. Tex Ritter is wrongly accused of murder and must expose the villains with the help of his trusty horse White Lightning and idiotic sidekick Al La Rue. Justice obviously ain't on Ritter's side and he is in the courtroom of the dumbest judge ever to cross the legitimate bar and claim to be sober while a sleazy attorney makes it obvious who the real villains are. So what does Ritter does every time that it appears that he is heading closer to the hangman's noose? Why sing of course! There are a few exciting moments of action, but the lame dialogue continuously interrupts it along with the poor songs. Louise Stanley, a heroine in many a Z-grade western, is once again along for the ride, and is simply window dressing and not much else.

Over the last couple years I have watched a huge number of B-westerns--such as the films of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tim McCoy, Bob Steele and many others. As a result, I have noticed that although these films were very quickly and cheaply made, some tend to be a lot better than others--and some tend to be a lot worse. While it might sound a bit cruel, Tex Ritter's films are among my least favorites. While he might have been a nice person in real life, his career was hindered by the incredibly poor production values of his films. Quite bluntly, the writing, budgets and acting were all strictly bargain basement compared to most of his contemporaries. "Sing, Cowboy, Sing" in no way changes my opinions.The film begins with Ritter and his sidekick (Al St. John) come upon a group of incredibly bad shots who are begin slaughtered by a gang of equally well-armed and equal number of men! The pair arrive too late, though one member of the party is still alive--the rancher's daughter. Why were they attacked? Well, eventually it turns out that there is a freight business and the local baddie wants that franchise for himself--and killing off the rancher and his workers would normally do the trick. However, Tex and his friend decide to stay and help the woman with her business. Unfortunately, it will be tough, however, as the local judge is THE dumbest man in the history of westerns. Through most of the film, he just seemed corrupt and in the pocket of the baddie--but it turns out he's just an idiot! Can the boys defeat the idiot and the big baddie boss-man? While I enjoyed watching Snub Pollard and Al St. John since they were silent comedy stars, there isn't a lot to recommend this film. The plot is very derivative and predictable. The acting rather suspect. And, while Ritter sings a whole lot better than I ever could, he isn't even close to being the equal of Roy Rogers or Gene Autry in this regard. And, on top of that, he sings too much--including once when he's in jail! Overall, a weak film but pretty typical of what I've seen of the Tex Ritter films.

Like any faithful B Western fan, I've seen my share of Tex Ritter films, so I'll have to be honest here and state that this isn't one of the better ones. A lot of it probably has to do with the age of the print I saw, with a lot of scratches and a real poor synchronization of speech and lip movement which got to be comical at times, especially during Ritter's songs. Speaking of which, Tex sounded absolutely terrible here, and the starry eyed Madge Evans (Louise Stanley) had to be lying when she said he sounded real fine after serenading her with one of his tunes.As far as the story goes, Tex and sidekick Duke Evans (Al pre-Fuzzy St. John) make their initial appearance by driving off an outlaw bunch led by Red Holman (Charles King), who've raided a freight hauling team with the intent of driving them out of business for their boss Kalmus (Karl Hackett). With the Kalmus gang in control, there'll be no rival freight outfit leaving them to jack up prices and drive the local ranchers into submission for their properties. It sounded a lot like vulture capitalism to me if I can draw a comparison to present day political debate framed in class warfare rhetoric.Anyway, you've seen the same story before with any number of cowboy leading men, but even so, there are a couple of unique elements here which managed to surprise me. For one, Duke takes out one of the bad guys with a slick pro wrestling move, a drop-kick to the chest! It would have been more effective if filmed horizontal to the viewer instead of head-on, but it still looked pretty cool. Then you've got that final battle chase between the good guys and bad guys, and there's a particularly nasty spill by a pair of horses pulling a wagon that appeared totally unplanned. I had to play it back a couple of times to see how they did it, but I think it was really just an accident during filming. Nevertheless, it looked very painful for the animals involved.

In this one Tex takes on the responsibility of moving freight to keep a freight line from being taken over by the bad guys. There are only four songs, only one of which is really good, "Goodbye, Old Paint, I'm a-Leavin' Cheyenne." He also warbles an operatic version of "Sing, Cowboy, Sing," and the band (The Texas Tornadoes) do "I'm a Natural Born Cowboy," a song Tex himself sings in 'Hitting the Trail' (1937).No chemistry here with Louise Stanley, who is better with him in 'Riders of the Rockies' (1937). Al St. John is the sidekick this time, and he is more serious and quick draw ready then he is in later films. Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard appear, as if warning us they'll be Tex's sidekicks in later films (Snub in seven of them as "Pee Wee"). The best part of the movie are the contests between Tex and his perennial nemesis Charles King as 'Red', who looks so wonderfully grubby here. "This place ain't big enough for you and me," he warns. He tries several times to beat or kill Tex, but fails each time, though surprised that Tex has survived. Other than the above, there's not much going on here. I give it a 3.