Boots and Saddles (1937)

Intro.

I know I've probably mentioned this before, but I love the television channel Encore Westerns.  I love it not for the lesser known movies or reruns of Gunsmoke, but because every Sunday at noon they have a salute to Gene Autry, and play one of his films.  I know it isn't a well known or even very popular station with people my age, but one of my simple pleasures is to curl up with a cup of coffee on Sunday mornings and watch another Gene Autry Western.  They have commercials for it to, and my favorite shows clips of Gene singing and throwing punches as the voice-over calls him the original American Idol.  It's easy to see why so many young boys and girls looked up to him.

Overview

Boots and Saddles is a pretty standard Gene vehicle, and like his other pre-WWII films, it's heavy on the singing, followed by equal parts comedy and action.  This time Gene's the foreman of a ranch whose owner has just died.  The owner's pre-teenaged son Edward is coming from England to collect his inheritance, but unbeknownst to Gene, the boy intends to sell the ranch.  Gene and Frog then face two problems - first is to get the prim and proper boy to fall in love with the West and the ranch.  Second is to find a way to make the ranch more profitable so that they can pay off the owner's debts.  Jim Neale (played by Bill Elliot) wants to buy the ranch to raise horses to sell to the Army.  Gene takes his idea and sets out to sell the ranch's horses to the Army instead.  A lot of good humor results from a series of misunderstandings when Gene mistakes the Colonel's daughter for his maid and Frog gets mistaken for a new recruit.  It all winds up with a race between Neale's horses and Gene's horses - Neale's riders wear black hats and Gene's wear white (naturally).

Highlights

Gene does sing a few great numbers in here, namely the song that lends itself to the title, "Take me Back to My Boots and Saddles."  Gene also serenades the colonel's daughter Bernice (played by Judith Allen) with "The One Rose (That's Left in My Heart)."  He is nicely backed up by the locals in both songs, unlike the comedic song "Why Did I Get Married?" that he sings to Bernice once he figures out who she really is.

The other point worth mentioning is the relationship between Gene and Bernice.  She's upset with him because he's just a cowboy, and her boyfriend happens to be Neale.  They start out on a bad foot because Gene and his boys block the road with all their horses, preventing she and her father to pass on their surrey (which makes for some funny Western road rage).  Well, when Gene shows up and mistakes her for the maid, she plays along.  She even tells him that the Colonel is deaf and likes it when people shout at him (which, of course, Gene does, causing the Colonel to think Gene is hard of hearing).  Later Gene goes to pick Bernice up for a date and she tells him she has to clean the room first.  He discovers a family photo of she and the Colonel and realizes what he had suspected is true.  So he gets even by finding all kinds of things needing to be cleaned, including how awful the floor looks and how she'd better scrub it.  It's a funny give and take that adds not only humor but a good dynamic to the film, even if it is a bit stereotypical. 

Review

Definitely one of Gene's better pre-WWII pictures, Boots and Saddles is very entertaining and wholesome, with some good, clean fun.  Yes, it's dated and pretty old-fashioned, but the film doesn't take itself seriously and neither should its viewers.  I recommend it as a good, solid singing cowboy film that doesn't disappoint its genre or Gene's fans. Oh, and Champion of course steals the show, making the film even better.

Public Cowboy #1 (1937)

Intro.

Public Cowboy #1 is probably Gene Autry's most referenced film.   I did a research paper on early Westerns a few years ago, and I remember reading countless articles all of which mentioned this picture.  So it was a real treat to watch it last week.  All the hype is due - not only is this an entertaining vehicle, but it clearly demonstrates (better than most of Gene's pictures) the role Gene holds as a hero of the working class during the Depression.  He represents the farmers and ranchers who are hit the worst and his fight soon becomes the fight of all men and women of the time.

