Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.
View MoreA film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
View MoreIf you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
View MoreThe Roy Rogers show along with other 50's Westerns is currently running on COZI TV and I am chuckling at some of my childhood heroes. Don't know if Roy could get a passel of little Buckaroos to engage today as kids now seem to be churned into mini teenagers by age seven. What struck me were the not infrequent references to the Bible or God in the show. Indeed one episode was about a search for treasure and the treasure turned out to be the Bible itself. The show had a pretty clear cut demarcation between good and bad with good clearly winning; but bad characters could find redemption. One thing for sure, we received clear messages from Roy as to what behaviors were expected and which should be eschewed. Personally, I don't think the 50's were the simple times people like to claim they were. Children still had to learn how to grow up navigating a world of Korea, McCarthyism, and Atomic bombs. Maybe it wasn't so bad getting "raised" in part by Roy, Cisco, Hopalong, and the Lone Ranger.
View MoreI just picked a copy of a joint biography of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and the story behind the television series was an interesting one.Both were winding up their contracts at Republic Pictures where they didn't make much money from the studio itself. Herbert J. Yates ran a pinch penny operation to say the least. Their money came from Roy's shrewd business sense and merchandising of the Rogers/Evans name. But they decided to get into the new medium of television.The problem they foresaw was Yates selling or leasing their old films for television showing while they were making new product. So Roy and Dale had to go to court to enjoin Yates from selling the films so as not to compete with the weekly half hour western show they were planning. The films eventually made it to television, but not until after the series went into syndication. By that time Republic Pictures was no more. I certainly remember the show as a kid watching it. It was little more than an extension of the films. No doubt existed that Roy and Dale would rout the bad guys in the end. Roy operated out of the Double R Bar Ranch and Dale had her own business, very advanced thinking especially for folks as conservative as these two were. Instead of a saloon she ran a small diner type establishment for travelers who were going by car or horse.What I remember best was Pat Brady though. He was a funny guy who was a friend of Roy and Dale, but he was more of a hindrance at times than a help. Roy had the patience of Job with him, but Dale would really get exasperated at times.Pat didn't ride a horse, he had a jeep which he named NellyBelle. The jeep I swear had its own personality. One thing you could always depend on, that in a crisis that jeep would always let you down. Pat had his own swear oath, a G rated one to be sure. I've never heard anyone else use the phrase 'mustard and custard' and it was usually directed at that cantankerous jeep NellyBelle.Roy's show ran for about six seasons and by that time the western was becoming more of an adult enterprise for television as well as the big screen. Still I do have fond memories of it and I even use Happy Trails as my way of saying goodbye.
View MoreThis show was already in Saturday morning re-runs when I first watched it. And, I loved it! The "good vs. evil" plots might seem corny, by today's standards. But, we have to remember that this was produced during comparatively simpler times. When morality was just as black-and-white as the film stock the studios used.Furthermore, the hero and heroine practiced what they preached! Nor did they preach using four-letter words. Unlike, say, Dennis Franz on NYPD BLUES.Last, but not least? This was not a "steampunk" Western.The fictional city in which Roy and Dale made their home was contemporaneous with the shows' audience. It's just that the locals maintained a 19th-century ambiance for the tourist trade, similar to Virginia City, Nevada. So, the mixture of "old and new," especially modes of transportation, was most definitely _not_ anachronistic!In short, I am unalterably convinced that this show should be praised, rather than condemned, for the beneficial values it tried to instill in its mostly young viewers. That some of us might not have grown up to live by those values is--to paraphrase Shakespeare--not the fault of this show's stars. But, of ourselves.
View MoreOh how I wish THIS would show up in reruns! This and "Lassie" (with Tommy Rettig) were my favorite shows as a kid, in an era of great kiddie shows. In my little-girl eyes, Dale really had the perfect life--she got the horse AND Roy! It didn't matter what the plots were; they were basically all the same anyway. But there was something about Roy and Dale that was very appealing, and Pat and Nellybelle were fun too. One nice thing about it was Dale was not a damsel in distress; she was Roy's partner, and although secondary, she did her part to help him get the bad guys. ["Annie Oakley" had a female lead without a male costar, except for her kid brother. I think these two shows helped contribute to the rise of femininism in the 60's.] Every kid knew "Happy Trails" by heart, and Roy and Dale sang it right to us at the end of every show. Wonderful memories!
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