Colorado Sunset

USA 1939
produced by
William Berke (associate] for Re for Republic
directed by George Sherman
starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, June Storey, Barbara Pepper, Buster Crabbe, Robert Barrat, Patsy Montana, the Texas Rangers, Purnell Pratt, William Farnum, Kermit Maynard, Jack Ingram, Elmo Lincoln, Frankie Marvin
story by Luci Ward, Jack Natteford, screenplay by Betty Burbridge, Stanley Roberts, musical supervision by Raoul Kraushaar

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Thanks to his sidekick Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette), Gene Autry and his men find themselves owners of a dairy farm instead of a cattle farm - but as soon as they have learned how to milk cows, the already run into troubles, as the milk shipments of all the dairy men of the region are regularly attacked by outlaws, and their load destroyed. The locals blame it on the trucking company from a neighbouring town, and the local vet and radio station owner Doc Blair (Robert Barrat) offers to run a dairymen protection association - for a price of course. Now Gene doesn't quite buy into this, especially since Blair is too close with the town's deputy Haines (Buster Crabbe), so he hesitates to join the association ... and he's totally right of course, as Blair and Haines are in cahoots and secretly run a protection racket, operated via the radio station on which Haines' sister Carol (June Storey) reads encoded messages (without knowing about this) to tip off Blair's gang about where to strike next. The sheriff of the town (William Farnum) eventually finds out, and is shot for this.

Having Blair and his radio station behind him, Haines is sure he'll be elected sheriff, but with a bit of trickery by Frog and saloon owner Ginger (Barbara Pepper) and support from the local women's group, Gene is elected sheriff instead, and he's quick to figure out all the connections and manages to convince even Carol that her brother and Blair are using her - but when she tries to help Gene by luring Blair and his men into a trap, Blair finds out and the trap almost springs on Gene ... if it wasn't for Haines, who figures it's a more worthy cause to help his sister than Blair and thus in the nick of time helps Gene bringing Blair to justice.

And in the end ... Frog gets the girl (Ginger) for a change.

A Western with quite a bit of music that's certainly not a particularly bad film, but that also ably shows the shortcomings of many musical Westerns and Gene Autry's films in particular: They're just too harmless, are built more around the musical numbers and the comedy than actual action you'r expect from a Western. Thus this movie at hand features way more songs than shoot-outs, jokes that distract from the seriousness of the main story a bit too well, and even when things get rough the action lacks edge. Now all of this said, for what it is, a harmless and a bit toothless musical Western, Colorado Sunset is pretty ok, entertaining even, but yeah, it just is what it is ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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