Sunset Serenade (1942)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes venture, "Sunset Serenade" (formerly available on a good Mill Creek DVD) co-stars the super-lovely Helen Parrish and features Roy Barcroft as a good guy (for once!). On this occasion, the bad girl is Joan Woodbury and the bad guy, Onslow Stevens. They play a couple of schemers. The movie is less fortunate in the casting of Pat Brady, wildly over-acting a Tim Spencer number, and George Hayes as a glutton for Parrish pies. The Lydecker dam-blast climax is almost certainly stock material, but it's still thrilling stuff. Director Joe Kane handles the rest of the movie with competence and even a smidgin of dexterity.

Mr. Rodney P. Black is the young new owner of the Bagley Ranch, but it turns out the kid is just a kid, actually a baby under the guardianship of Miss Sylvia Clark (Helen Parrish). If you've seen more than a handful of 'B' Westerns you know the set up from a mile away, because a dastardly villain is right around the corner attempting to swindle the ranch out from under it's rightful owner. In this case, Gregg Jackson (Onslow Stevens) hooks up with the Bagley Ranch caretaker Vera Martin (Joan Woodbury), and they run through all the tricks in the book - a phony five thousand dollar bank note, rustled cattle and a dammed up stream - to prevent Miss Clark from taking possession.Not to worry, Roy, Gabby, Bob Nolan and The Sons of the Pioneers have a half dozen songs in their arsenal to make this a fairly entertaining Western film. I especially liked 'A Cowboy Rocky-Feller' with it's upbeat tempo sung by Roy around the old campfire. Later on, and this is the only time I've ever seen it in over five hundred Westerns, Roy and his boys slide right into a song on the heels of a bar room brawl. It had to do with an Irish gal named O'Shea, and Gabby does his solo part in brogue! Very cool. Pat Brady's around too, and has some fun with 'A No Good Son of a Gun'.For a flick that comes in under an hour, this one's got a lot going on between the shoot-outs, a rock slide and a flood orchestrated by the bad guys when they blow up their own dam (couldn't figure that one out). The Pioneers set a pie trap for Gabby (don't ask), and by the time it's all over, Roy's serenading Miss Clark one more time with 'Gates of the Home Corral'. The little tyke who figured in the main plot didn't have much to do except hang around and get fed his milk bottle every now and then, which wasn't a bad gig when you come right down to it.

'Sunset Serenade' is a film of simple and snappy plot, one of Roy's most entertaining films from this period because what there is of it is done so well. Crafty rancher-villain Onslow Stevens, aided by Joan Woodbury, is up to the old land-grab trick, hoping to swindle an infant out of his recently inherited ranch by convincing his innocent guardian Sylvia Clark (Helen Parrish) that it is worthless. Enter a bunch of resourceful (and hungry) wandering cowboys, portrayed by, naturally, Roy Rogers, George 'Gabby' Hayes and the Sons of the Pioneers. They decide to throw in with Sylvia and spend the rest of the film matching wits with the villains in order to hang onto the ranch. The real treat is the full half-dozen songs they perform along the way as only they could - a highlight is the lyrical 'A Sandman Lullaby,' in a nighttime scene that provides, I suppose, the film's title. And then when the player piano gets banged during the free-for-all saloon brawl...well, you can guess what happens next. Only in a Roy Rogers movie! There's also a very funny subplot involving the Pioneers' efforts to keep greedy Gabby from hogging everybody's dinner, which leads to the best laugh of all in the film's final seconds. 'Sunset Serenade' would be an excellent movie to watch as an introduction to the singing cowboy genre; it shows how this type of film works in great style.

Roy Rogers (as Roy), George "Gabby" Hayes (as Gabby), and "The Sons of the Pioneers" help guardian Helen Parrish (as Sylvia Clark) claim and manage the land inherited by her ward, Baby Rodney. Bagley Ranch keeper Joan Woodbury (as Vera Martin) and cohort Onslow Stevens (as Jackson) want to swindle the ranch out of the infant's little hands. The pervasive bright-as-sunlight moonlight is more distracting than usual, since the incorrect time of day referred to several times in succession. Having a baby around to serenade ups the cuteness level considerably. "Sunrise Serenade" ends as Rogers and Trigger struggle to save Frank M. Thomas (as Sheldon) from an approaching water rapid; but, it isn't enough to lift the film. ** Sunset Serenade (1942) Joseph Kane ~ Roy Rogers, George 'Gabby' Hayes, Helen Parrish