Home in Oklahoma (1946)

The Age of Commercialism

People are voting emotionally.

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Home in Oklahoma (available on a good Mill Creek DVD), is one of those murder mysteries you have when you're not having a murder mystery. It takes the average audience thirty seconds to tumble to the killers, but dumb, slow-brained, small-town newspaper editor Roy Rogers has to be prodded by breezily pugnacious Dale Evans. As you might expect from those opening sentences, there are not many spills or thrills in this one, even though it's directed by action specialist William Witney. Unfortunately, in stark contrast to the excellent work DVD companies have done for Gene Autry and Bill Boyd, Roy Rogers has been treated rather shabbily. Many of the titles on sale offer blurry, faded, out-of-focus pictures with garbled and/or muffled sound tracks. Even worse, the few Trucolor entries are presented in various shades of gray.

By 1946, the Roy Rogers films had evolved into a very familiar pattern. Most co-starred Dale Evans (usuallly playing headstrong women) and Gabby Hayes and most had a cute kid (usually a boy) as an important member of the cast. The Songs of the Pioneers were also on hand to sing a few tunes. Additionally, Rogers had become a bit of a caricature of himself. In other words, although supposedly a western, the films had Rogers playing a version of himself--a version carefully manicured to project him as an all-around swell guy and friend to children, old coots and the ladies. "Home in Oklahoma" has all of this.The film begins with Gabby working at a ranch when the owner dies unexpectedly. Soon it's expected that his niece will assume control of the ranch. However, two things unexpectedly occur--the will does NOT leave the property to the niece AND it looks like the man's death was NOT an accident! However, Dale (who plays a spunky yet stupid reporter) doesn't heed Roy's suggestion that she waits to report this and soon she's in deep water with the Sheriff. She wrote in her paper that the man was murdered AND makes some pointed comments about who might be involved--which are WAY premature. Can Roy solve it and save Dale's fanny? Although Roy always comes off as sweet, kind and swell, Dale often played annoying women. It must have been very thankless for her when she played women who hated Roy with little provocation or ladies who inadvertently help the bad guys because she won't listen to anyone. In this film, she hits Roy over the head with a chair when he's being attacked by a baddie (ooooops!) and gets thrown into jail for publishing crazy theories as facts. But I have seen her in these thankless roles too many times--so when I saw she was in the film, I was prepared for this! So, in light of all this predictability, is the movie any good? Well, it's certainly not great--but I was impressed that the ringleader of the evil doings was a bit of a surprise. In this sense, they did not follow the usual formula--a major plus in the film. Still, it's a rather trifle of a film--worth seeing if you love Rogers films but about as realistic as a Monty Python film in conveying historical events! My feeling is that THE big problem in the film is Dale. Had she been less unlikable and dopey, the film would have played a heck of a lot better.By the way, like most of Roy's films, this one has been trimmed down to fit TV time slots during the 1950s--lopping almost 20 minutes off the picture. I saw the version that clocked in at under an hour--and there easily could be a longer version out there--as so many films come in multiple versions. So, perhaps the longer version is better...or worse. In most cases, one of the big differences between the two is the number of songs--in trimmed versions, most of the music has been removed.

Local newspaper man Roy Rogers probes the death of one of his friends, a rancher and high-end cattle breeder thrown from his horse and ends up protecting the rancher's heir, an orphan boy, from the ruthless killers. Meanwhile, big city reporter Dale Evans plans to scoop Roy on the story.This is a decent enough cowboy murder mystery, with good performances by George "Gabby" Hayes, Ruby Dandridge (mother of Dorothy Dandrige), and Lanny Rees as the boy. Their scenes together are heart-warming.Roy and Dale have great chemistry here - no surprise, since they got married on location, immediately after shooting wrapped.The film's musical highlight is Bob Nolan and The Sons Of The Pioneers singing "The Everlasting Hills Of Oklahoma".The killer's identities are as plain as the nose on your face, but it's still pretty good.

If Home In Oklahoma was located in the blue state east instead of the red state middle America, we might be talking about Tracy and Hepburn in the leads here.One of the things that always runs through Roy Rogers and Dale Evans's films is the battle of the sexes banter. In this film they are rival reporters, he for his local Oklahoma town paper and she for a big newspaper in St. Louis. They're both hot for a scoop involving the death of a local millionaire rancher. Of course this being a Roy Rogers western, he's also a cowboy. Hey, if Tracy and Hepburn could be rival lawyers in Adam's Rib, why can't Roy and Dale be rival reporters? Now don't expect the dialog to be on the level of Garson Kanin, but it ain't actually too bad.Home in Oklahoma boasts a very nice title song that Roy recorded and did well in the country/western market. Too bad Rodgers&Hammerstein already wrote a nice Oklahoma song or this one might be the state song for the Sooner State.