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Sunday, July 17, 2022

MULE TRAIN (1950)

Nowadays, Gene Autry, the original Singing Cowboy, may be better remembered as co-owner of the California Angels than for making movies.  If that’s the case for you, this late feature is a fine, if atypical, entry point to his courtly charms.  Handsomely mounted (as film and on horse Champion); confidently directed by John English; shot in crepuscular style by William Bradford on spectacular Lone Pine locations, it feels more like a scale-model kit for an ‘A’ Western than a program ‘Oater.’  Everything but the rubber cement included.   And cement’s the thing running the plot, a mountain of natural cement ready for dam building if only the contractor weren’t thwarting competition.  Marshall Autry, going undercover with comic sidekick Pat Buttram to check things out, finds the rightful owner of the cement deposit shot* and a lady local sheriff who had been a sharpshooting trick horse rider running hot & cold for him.  Alternately locking him up or cooking him dinner.  Yikes!  (Sheila Ryan, not much in the acting department, never does find her character, but did find a future husband in Buttram.)  And as for that Mule Train?  It’s mainly there to cash in on Frankie Laine’s big novelty hit, sung three times with relish by Autry who really whoops it up.  Fun stuff, and at a zippy 69".

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *That’s well-known character actor John Miljan, uncredited as the ornery cement deposit owner.  Part of an unusually strong line-up of good supporting actors for one of these little films.  Alas, the comic relief is business-as-usual bad.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  People debate the merits of Roy Rodgers vs Autry as top celluloid singing cowboy, but when it comes to horses, Trigger beats Champion by a country mile.

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