Bells of San Angelo (1947)

The movie contains action Western ,songs, adventures, shoot-outs, fighting and is quite entertaining . Swinging From His Toes And Shooting From His Hips...Roy Battles His Foes With A Song On His Lips! . Roy Rogers and Evans team up again in the habitual thin story , but filled with riding stunts and noisy action . It deals with a Border Patrolman (Roy Rogers)who is sent to the Mexican frontier in southwest Texas to investigate strange events in Rancho San Angelo. There, with the help of local sheriff named Cookie Bullfincher (Andy Devine) and a Western pulp magazine novelist named Lee Madison (played by his spouse Dale Evans) looking for plot material , Roy aware that the Rancho is actually a nest for smuggling silver along the Mexico frontier into USA . He sends Lee Madison for help only to have her kidnapped by Gridley (John McGuire) . Gridley is mining silver from a worthless mine and bringing it into the United States thru a hidden passage . Trigger brings help that takes care of Gridley's hoodlums and now Roy has to save Lee . After rescuing Madison from the nasty band led by "Red" Grindley , there is a surprise awaiting Sheriff Cookie when a Lord comes from England looking for a man named Lancaster . As Roy foils thieves' attempts to steal and smuggle the precious silver . Meanwhile happen songs alongside with pursuits and struggles against the silver sluggers.This B movie displays sensational adventures , intrigue, marvelous scenarios , lots of fun and is pretty enjoyable . This average-budget Western blends action , hokey fun ,suspense and emotional happenings . Our heroes incarnated by a throughly believable casting of the usual characters undergo numerous adventures and suffering innumerable perils . Surprise-filled entertainment and plenty of action on middle scale . The exterior scenes , gun-play , fights , brawls, explosions , all of them are spectacular and the film is another ordinary Hollywood product but of B-series. Memorable and great cast as Roy Rogers stars the famous singer cowboy , he played in various musical groups ,in 1934 he formed a group called ¨Sons of Pioneers¨ , they appeared in numerous Westerns (Rhythm on the range, Son of the pioneers , On the Spanish trail , among others). Roy was married three times . Arlene Wilkins , his second wife, died a few day after giving birth to their son ,¨Roy Rogers Jr or Dusty¨ and Dale Evans his third spouse , became his four children's mom . Inducted along with his wife Evans into the Hall of great Western performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and also as member of the Sons of Pioneers . Their nicknames were ,Roy as ¨King of cowboys¨ , Dale Evans ¨Queen of the West¨ and Trigger ¨ Smartest horse in the movies¨ . Roy got his horse ¨Trigger¨in 1938 and rode him in every one of his film and TV shows after that. He had appeared in one early movie , being ridden by Olivia De Havilland in ¨¨ The adventures of Robin Hood¨. Trigged died in 1965,aged 33 years.¨Bells of San Angelo¨ includes several songs titled "Hot Lead," and "I Like to Get Up Early in the Morning¨ and many others , played by ¨Son of Pioneers¨ and the actors as Rogers , Evans and Devine . Colorful cinematography in Trucolor , though photography is washed-out , reflecting wonderfully landscapes from Valley of Fire State Park , Overton, Nevada, USA . This ancient movie is professionally directed by William Witney , a craftsman who directed 140 titles from the 30s . The film is produced by Republic picture, usual in serials of low budget . The director , William Witney ,was a prolific director of short budget and TV episodes ( Daniel Boone , Bonanza ,Virginian ) , his best film was ¨The master of world¨ with Vincent Price . The motion picture will appeal to Western buffs and it's a marvelous popcorn story .

Roy Rogers and sheriff/sidekick Andy Devine investigate the death of an alleged thief, who was supposedly shot in the act of ripping off a villain's silver-mine. Meanwhile, western-fiction writer Dale Evans comes to town under an assumed name and has to deal with Roy's patronizing of her work.A mildly entertaining, loosely plotted Roy Rodgers picture, Bells Of San Angelo is good fun, with high production values (at least for a Republic Pictures Saturday matinée western).The well photographed desert landscapes look nice in exaggerated Technicolor, as do Dale and Roy's spiffy outfits and good songs are the perfect antidote for slow spots, with Roy, Dale, and Bob Nolan taking turns singing with The Sons Of The Pioneers.Here, a feistier than usual Dale Evans gives one of her best performances, stealing nearly every scene she's in! Playing the local priest is character actor Fritz Leiber, who's lookalike, also-named son was one of the great sci-fi writers of the twentieth-century!

Another movie from a cheap 10 movies for $10 DVD set, teamed on a disc with 'The Gunfighters' (good, see review) and 'Guns of the Revolution' (unwatchable, no wonder it's not on IMDb!).I'd not see Roy and friends in color. In fact it's almost 50 years since I'd seen Roy in B/W, on TV. He and Trigger never measured up to 'Hoppy' and Topper, in my boyish opinion of the time. Having now seen both stars and their mounts in recent years, that opinion still holds. William Boyd was a far better actor, as was Topper.However, this movie is entertaining. The story is interesting, as are the characters. Andy Devine pretty much steals in picture. Wow, what a character; and Dale Evans, very nice to look at, and not a bad actor. The characters' guns actually run out of bullets*! *Keith, an 80 yo pal of mine who is a keen fan of Westerns said that as a kid, he thought Colt.45s were called thus because they held 45 bullets!

I've never been a fan of Roy's, even while I watched his 1950s TVshow as a kid. I wanted to buy one RR movie, just to see if I hadchanged my mind about his films. I picked this one because acouple of sources had stated that this was his best film, & was"tougher" than most of his films. I don't like songs with mywesterns, so of course there was far too much music for my tastehere (I lost count at seven). The comedy, supplied by Andy Devine,was pretty good (& actually quite funny near the end of the film), abig improvement over Smiley Burnett, but nowhere near as goodas Gabby Hayes. Dale was OK as the heroine, & better than Ithought she would be, a better actor than her husband. Indeed,there were a couple of very gritty fight scenes where RR took abeating (& surprisingly, this was acknowledged in later sceneswhere he was seen with bruises). But overall, not an excitingexperience for me. The plot was weak & the music disconnectedwhat little action there was. For the sake of comparison, I'm goingto try a very small dose of Gene Autry before going back to thegreatest of all cowboy stars, William Boyd!