VividSimon Simply Perfect

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

MartinHafer This film has the distinction of the first pairing of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans--but Dale is only a supporting character. It's also a bit unusual because Roy's sidekick is played by Guinn Williams. Now Williams almost always played dumb but lovable sidekicks but not with Rogers--with whom you'd expect Gabby Hayes. This isn't a bad thing, but oddly Williams practically disappeared from the film in the second half.The film begins with Roy and Guinn wandering into town and being arrested on suspicion of kidnapping! Well the audience knows they'd never do that and soon the supposed victim (a spunky teenage girl named Chip) turns up just fine. It seems that she had disappeared to go to visit her father's old mine--one that is supposedly worthless but she knows there is some secret hidden there for her. In the meantime, a supposedly nice guy is trying to get the family to sell this mine to him--and Chip suspects his motives are far from pure. So, it's up to Roy and Guinn to help determine what the secret is and if this nice guy is actually all that nice.As far as the story goes, it is a pretty typical Roy Rogers film. He plays a social worker, of sorts, that shows up in town and rights all the wrongs. It's predictable but nice and worth watching--even if the kid 'knows' the man is bad but has absolutely no reason to think this (she'd obviously read the script to see the ending). The only seriously bad moment came at the end when, for absolutely no reason, they have a crazy song and dance number. Crazy because it's not your typical Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers song but one that looks more like what you'd see in an over the top musical. The ENORMOUS sombrero and the rest of the set is laughable--especially since it's supposed to be a western, not a visit to the Coconut Grove or the 21 Club! Weird.

FightingWesterner Riding into town, Roy Rogers and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams are mistaken for kidnappers. Chased out of town, they encounter the missing girl in question and agree to help look for her father's buried treasure, money that could spare her sister Dale Evans from marrying the rich town bully.Another typical, albeit pleasantly entertaining Roy Rogers adventure, this has a slick villain, fun support by underused sidekick Williams, the first pairing of Roy and Dale, and an appealing performance by Mary Lee, as Dale's kid sister.However, like a lot of Roy's later pictures, the music is a bit of a disappointment, being more in a pop vein than country or western. For example, the grand finale has Dale, Roy, and Lee singing a silly song about "The Enchilada Man"!

bkoganbing In a joint book about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans that I recently read, it seems as though Herbert J. Yates at Republic Pictures had the idea that Roy could use a regular female singing star, the better to boost the audiences for his number one B picture cowboy at the time. He had under contract one Frances Octavia Smith renamed Dale Evans who had done about nine films in minor roles. She was most prominent in John Wayne's In Old Oklahoma as a second female lead. Dale was understandably reluctant to do the film. Although she was born in Uvalde, Texas her thing was not exactly country/western. She was a band singer and a good one with Anson Weeks. Her ambition was to do musical comedy, she wanted very much to do the lead in Oklahoma and later do Annie Get Your Gun. But Yates was the boss so she agreed and the rest is history.The film they were assigned to is Cowboy and the Senorita and truth be told it's not one of the great westerns of all time. Roy and sidekick Guinn Williams get themselves involved in saving an inheritance of a gold mine from the grasp of villain John Hubbard who's about to marry Dale, the older of the two sisters. Younger sister Mary Lee has run away because she dislikes her prospective brother-in-law so much. Roy and Big Boy save the day of course.Cowboy and the Senorita is only important in that it was the first teaming of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They did several pictures over the next few years and eventually married after Roy's first wife Arlene Wilkins died suddenly. After that Dale only teamed with Roy occasionally until they went to television as she was busy raising Roy's kids, her son by previous marriages and their children.Until I saw this film I never knew Guinn Williams had done any films with Roy as sidekick. The version I have is the edited one for television and I think it's a lot of his footage that was edited out. Apparently he had a rivalry going with Fuzzy Knight that looked interesting and funny and I'd certainly like to have seen more of it.A historic landmark and it shows Herbert J. Yates apparently did have good business sense when it didn't involve his wife Vera Hruba Ralston. On the other hand he could have asked Roy to take Vera as his next leading lady.

florriebbc Hi again, Any movie Roy Rogers and Dale Evans are in is a treat for me. This film was very early in their career, 1944. Just a bunch of fun including the Sons of the Pioneers and Mary Lee. Thanks for listening. Florence