Saga of Death Valley (1939)

Really Surprised!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Saga Of Death Valley has villain Frank M. Thomas shoot down Lane Chandler in cold blood so that he can gain control of the water Chandler has on his ranch. One witness was left, the younger child of Chandler who grows up to be Don Barry who becomes his number one enforcer.This western plays a lot like a Warner Brothers gangster feature with Thomas running a real nice protection racket with the ranchers in the valley. That is until the other and older son of Chandler shows up to claim his birthright and settle some scores and that of course is Roy Rogers.Roy's leading lady is Doris Day, not THE Doris Day, but another actress with the same name who sang not a note with Roy. Can you imagine the nice music that Roy and the other Doris could have made? We might never have heard of Dale Evans who was several years in Roy's future.Although Saga Of Death Valley has nothing to do with the real Death Valley of alkali, cactus, and borax, the film has a nice plot, good acting and is one of Roy's better early features.

Roy Rogers returns to the town of Sundown to avenge his father's murder when he was a kid, and in the process reconnects with the younger brother who witnessed that event, kidnapped by the killer and then raised as part of an outlaw gang. Whew! That sounds like a lot of stuff going on, but Republic Pictures managed to put it all together as a matter of routine and get it all done in just about an hour. Roy looks almost impossibly young here even though he already had a dozen lead roles with Republic since a quick year earlier. They sure could pound them out back then.Gabby Hayes is on hand as the foreman for the Circle R Ranch, and if you pay attention, you'll hear him replace his usual 'you're durn tootin' line with a couple of 'by cracky's'. Hayes plies a few comic moments with Fern Emmett as Miss Minnie, looking to change him from a Gabby to a Hubby.I did a head scratch when I saw the name Doris Day in the opening credits, but it turns out it wasn't THE Doris Day. The other notable player here is Don 'Red' Barry, Roy's long lost brother who makes the transition from Uncle Ed Tasker's chief henchman to last minute good guy. Unfortunately he didn't make it to the end of the picture.A couple of oddities in this flick - for one, there's a non-Roy Rogers song that's done as a sound track over a posse ride about half way through the story; I haven't seen that before. Also, I can't recall ever seeing an outlaw, in this case Barry's character Jerry, throwing his empty pistol at Roy and hitting him in the chest. Not unusual for a Superman story where it happened all the time, but I don't see the advantage of just throwing away your gun - you might need it again some time!

Ed Tasker kills Roy Rogers, Sr. over a land dispute and the only witness to the crime is his 3 year old son Tim, who is kidnapped by Tasker and led into a life of crime. Years later, Tasker is controlling the water rights for the valley, along with the adopted son, now named Jerry. Rogers' other son Roy, arrives in the valley under an assumed name to reacquire his father's old ranch. When Tasker starts charging Roy and the rest of the ranchers outrageous prices for the water, Roy organizes a group of night riders to disrupt Tasker's plans. Tasker sends out Jerry to stop the night riders leading to a showdown of brother versus brother, even though neither of the two know it. The idea of brothers separated at birth was definitely not new when this B western was made, but so far of the ones I've seen this is definitely the best, obviously helped out by the opposite characterizations performed by Rogers and Barry. Excellent directing by Kane, as well as an interesting characterization by outlaw Taliaferro, contemplating to blow up the dam in the film's shoot out. Rating, based on B-westerns, 10.

SAGA OF DEATH VALLEY (1939) is a lean, action-packed B-western about a land grabber in a generic ranch valley (no relation to the real Death Valley) who comes up against a new ranch owner who's willing to fight back. Roy Rogers stars as Roy Rogers, whose father owned the Circle R Ranch and was killed by land baron Ed Tasker (Frank M. Thomas) when Roy was an adolescent. Tasker had snatched Roy's younger brother, Tim, and raised him to be an outlaw, leading raids on other ranchers' stock and forcing all the ranchers in Death Valley to pay protection to Tasker. When Roy comes back to the valley as an adult he forms the Death Valley Riders to combat Tasker's efforts. This gets him into a confrontation with his own brother, although neither knows their family connection. Roy also hooks up with Ann, his childhood sweetheart (played by Doris Day, an actress who left movies five years before the more famous Doris Day turned up at Warner Bros. in 1948). Because of the complicated family history at the root of the film's drama there is a richer subtext than usual for a Rogers western and a more tragic ending.The film is beautifully photographed by Republic Pictures house cameraman Jack Marta, much of it on location in the area around Lone Pine, California in the foothills of the Sierras. The action is fast and furious and the cast includes lots of Republic Pictures regulars, most notably Gabby Hayes as Roy's ranch foreman. Donald Barry plays Jerry, who's secretly Roy's brother Tim. Barry would next co-star as Jesse James with Roy in DAYS OF JESSE JAMES (1939) and went on to forge a notable career as a B-western star in his own right. He didn't sing and had a darker quality than most western heroes, making him, in all likelihood, the first B-western anti-hero.