bkoganbing Take Me Back To Oklahoma finds Tex Ritter and trusty companion Slim Andrews on the way to help Terry Walker and Carleton Young to save their stagecoach line. Ritter and Andrews are just in time to save the last working coach, but there's still a lot of damage.They know it's perennial western villain Karl Hackett who is trying to takeover the franchise and a race between one of his vehicles and that last vehicle that Tex saved. The last few minutes of that race where Tex Ritter overcomes all obstacles is good.Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys are featured here and have some numbers with and without Ritter. A little too much music, but they were a premier act on the country music circuit at the time and I'm betting Monogram Picture had to guarantee a lot of screen time devoted to them.Their fans and Tex Ritter fans should be pleased.

MartinHafer In B-westerns of the 40s and 50s, music was frequently inserted into the film--especially the films of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry--both fine singers who sang quite a bit themselves. However, in almost all these films, the music is secondary. In the case of "Take Me Back to Oklahoma", however, it looks as if the film is almost all music--with only a bit of a story. This is great if you adore old time country music--but miserable otherwise. In this case, Boy Wills and the Texas Playboys sing and sing and sing and sing. They sing as they ride in on the stage, they sing when folks are stealing the strongbox---heck, they probably sang in their sleep! And, oddly, after a while I found myself liking the music a lot---which surprised me, as I usually hate this sort of singing. But, even though I did like the singing, there just wasn't much room for a story! The story is pretty typical--a local baddie is trying to run the town and take over the stage business--though no one knows for sure that he's behind all the crazy happenings. But, when Tex comes to town and tries to help out the lady who owns the stage, the baddies all conspire to frame him for robbery and then, when that doesn't work, shoot him--all to stop him from driving in 'the big race' (another cliché).Pluses were decent music and,....Ritter did NOT use a stuntman in a few very dangerous scenes. As for the acting, at times it was pretty lame--especially from Tex's really annoying third-rate sidekick, Slim. And, the story is both familiar and thin. Overall, worth seeing if you love old B-westerns, but if you don't, this one won't win you over to the genre!

classicsoncall Tex Ritter is helped by all manner of sidekicks in this oater from 1940. He rides into Peeko with Slim Hunkapillar (great name for Slim Andrews), with Slim atop his old Arkansas mule Josephine. Tex aims to help his friend Ace Hutchinson (Carleton Young) and pretty Jane Winters (Terry Walker) in an oft recycled story of rival stagecoach outfits competing for the local business. Because there's a church benefit around the corner, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys also arrive to lend a hand and a fair share of musical numbers to this quick paced Western.This time out, the lead villain Storm is portrayed by Karl Hackett. In one of the story's less credible moments, Storm intends to win the stage line business without actually owning one himself. He sends for Mule Bates (Olin Francis), fresh out of the penitentiary, put there by Tex Lawton (Ritter) when he was still in the 'law game'. Little do the bad guys know, but Mule owes one to Tex for having his son raised by Tex's mother. It seemed to me that a whole bunch of elements like this were thrown into the story to tie up loose ends without being tested for credibility. Another included references to Tex trying to win Ace's girl, a plot line that went nowhere; even Miss Winters didn't seem to be in on it.What keeps coming at you with this picture are the comic relief moments and the songs. The outlaw bunch give new meaning to the term box office as they haul off the church social ticket booth with Slim inside. That sequence featured an unusual element, as one of the bad guy posse fell off his horse, saddle and all. No sense trying to figure that one out. Actually, Slim spends a lot of time in close quarters, as he also climbs into the back hatch of a stage coach during the final competition. Slim might have had the picture's most colorful line with "...I'll be a boll weevil's adenoid". That would have been my summary line if it didn't sound just a bit too creepy.As for the music, all the good guys chime in at one time or another on a whole passel of musical numbers. The best are a lively rendition of 'Take Me Back To Tulsa' and Tex singing lead on 'You Are My Sunshine'. With a little more creativity, they might have come up with a tune for Josephine.

bill-688 The scene with Bob Wills and his band riding on top of a stage coach strumming a tune is priceless. Tex Ritter is in fine form saving the little lady's property and snaring the bad guys. Ritter, who has a trusty side kick to add a little slapstick to the plot, sings and so does Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. To any Wills fan this is an excellent opportunity to see how the band looked in a performance. Wills' dancing is not unlike some modern performers. Good entertainment and a great reminder of how Westerns once were in the U.S. This is the kind of movie I spent countless Saturday afternoons seeing and sometimes staying over to see again. Without the music this is about average; with the music it is priceless.