TRIGGER, JR. (1950)

Typically modest, typically well-made (action-oriented director William Witney really knew his angles) Roy Rogers Western aimed at the Saturday matinee crowd. But what a convoluted storyline! Parking his circus at a ranch for the off-season, Rogers finds himself in the middle of a Wild West protection racket; winning a ‘killer’ horse at auction only to have it stolen by the protection gang who terrify hold-outs and murder show horses with it; helping the ranch-owner’s grandson get past a paralyzing fear of horses; staying up all night when Trigger (the Wonder Horse) is blinded in a horse attack; chasing down free-spirited Trigger, Jr. for a reel or two; all while avoiding eye contact with that curvy Dale Evans gal! Add in a trio of songs with ‘Riders of the Purple Sage,’ including one that’s background to a stampede-themed nightmare for that scaredy-cat kid. All in 68 minutes! Harmless stuff and not without period charm, but the real news is the LOOK of the thing. Most of the Roy Rogers Republic features were chopped down to fit one-hour tv slots , with trims tossed away and faded TruColor prints ditched for b&w dupes. But a new restoration, made from the original negative by Paramount and now out on Kino Lorber DVD, shows the old 2-strip TruColor of the period in all its pristine, if slightly odd, glory. Often compared to the early 2-strip TechniColor process, it processed/split colors differently and pulled what colors it could out of RED and BLUE (check out those skies!) rather than early TechniColor’s RED and GREEN. (TruColor would offer the full-color spectrum a few years later to compete with TechniColor only to be put out of business with the introduction of single-pack EastmanColor stock and its many variants.) The skin tones may lean to orange, but its fun to see how these things looked on release.

DOUBLE-BILL: For full-spectrum TruColor, try JOHNNY GUITAR/’54; looking good on OLIVE Films DVD.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: It’s likely that those big open Western skies made TruColor opt for BLUE over GREEN. But note how perfectly the process matched the Republic Pictures logo.