Overview

Gene plays a deputy sheriff out in cattle country, where the older sheriff has raised him like a son.  The film opens with the two of them good-naturedly helping their ranching neighbors to round up some strays.   The ranchers have been complaining because of some mysterious rustling - it seems that their cattle are disappearing without a trace.  We as the audience learn that the cattle are being stolen by the Chicago and Western packing company headed by a guy named Shannon.  He's got airplanes passing over head and radioing the packing truckers when and where there is an unguarded herd.  The truckers drive in, kill the cattle and ship them off in minutes, leaving the ranchers on horseback completely baffled.  The sheriff is outwitted as well, so the town votes him out of office and brings in a "modern" police force that promises to use new scientific methods to capture the crooks.  However, the rustlers didn't count on Gene's determination to solve the case the old-fashioned way and give the Sheriff back his pride.  He manages to do just that with the help of Frog's home-made shortwave radio, a funny undercover job and a pretty female newspaper editor named Ann (played by Helen Morgan).  The final show-down is a triumph not only for the ranchers, but for audiences of any generation feeling the pressures of change and technology.

Highlights

Gene, as in most of his pre-WWII films, has a lot of singing in this film. All of the songs are worth mentioning, but especially good were "Old Buckaroo" and the haunting "Wanderers of the Wasteland," the latter of which opens the film on somewhat of a somber note.  My favorite song though is "The West Ain't What it Used to Be," which Gene sings to Ann once they've met and later adds to in an attempt to serenade her.  I've typed up the lyrics, and here's a sample that backs up the whole sentiment of the film - that the West, both in the physical sense and in the mental image of America's promise, has changed.  Whether or not we can call this progress positive is another subject that isn't mentioned.

"There's a New Deal in the West today,
Where the antelope used to play,
I met a deer this very day,
Oh, the West ain't what it used to be."

"There ain't much left of the West no more,
The cowboys all turned troubadour,
A gal I know is an editor,
Oh, the West ain't what it used to be."
-music and lyrics by Fleming Allen

One of the topics I've written about before (and have read a good deal about) is the portrayal of women in Westerns.  Usually they are marked as the innocent, fragile beacon of civilization that must be protected.  However, with the development of a less rough-and-tough hero (I mean, come on, he sings after all) there's a shift towards making women much stronger, more independent characters.  Ann is the epitome of that - she not only writes for the newspaper, she runs the whole office.  She works harder and is more stubborn than her male counterparts.  She represents the best aspects of progress, and while Gene doesn't fit in with her world (as evidenced by him constantly knocking things over in the newspaper office), he does respect her.  When he teases her about her strong work ethic, he says "I guess I'll have to learn how to cook then."  All I want to say is "yes, Gene.  Yes you will."

While Ann may represent the good side of progress, the rustlers and Shannon represent the bad side.  All of the fears of the time are played out here - the fear of losing land and livelihoods and the fear that technology will put the working man out of business.  The film clearly references the very popular crime drama genre of the day - calling the packing company "Chicago & Western" alludes to it being run by gangsters (as well as Shannon wearing dark tailored business suits).  Even the title is a play on the James Cagney hit, The Public Enemy (1931).  Cowboys can not only beat bank robbers and horse-thieves, but they can also take down modern criminals, something the new police-scientists can't accomplish.  It's clear from the beginning that this is a fight Gene has to win - he has to preserve that last part of American fortitude and the can-do spirit, even in the most difficult of times.  His triumph is our triumph.

Review

I love Westerns, as you probably have guessed by now.  And of all the Gene Autry films I've seen, I think that Public Cowboy #1 is definitely one of, if not the absolute, best.  It isn't just about how the story works or how the cinematography looks - this is a film that captures the feeling of a certain time and place and endures because that feeling is universal.  So I definitely recommend this film, especially if you are a fan of how film reflects history or how the Western evolved.

As I read this all back over, I realize how serious this post sounds.  So let me leave you with a more lighthearted thought: I've heard a lot about the funny debate in the past few years about who would win in a fight - ninjas or pirates.  Well, let me end by saying my money's on the cowboys.

If you're interested in reading more, there's a great article by Lynette Tan called "The New Deal Cowboy: Gene Autry and the Anti-Modern Resolution."  If you think all B-Westerns are lousy oaters, then this article may change your mind!