Forgotten Books: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in River of Peril - Cole Fannin (Frank Castle)

When I was a kid, I read a lot of the juvenile novels published by Whitman, many of them based on TV shows or movie stars I liked. I was a big Roy Rogers fan, so I would have read this one if I’d ever seen it. Clearly, I just never came across a copy. Until now. (That’s an Internet scan of the cover, by the way. My copy is beat up and has loose covers.)

ROY ROGERS AND DALE EVANS IN RIVER OF PERIL is a clumsy title for a pretty good book. Unlike many of Roy’s movies and his TV show, which were contemporary Westerns including modern technology and even Cold War espionage, this novel is in a more traditional Western vein with nothing more advanced than railroads and the telegraph. As the book opens, Roy is on a secret mission for an unnamed U.S. president who’s pretty clearly Theodore Roosevelt, which places the time period as very early 20^th Century.

Roy’s job is to find out who’s trying to keep settlers out of the Bitter River country in Idaho, which the president wants to open for settlement by homesteaders. He’s assisted in this effort by a talkative old-timer named Kammas Tibbs, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Gabby Hayes. Dale shows up, even though Roy tried to keep her from taking part in what might be a dangerous job. There’s a gang of bad guys ramrodded by a head henchman who would be played by Roy Barcroft is this was a movie, and a mysterious mastermind behind all the villainy. Since this is a novel aimed at young readers, nobody gets killed, but there’s plenty of gunplay and a few brutal fistfights, plus some good scenes involving the rapids in Bitter River. This is almost a plot that could have worked as one of Roy’s late features directed by William Witney and written by Sloan Nibley.

Speaking of writers, the author of this novel is by-lined Cole Fannin, but that was actually veteran pulpster and paperbacker Frank Castle. Castle wrote a bunch of hardboiled Westerns and crime novels, but he was a thorough pro and could turn out juveniles like this, too, and in fact wrote quite a few of them. He had a very distinctive style in some of his paperbacks, but either he kept it under control on this assignment or some of his more oddball sentence structures were edited out. What’s important to me is that I enjoyed this fast-paced yarn and thought Castle did a good job of capturing Roy and Dale’s personalities. If you’re a fan of their movies, I think this book is well worth reading if you can find a copy.

Overlooked Movies: The Yellow Rose of Texas (1944)

Although there were a few directed by other hands, Roy Rogers movies generally fall into two distinct groups: those directed by Joseph Kane and those directed by William Witney. Kane came first, as he helmed most of Roy's pictures for the first decade of his career. Generally speaking again, the Kane-directed movies are more musically oriented, with half a dozen songs in each one and even some elaborate production numbers, while the Witney-directed movies have more complex plots and concentrate on hardboiled action. As I've said many times before, I prefer Witney, but there's a lot to like about many of the Kane movies, too.

THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS was directed by Kane, and at least it has a plausible plot reason for all the song-and-dance stuff: much of it takes place on a showboat where Roy (playing Roy Rogers) and Dale (playing a character named Betty Weston) work as entertainers. As the movie opens, the boat, which is named the Yellow Rose of Texas, is pulling into Prairie City, which holds some bad memories for Betty. She used to live there, until her father was accused of stealing a payroll and sent to prison. Now she finds out that he has escaped recently, and the law believes he'll try to get in touch with her, so they're keeping an eye on her. I don't think anybody reading this is going to believe that Dale Evans' father would ever steal a payroll, and you're not going to be surprised that Roy winds up trying to catch the real crooks so he can clear the old guy's name.

The script by Jack Townley actually has one nice twist to it, but it tips its hand 'way too early, as far as I'm concerned. A revelation about one character should have come much later in the film. Roy doesn't really have a sidekick in this one, either, unless you count character actor William Haade, who plays an old friend of his named Buster. Haade is okay, but he's no Gabby Hayes or Andy Devine or Smiley Burnette. Heck, Gordon Jones as Splinters McGonigle is a better sidekick. But I digress . . .

I like riverboat stuff, so I enjoyed THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS even though the boat is docked for most of the movie. The plot is fairly interesting, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers are on hand and good as usual, and although the movie could have used more action, what there is of it is handled well. This is a minor entry, probably more for Roy Rogers completists than casual fans, but I enjoyed it.

Overlooked Movies: Song of Arizona (1946)

In a movie possibly inspired by the real-life Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, Gabby Hayes plays a kind-hearted cattleman who runs a home for orphans and wayward boys near Lodestone, Arizona. Unfortunately, one of the boys is actually the son of notorious bank robber King Blaine, who has been sending loot to the kid for him to cache on the ranch. The boy doesn't know what he's been doing; he's just hiding the packages his father sends to him, as requested.

Then King Blaine is shot and killed by a sheriff, and the members of his gang descend on the ranch to try to recover the loot. An added complication is the fact that the local banker (a very stereotypical female battleaxe) is about to foreclose on Gabby's ranch.

Luckily for Gabby, his old friend (and former resident of the boys' home) Roy Rogers shows up to sort everything out, catch the bad guys, and sing a few songs with a Kansas City nightclub entertainer played by Dale Evans.

