This is the second time I've seen Gene Autry in a flick where he could be considered on the wrong side of an environmental issue. The other was "Riders of the Whistling Pines" in which DDT is mentioned by name, and where Gene sounds like an apologist for the chemical industry. DDT was eventually banned, but the offending chemical is never mentioned by name here.
Fay McKenzie appeared fairly regularly in Gene's pictures during the early Forties, and she shows up here as well as the daughter of George Larrabee (Robert Homans), one of the ranchers opposed to chemical spraying. However the threat of a poisonous 'devil weed' has him and his neighbors boxed into a system of burning rangeland, only to have the noxious plant return with a vengeance. There didn't seem to be any other solution besides the spraying though, and the Larrabee's fell in line by the end of the story, thanking Gene for his perseverance.
Sierra Sue - that would be McKenzie - as well as the title song. Gene gets in a few other tunes, along with 'Ridin' the Range', but Smiley Burnette turns in the best with 'I Got the Heebie-Jeebie Blues' while spending the day in jail with Gene over a robbery misunderstanding. Now that I think about it, nothing ever came of those bags of money the boys found in the crashed plane. What's up with that?
For all his effort, Smiley has just the toughest time in the romance department, but he goes the extra mile to impress Sierra Sue with the old cannonball gimmick. The way he sailed through the air was a well done effect, and I'd be curious to know how they did that. Still, Gene gets the title girl at the end of the picture, but Smiley's Frog Millhouse didn't do so bad winding up with the psychic Miss Featherstone (Dorothy Christy). I wonder if she saw it coming?
Fay McKenzie appeared fairly regularly in Gene's pictures during the early Forties, and she shows up here as well as the daughter of George Larrabee (Robert Homans), one of the ranchers opposed to chemical spraying. However the threat of a poisonous 'devil weed' has him and his neighbors boxed into a system of burning rangeland, only to have the noxious plant return with a vengeance. There didn't seem to be any other solution besides the spraying though, and the Larrabee's fell in line by the end of the story, thanking Gene for his perseverance.
Sierra Sue - that would be McKenzie - as well as the title song. Gene gets in a few other tunes, along with 'Ridin' the Range', but Smiley Burnette turns in the best with 'I Got the Heebie-Jeebie Blues' while spending the day in jail with Gene over a robbery misunderstanding. Now that I think about it, nothing ever came of those bags of money the boys found in the crashed plane. What's up with that?
For all his effort, Smiley has just the toughest time in the romance department, but he goes the extra mile to impress Sierra Sue with the old cannonball gimmick. The way he sailed through the air was a well done effect, and I'd be curious to know how they did that. Still, Gene gets the title girl at the end of the picture, but Smiley's Frog Millhouse didn't do so bad winding up with the psychic Miss Featherstone (Dorothy Christy). I wonder if she saw it coming?