mark.waltz At least the villain is not wearing a mustache in this cliché ridden western musical. Roy Rogers is typically heroic as a singing cowboy who aids a 16 year old heir to a gold mine threatened with losing her father's bequest. Very mature looking Mary Lee is as close to 16 as Dale Evans as a Mexican ranch owner. John Hubbard is cast as the villainous land baron determined to add the property to his already huge bundle. Rogers and sidekick Guinn "Big Boy" Williams win the cynical teen instantly (probably because they let her eat the viddles she attempted to steal) and are all of a sudden everybody's (except Hubbard's) pals. Some pleasant minor songs and a lot of action keep this moving at breakneck speed, and it does hold some minor entertainment value. But it's as fresh a plot as 20 year old Lee seemed as a husky voiced teenager. The musical highlight is the plot pointless but quaiby "Enchilada Man" with the leads and the Sons of the Pioneers. Of course, clean shaven Hubbard is surrounded by a bunch of stereotypical looking western bad guys. There are never any surprises which downgrades this to standard stuff, fortunately over as fast as Trigger can cross Texas.

dougdoepke The programmer is basically a "personality" western that depends on the likability of its leads rather than lots of action. Don't expect much hard-riding or fast shooting. There is a cleverly choreographed saloon brawl showing off Roy's Tarzan skills. Unfortunately, about the only outdoor action are buckboards bouncing on a washboard road, again and again. Then too, the musical selections are nothing special, finishing up with a big production number as might be expected.In the personality department, spunky little Mary Lee, as Chip, steals the film with her lively personality, while Roy and Dale serve up more likability in their first screen pairing. At the same time, an oafishly winning Big Boy Williams (Teddy Bear) serves up the chuckles as comedy relief. The plot's fairly standard— but for good guys Roy, Dale and Big Boy, baddie Hubbard is out to steal Chip's inheritance. So nothing special there. Anyway, the most that can be said for the 70-minutes is that it's a fairly pleasant assembly-line product. But maybe more importantly, it hints at why a youthful Roy and Dale made such a likably successful team, both on-screen and off.A "5" on the matinée Scale.

MartinHafer This film has the distinction of the first pairing of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans--but Dale is only a supporting character. It's also a bit unusual because Roy's sidekick is played by Guinn Williams. Now Williams almost always played dumb but lovable sidekicks but not with Rogers--with whom you'd expect Gabby Hayes. This isn't a bad thing, but oddly Williams practically disappeared from the film in the second half.The film begins with Roy and Guinn wandering into town and being arrested on suspicion of kidnapping! Well the audience knows they'd never do that and soon the supposed victim (a spunky teenage girl named Chip) turns up just fine. It seems that she had disappeared to go to visit her father's old mine--one that is supposedly worthless but she knows there is some secret hidden there for her. In the meantime, a supposedly nice guy is trying to get the family to sell this mine to him--and Chip suspects his motives are far from pure. So, it's up to Roy and Guinn to help determine what the secret is and if this nice guy is actually all that nice.As far as the story goes, it is a pretty typical Roy Rogers film. He plays a social worker, of sorts, that shows up in town and rights all the wrongs. It's predictable but nice and worth watching--even if the kid 'knows' the man is bad but has absolutely no reason to think this (she'd obviously read the script to see the ending). The only seriously bad moment came at the end when, for absolutely no reason, they have a crazy song and dance number. Crazy because it's not your typical Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers song but one that looks more like what you'd see in an over the top musical. The ENORMOUS sombrero and the rest of the set is laughable--especially since it's supposed to be a western, not a visit to the Coconut Grove or the 21 Club! Weird.

bkoganbing In a joint book about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans that I recently read, it seems as though Herbert J. Yates at Republic Pictures had the idea that Roy could use a regular female singing star, the better to boost the audiences for his number one B picture cowboy at the time. He had under contract one Frances Octavia Smith renamed Dale Evans who had done about nine films in minor roles. She was most prominent in John Wayne's In Old Oklahoma as a second female lead. Dale was understandably reluctant to do the film. Although she was born in Uvalde, Texas her thing was not exactly country/western. She was a band singer and a good one with Anson Weeks. Her ambition was to do musical comedy, she wanted very much to do the lead in Oklahoma and later do Annie Get Your Gun. But Yates was the boss so she agreed and the rest is history.The film they were assigned to is Cowboy and the Senorita and truth be told it's not one of the great westerns of all time. Roy and sidekick Guinn Williams get themselves involved in saving an inheritance of a gold mine from the grasp of villain John Hubbard who's about to marry Dale, the older of the two sisters. Younger sister Mary Lee has run away because she dislikes her prospective brother-in-law so much. Roy and Big Boy save the day of course.Cowboy and the Senorita is only important in that it was the first teaming of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They did several pictures over the next few years and eventually married after Roy's first wife Arlene Wilkins died suddenly. After that Dale only teamed with Roy occasionally until they went to television as she was busy raising Roy's kids, her son by previous marriages and their children.Until I saw this film I never knew Guinn Williams had done any films with Roy as sidekick. The version I have is the edited one for television and I think it's a lot of his footage that was edited out. Apparently he had a rivalry going with Fuzzy Knight that looked interesting and funny and I'd certainly like to have seen more of it.A historic landmark and it shows Herbert J. Yates apparently did have good business sense when it didn't involve his wife Vera Hruba Ralston. On the other hand he could have asked Roy to take Vera as his next leading lady.