The Worst Film Ever

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

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

After writing up about fifty or so of these Roy Rogers film reviews I think I may have watched my favorite today. Maybe it was my mood or the way the picture struck me, but I'd rate this as one of the best Rogers flicks I've seen. Unusual in a way too, because most of the supporting cast doesn't include a lot of typical B Western veterans except for LeRoy Mason. I'm not counting Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers in my remarks because they were fairly regular staples in Roy's films.It starts out kind of unusual too, in that the opening scene has Dale Evans as a New York City night club singer at the Club Casanova, and engaged to a much older looking Rollo Bingham (John Eldredge). I've mentioned it before, but Dale was a very good looker when not constrained to a cowgirl outfit, and her singing voice was exceptionally fine as well. In this film she has about the only off-putting moment I've ever seen her deliver when she throws a hissy-fit over her father's (Thurston Hall) disapproval of her impeding marriage to Bingham. As a result, he decides to head to his ranch in Nevada where his daughter Jenny was born and raised. I'll call Dale's character Jenny here, even though she was introduced in the picture as Joan. That's how the IMDb has her listed in the credits, but I do acknowledge that she was called Jenny later in the story.Once in Nevada, John Barrabbee gets waylaid on his flight home and winds up meeting Roy and his crew. I find it odd that the story had Thurston Hall get fairly physical in this film, because the sixty two year old actor never looked the athletic type. Even though I'm sure a stunt double was used, I can't imagine why the writers had him lasso a runaway horse aboard Trigger or make a ten day trail ride with Roy. Later on he even gets into a knock down scuffle with Mason's character and I had all I could do but wonder how he held up through it all.Adding to the fun of this Western are Lloyd Corrigan and Mary Lee doing a traveling sideshow routine in which they appear as different characters from town to town. They're instrumental in the finale when they impersonate buyers for the Bar A-B (Barrabee, get it?) Ranch when a newspaper mistakenly reports the elder Barrabee killed in a plane crash. Keeping the ruse going, John and Roy work together to convince Jenny that she belongs back out West all along.Typical of Roy's films, there's plenty of singing by all parties concerned here, including Mary Lee with a catchy boogie-woogie number called the "Harum Scarum Baron of Harmonium'. What's really impressive is the final production number that reprises a number of tunes from earlier in the picture, and in another unusual entry, a photo album flashback of Dale Evans singing as a blonde! Don't ask, you'll just have to see it for yourself.As a final note, I'll have to address some remarks made by prior posters for this picture. The version I saw DID consist of a full seventy two minute movie before the final credits started to roll. It's part of a Mill Creek Entertainment Western Movie collection, so if you get your hands on that you can see the whole thing instead of the watered down TV version. All combined, I'd have to say this one was a whole lot of fun, this coming from a Roy Rogers fan from way back.

Acccording to IMDb, 25% of this film was trimmed for television. Sadly, no other version is available today and my review is based solely on this abbreviated version. It's a shame, as what I saw I liked very much. It was fun and the songs, while not my favorite part of any western, were bouncy and enjoyable. My score of 7 is a combination of how it is compared to all films as well as to other Bs--you really cannot compare a Roy Rogers film to a normal full-length film because the style is so different. As a B, I'd give it a 9--it's just fun. Compared to the average film overall, I'd give it a 5. A nice rich older man (Thurston Hall) has a brat of a daughter (Dale Evans) who is more concerned with high society than her western roots. She has all but forgotten about her childhood on the ranch and now plans to marry a dopey society guy against her father's wishes. However, the old man and Roy Rogers (who he meets while on an airplane trip) hatch a plan to remind Dale of her former life and the importance of good old country values. So, Hall stages his own death and Dale heads out to the old family ranch to settle his affairs and sell off the place. There, Roy uses his many charms to soften her up and a couple friends of Hall put on an act that will prove once and for all what Dale's fiancé is really like. In the end, naturally, Dale is thrilled to learn her father is alive, keeps the ranch and finds true love--and sings a few songs.None of this film came unexpectedly--and it never was really meant to. Instead, it followed a nice predictable formula AND worked better than usual thanks mostly to Hall's wonderful presence in the film. This unsung supporting actor was able to play two types of men wonderfully in films--rich nasty old guys and rich lovable old guys--and here he's at his lovable best. Overall, a nice film and one you can't help but enjoy.

Since only the mutilated version of Song of Nevada survives today, on that basis we have to judge it. Somehow I doubt there will be a big search for a director's cut either.Song of Nevada finds millionaire rancher Thurston Hall tired of the big city ways and the big city dude that his daughter Dale Evans wants to marry played by John Eldredge. He takes a trip out west and the plane makes an emergency landing in Nevada where he leaves the plane and hooks up with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers driving a herd of cattle.Later on that same plane crashes and Hall's reported dead. But this gives Hall and Roy a perfect opportunity to see what's going on at the ranch. Lots of skullduggery going on there and you know Roy's going to put an end to it and win Dale from Eldredge.For reasons I can't fathom, Song of Nevada includes a big Busby Berkeley type western production number in the finale. Or at least what passed for one at Republic Pictures. For a while at this time Rogers films seem to have these. After the war, Roy got back to doing more riding and shooting and had less choreography in his musical numbers.Sad to say this badly edited version, butchered for television is what I saw. Song of Nevada looks like it could have been better in its original form.

This is one of my favourite Roy Rogers films...it's only 55 minutes, so the writing is tight and there aren't many distractions from the story (which is a problem in some later ones); the music is at its top; the acting is all quite good; there's even a stagecoach race!! And the story itself is quite amusing, which also became a problem in later films when they were being churned out a mile a minute and the quality severely deteriorated. It's just a shame the print I saw was really poor quality...it would have been even more enjoyable.I'm not the biggest Roy Rogers fan, I don't like the genre much, although I find his films more amusing than most others (and I near-*despise* Gene Autry...), but sometimes he's on, and he is here. His screen-presence is really high here, and he plays off of the other characters quite well.Overall: This is definitely better than most of the others I've seen; I should probably hunt down some more of the earlier ones...I'd definitely recommend this to any Rogers fan! 8/10.