Hills of Oklahoma (1950)

Good movie but grossly overrated

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Rex Allen stars in Hills Of Oklahoma which if it looks familiar is a remake of Gene Autry's Call Of The Canyon. We get two sidekicks in this one with twice the sidekick humor in the persons of Roscoe Ates and Fuzzy Knight. The story dates somewhat because Autry's film is closer to the New Deal era which inspired it. Allen's put together a combine of ranchers to fight a railroad monopoly owned by father and son villains Robert Emmett Keane and Robert Karnes. They're meatpackers and they built and own a spur line where the ranchers ship from and they charge some really high rates.Rex sells the others on the idea of another meat packer buying and the ranchers in this modern west going on an old fashioned cattle drive to the main rail head. The other packer is Elizabeth Risdon best known in westerns as Gabby Hayes's sparring partner in John Wayne's Tall In The Saddle. She's got pretty Elizabeth Fraser as an assistant who gets everyone's hormones going, Rex's and would you believe Fuzzy's.There's one traitor in Rex's ranks in the person of Trevor Bardette who is making a deal for his own cattle to sell the others out. Hills Of Oklahoma has a generous share of riding, shooting, a cattle stampede and three numbers for Rex Allen to sing. In those last days of Republic Pictures, Allen with both Gene Autry and Roy Rogers gone is Herbert J. Yates's last singing cowboy. He was a pleasant enough entertainer and after he was through as a movie singing cowboy was still making the country and western charts.This film should please fan of the B western.

In this, his second movie, the Arizona cowboy moves the action to Oklahoma. Rex and his cattle association buddies, rather than be shaken down by corrupt cattle buyer Charles Stevens (Robert Emmett Keane) and his equally villainous son Brock Stevens (Robert Karnes) decide to drive the herd to the rail head in Big Bow themselves to ship to a more fair and kindly buyer, Kate Carney (Elizabeth Risdon). Keane and Karnes aided by undercover henchman Hank Peters (Trevor Bardette) try every trick in the book to prevent Rex and the boys from delivering the cattle.Lots of gun-play and fistfights. Action stopping musical hoedown, complete with square dancing kids, midway through the movie, gives Rex the chance to wedge in another tune. Two for the price of one "comedic relief" is provided in more than ample amounts by Dismal and Jiggs (Roscoe Ates and Fuzzy Knight). Elisabeth Fraser plays the attractive, if seldom seen, leading lady.Its apparent after watching this movie they were still experimenting with the right ingredients for the Rex Allen series. They would change sidekicks a couple of more times before settling on Slim Pickens who took over in 1952 and continued in that role until the end of the Rex Allens in 1954.Not one of his best, still, all in all, pretty decent Rex Allen fare. Worth a watch.

Western musical in which Rex is forced into dealing with an unscrupulous cattleman. When Rex seeks an alternative outlet for his beef, the rascally cowman infiltrates Rex's outfit in order to sabotage his organization. Finally Rex is forced to market his steers in another area which means he will have to cross 2 days of waterless wasteland. Plenty of action, singing, and comedy in this nicely done western.