SONG OF ARIZONA has most of the right elements: Roy, Dale, Gabby, the Sons of the Pioneers (although somewhat depleted by the fact that a few of them hadn't yet returned from serving in the military during World War II when this was filmed), and a couple of decent villains in Lyle Talbot and Dick Curtis. Unfortunately, it comes from the era between directors Joseph Kane and William Witney when Frank McDonald was helming Roy's pictures, and McDonald's entries in the long-running series are the weakest. In this case, everything is just too mild and heart-warming. The action pales next to what was coming up under Witney, and the musical numbers are lackluster compared to the extravaganzas staged by Kane (who also did action better than McDonald).

So why watch it? Well, it's Roy, who was one of the best horsemen of all the movie cowboys and fun to watch as he chases down the bad guys. Gabby says "Durned tootin'!" There are a couple of decent stunts. And in my case, I thought I had seen all the Roy Rogers movies, but I didn't remember this one at all while I was watching it, which means I either missed it or saw it so long ago I'd completely forgotten it. Either way, that makes it an Overlooked Movie as far as I'm concerned.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Trail of Robin Hood

(This post originally appeared in slightly different form on December 20, 2011.)

Despite the title, TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD is definitely a Christmas movie. The whole plot centers around Christmas trees, after all! It seems that retired actor Jack Holt (father of Tim Holt, by the way) has a Christmas tree farm where he plans to sell his trees at such low prices that every family can afford to have one. This plan doesn't sit well with the bad guys who own the neighboring Christmas tree farm, so they set out to sabotage Holt's operation and run him out of business. This attracts the attention of forest ranger Roy Rogers, who comes to Holt's aid along with his sidekick Splinters McGonigle (Gordon Jones) and Splinters' tomboy little sister, who decides they need more help so she summons a whole passel of cowboy movie stars including William Farnum, Tom Tyler, Rex Allen, Rocky Lane (later the voice of Mr. Ed, the talking horse), Monte Hale, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Kermit Maynard, and Tom Keene. Even George Chesebro, who always played dog heavies, shows up and has a nice line about how he gets to be one of the good guys for a change.

Yes, the plot's pretty silly, but look at that cast! In addition to all those cowboy stars, Penny Edwards plays the girl (Dale Evans was semi-retired by then), and Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage provide the music, including several Christmas songs like "Every Day is Christmas in the West".

Best of all, though, TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD was directed by William Witney, and one thing you could always count on in his movies was that you'd get plenty of great action, no matter how far-fetched the plot, and that's certainly true here. The climax is especially spectacular, with wagons full of Christmas trees racing over a burning bridge while Roy fights a battle royal against the baddies.

I absolutely love this stuff. Modern viewers might watch this and other Roy Rogers movies and be utterly baffled as to their appeal, but I grew up on 'em, and looking back on them now, I definitely think they had an influence on my writing. Those wild, action-packed, over-the-top climaxes that Witney always provided show up again and again in my Westerns, and some of that has to come from watching Roy Rogers movies on TV nearly every Saturday when I was a kid. TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD is a good one. It was released on December 15, 1950, and if you want to see a Christmas movie that's not one of the old standards, give it a try.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Spoilers of the Plains

When I was a kid (and yes, I realize how many of my posts start out that way), Roy Rogers movies were on TV all the time, and I was a faithful viewer. As an adult I've seen nearly all of Roy's movies again, and I still like them. Yes, they're often silly and over-the-top, but I can't help it. They put a big grin on my face.


SPOILERS OF THE PLAINS is an odd one, even for a Roy Rogers movie, none of which were ever grounded much in reality to start with. This one's more realistic than some, as Roy plays a troubleshooter for an oil company. It starts out with him and the Riders of the Purple Sage (no Sons of the Pioneers this time around) fighting a fire on horseback. Bet you didn't know they made asbestos suits for horses, did you? Well, I did, because I've seen this movie. From there the plot becomes a hardboiled espionage yarn with Roy battling foreign spies. (And since the movie was released in 1951, it's a given those spies are Commies.) The script by Sloan Nibley (who was married to gorgeous serial star Linda Stirling) is pretty tough stuff, and the direction by action expert William Witney is even tougher. No fancy shirts and not much singing in this one, and since Dale isn't in the movie, either, none of that mushy stuff. Plenty of chase scenes and brutal fistfights, though, including a classic to end the movie.


For the most part, Roy Rogers movies fall into two separate and distinct eras. The early films directed by Joseph Kane are big and splashy, with fancy outfits, lots of production numbers, and fairly thin plots. In the late Forties and Fifties, when William Witney was directing the films, they become steadily leaner, more realistic, and more hardboiled. All of them from this era hold up well and are certainly worth watching. SPOILERS OF THE PLAINS is maybe the best of them. I remembered watching it as a kid, and when I saw it again years later I still liked it a lot. If you've never seen a Roy Rogers movie, it might not be the best place to start, but if you think they're all singing, dancing, and yodeling, you really should give it or one of the other Witney-directed pictures a try.

Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes

I need a little inspiration before I get to work this morning, and who better to provide it than the King of the Cowboys and the Greatest Sidekick of All Time? By the way, I love the fact that one of Fred Rogers' first jobs in television was working on The Gabby Hayes Show. "Boys and girls . . . can you say whippersnapper?"