WALL STREET COWBOY

(director: Joseph Kane; screenwriters: Gerald Geraghty/Norman S. Hall; cinematographer: Jack Marta; editor: Lester Orlebeck; cast: Roy Rogers (Roy Rogers), George ‘Gabby’ Hayes (Gabby Whittaker), Raymond Hatton (Chuckawalla), Ann Baldwin (Peggy Hammond), Pierre Watkin (Roger Hammond), Louisiana Lou (Louisiana Lou, Singer), Craig Reynolds (Tony McGrath), Ivan Miller (Niles), Reginald Barlow (Bainbridge), Adrian Morris (Big Joe Gillespie), Jack Roper (Henchman ‘Ducky’), Jack Ingram (Henchman McDermott); Runtime: 66; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Joseph Kane; Republic Pictures; 1939)

“This Roy Rogers film had an undeserved bad reputation.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

This Roy Rogers film had an undeserved bad reputation. I actually found it to be one of his better B Westerns, it was at least up to par with the typical Rogers action-packed oater except that the singing cowboy only sang a few songs. It uses the present as its setting. Joseph Kane (“The Arizona Kid”/”Jesse James at Bay”/”Frontier Pony Express”) directs in his usual credible fashion and it’s ably written by Gerald Geraghty and Norman S. Hall.

Roy Rogers inherited the Circle R ranch from his dad, and has trouble making the mortgage payments to shady fly-by-night loan financier Niles (Ivan Miller) and is threatened with foreclosure. A Wall Street syndicate secretly surveyed his land and discovered in Skeleton Cave the mineral called molybdenum. To stop the greedy and crooked Wall Street firm from taking over his ranch, Roy is helped by his two loyal cowhands Gabby (Gabby Hayes) and Chuckawalla (Raymond Hatton). Roy finds, to his regret, he must rely on the help of an old enemy of his dad’s, a nearby rancher named Hammond (Pierre Watkin). Wouldn’t you know it, he has a pretty single daughter named Peggy (Ann Baldwin), who arrives from the East and falls for Roy. In the end, her dad saves the day for Roy by investing in the mine.

REVIEWED ON 6/13/2007 GRADE: B-