California Mail (1936)

Wonderful character development!

Too much of everything

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

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

"California Mail" was another of Warner Bros. "Singing Cowboy" movies starring Dick Foran. This one is about competing for the U.S. Mail contract.The story opens with Pony Express rider Bill Harkins (Foran) in his buckskins galloping across country carrying the mail while singing a Nelson Eddy type frontier song. When he arrives in Gold Creek, Bill is informed by his dad Slim (Tom Brower) that their mail contract is not going to be renewed. Slim suggests that they team up to compete for the stagecoach mail contract.Bill goes to Dodge City and is accepted as one of the bidders along with rival Roy Barton (Edmund Cobb) and his brother Bart (Milton Kibbee) and Hank Ferguson (Fred Burns). A race between the trio is set up. Barton wanting desperately to win, sabotages the Harkins coach. The race takes place the next day and Barton through devious means runs Harkins' stage off of the road wrecking it. Barton easily wins the race and the mail contract.Barton and Harkins are also in competition for the hand of sweet Mary Tolliver (Linda Perry). Bill Harkins, despondent over losing the mail contract, discovers that the Bartons and their gang including Glenn Strange as the simple minded Bud, are robbing their own stagecoaches. Knowing that Bill is suspicious, In order to have the blame for the robberies placed upon Bill, Roy Barton has one of his men impersonate Bill and stage a stagecoach robbery during which Mary's father Dan Tolliver (James Farley) is killed. Several witnesses say that it was Bill and his horse Smoke who are guilty. Bill is immediately charged with Tolliver's murder and jailed.Bill has his father Slim arrange with the bank to ship a phony gold shipment aboard the next stage. Meanwhile , Bill foils an atttempt to have him shot in the back while escaping plot. Slim helps Bill escape and having exposed the Barons as those behind all of the trouble mounts up with a posse.. As the Bartons take the bait and attempt to rob the stage, Bill and the posse ride over the hill and........................................................................A routine outing in the series but there are a couple of oddities to point out. First the Foran character gets married, a no-no for "B" western heroes. Second, Foran's horse Smoke tramples two bad guys to death, also a no-no for kiddies westerns. Also, but not an oddity, the Foran and Cobb characters (and their stunt doubles) engage in a well choreographed fight. Foran sings at the beginning, middle and end of the film for those who are counting..Watch for a very young Roy Rogers calling a square dance (he was good at it) at the barn dance sequence, backed by The Sons of the Pioneers.

After seeing California Mail, I'm convinced Trigger might be the smartest palomino in the west, but certainly not the most dangerous. That title would belong to Smokey, the trusty steed that Dick Foran rides in this film.When Foran wasn't doing parts in A films like The Petrified Forest or spoofing himself in Boy Meets Girl, he was Warner Brothers singing cowboy and was starring in a series of B westerns like this one. Here he and his father Tom Brower own a stage line that is trying to get a mail contract. But they're up against some unscrupulous brothers in Edmund Cobb and Milton Kibbee.Nothing special in this one save the horse. Foran sings a couple of nice, but forgettable cowboy ballads and has a pretty leading lady in Linda Perry. But his horse is one dangerous animal, he dispatches more bad guys than Foran does. Trigger aided Roy Rogers, but Smoke was taking care of business all on his own.To see what I mean, catch California Mail the next time it's on.