Federal agent Roy Rogers comes to a quiet Western town because he
thinks the sexy local saloon owner Mike (Jane Russell) is actually the
outlaw The Torch, who robs gold shipments with great regularity. He
tries to win her confidence by serenading to her. Enter Junior Potter
(Bob Hope), son of the legendary Paleface, who's here to claim his
father's inheritance, but finds out dad has left him nothing but a
treasure map and a bunch of debts with the locals. Potter has no idea how
to read the map but pretends to be rich to get his debtees off his tail -
and he's well enough at it to attract the attention of Mike, who soon
plans to seduce him to cheat him out of his money, and use him as his
alibi for her next raid. Actually, she would have preferred to use Roy as
her alibi, but then she's found out he's a fed ... After much to and
fro, our three heroes - Junior, Mike and Roy - end up in a hotel in a
desert ghosttown, where Junior finally finds his father's gold, Mike finds
her conscience and gives herself up, and Roy couldn't have been happier
having cracked the case ... if it wasn't for those Indians riding attacks
on the hotel ... but after a few more chases by horse and by car, Roy
actually gets his wish in throwing Mike into jail, Junior gets his wish in
marrying Mike, and even Mike gets her wish by having a rich man - Junior -
waiting for her to get out ... Not a great film, but an amusing
one, carefully keeping the balance between Hope's wisecrack's and director
Frank Tashlin's cartoon-like sightgags. Sure, Roy Rogers is anything but a
second Bing Crosby to Bob Hope, but to his credit, he doesn't even try to
be but plays his role straight. And Jane Russell most certainly works very
well in her role. In all, quite certainly worth a chuckle .... even
quite a few chuckles if you ask me.
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