The Yellow Rose of Texas (1944)

This Roy Rogers western features Dale Evans and Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. Roy is an insurance investigator. The musical numbers are very good with some very catchy songs. Roy and Dale do several together and Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers do "Timber Trail" and "Song of the Rover" which are excellent. We love the musical ending which is almost like a musical Broadway Show. We also love the song that Dale sings "Moonlight on the River". Very pleasant and entertaining movie.

This modern western musical takes place aboard a river show boat for songs and dances and out among the sagebrush for the basic plot of a payroll robbery case being solved after five years. Showboat owner George Cleveland employs entertainer Dale Evans who is the daughter of the man accused of arranging the robbery, and Roy Rogers is the hero who stumbles onto the truth through spending time among the wrongly accused and those who may be guilty. This features songs and dances throughout the film, wraps up after just under 50 minutes, then stages a lavish (for Republic Studios that is) musical revue that is a mixture of corn, fancy Broadway style dancing, and various styles of songs from various areas. It's all pretty innocuous, but the opportunity to hear Rogers sing the title song doesn't come along every day.

Believe it or not Trigger gets his share of appearance in The Yellow Rose Of Texas even though a great deal of the film is on a showboat. Roy Rogers is a performer on the boat which I assume is working either the Red or the Sabine Rivers which do border Texas. George Cleveland is the captain and he's hired both Roy and Dale Evans for his show.But Dale is the daughter of Harry Shannon who escaped jail after serving three years on a robbery charge. He was accused of holding up an express company shipment and he's busted out to prove his innocence. Roy is working undercover for the insurance company and his job was to stay close to Dale should Shannon try to contact her.Of course he does and of course Roy gets his man. But Shannon convinces him of his innocence and the fact Roy's interested in Dale no doubt has a lot to do with it. Roy does start his own investigation and in due course the mystery is solved.Unfortunately I saw an abbreviated version for television and while the plot seemed pretty intact, I'm betting some musical numbers were cut from the tape I saw. If you remember Mitch Miller's version of The Yellow Rose Of Texas from the Fifties, the melody is somewhat different, still Roy and Dale do well by the song.The Yellow Rose Of Texas as a song will live a lot longer than this film will. Still it's not a bad B western and the Saturday afternoon kids loved it back in the day.

This is a pretty good Roy Rogers Western, with the standard features plus a plot that is a bit less routine than usual. Roy is an investigator for an insurance company, sent to investigate the robbery of a payroll shipment five years earlier. What makes it interesting is that this time neither Roy nor the audience knows who the criminal is - there are several suspects, and Roy has to play detective and use deduction, rather than just chasing the bad guys around. It's not exactly an Agatha Christie-quality mystery, but it's not bad either. There are also the usual songs plus some action scenes. Most fans of Rogers should find this one worth watching.