As promised last time, I chewed through two Gene Autry movies: Ride Ranger Ride and Prairie Moon. This was my first foray into the land of the Singing Cowboy, and I gotta get something off my chest before we get down to the nitty-gritty:
HOLY RACISM, BATMAN!
Let's start with Ride Ranger Ride, which makes Birth of a Nation look like an episode of Roots. This is the plot, as summarized on IMDB:
"Gene is a Texas Ranger working undercover to protect an Army wagon train full of ammunition and supplies. The Army doesn't believe him at first, until the Commanches arrive."
This is the synopsis that you'll see on both of the youtube versions of the film (one version's better quality, the other has the right aspect ratio-- pick your poison). It 's also a complete load of cow pie. Here's a more accurate version, which I'll be submitting for immediate IMDB disapproval:
Discharged from the Texas Rangers, Gene Autry (along with improbably-named sidekicks Rufe Jones and Frog Milhouse) joins the US Army Cavalry and must stop a pompous Colonel from brokering a peace treaty with a tribe of savage Comanche before the two-faced redskins attack a wagon train.
Yes, that's right, Ride Ranger Ride not only involves Upstanding White Folk squaring off against a Bloodthirsty Other, it goes out of its way to villainize anyone silly enough to attempt peaceful coexistence! That's what I call going the extra mile.
The film's story mostly concerns Gene's efforts to stop the Comanche plot and bird dog the Colonel's flirtatious daughter. Along the way, we get plenty of Western derring-do, two back-to-back barfights, a credulity-straining jailhouse escape (involving a flattened pie tin), and lots of country crooning.
Minus the constant stream of racist wisecracks about Native Americans (Rufe takes first prize when he quips "I always fire when I sees injuns, that’s why I stay so healthy!") and a wacky sideplot about a scalp-crazy Comanche, Ride Ranger Ride is-- I will shamefully admit-- a pretty well made movie. The actors are charming, the songs are catchy, the action is tightly shot and edited. It's like Triumph of the Will with cowboy spurs: despite its ugly message, you have to admit it was made by some filmmakers who really knew what they were doing.
And although Ride Ranger Ride is on the surface a piece of innocuous fluff, I wonder if it's not all the more insidious because of its easygoing charm. Riefenstahl at least had the decency to make fascism look like serious business; Ride Ranger Ride hides its xenophobia behind Gene Autry's pearly white smile.
At any rate, it was a more engaging experience than Prairie Moon, a baffling Western/Gangster hybrid. After a fairly standard opening involving Gene in pursuit of a gang of cattle rustlers, we cut back to town where a 1930's car jarringly roars through the western backlot and pulls up to the general store. Out pops Chicago gangster Jim "Legs" Barton, hot on the lam (yes, we actually hear cop sirens in the background), and eager to hole up at his ranch house.
Faster than you can say "wait, when does this movie take place?", Gene and his deputies get caught in a cowboy vs. gangster shootout and Prairie Moon briefly becomes the raddest Western you've never heard of. But sadly, once a trigger-happy cop punches Barton's ticket, the real premise of the movie is revealed.
See, it turns out ol' Legs left the deed to his ranch to his three rascally, wisecrackin' sons back in Chicago. Naturally, Gene take the orphaned miscreants under his wing and wacky hijinks ensue as the street urchins (Nails, Brains, and Slick Barton as they demand to be called) adapt to country livin'. Throw in a pretty young schoolteacher for Gene to romance and a complication or two with the aforementioned cattle rustlers (who are using Barton's property as a hideout for their schemes) and we have ourselves a movie.
Neither as well put together nor as memorably appalling as Ride Ranger Ride, I have to brand Prairie Moon as the weaker of the two films. It definitely loses points for following its fantastic "Scarface Goes West" intro with such a hokey, kid-centric plot. Then again, what was I really expecting? A hyper violent orgy of six shooters and tommy guns punctuated by folksy cowboy ballads?
Oh wait, that actually sounds pretty awesome.
NEXT TIME: Fasten your seatbelts! I'll be reviewing The Fast and the Furious. No, not the Vin Diesel one, the other one. No, not Tokyo Drift, the Roger Corman one. Yes, really, there was a Roger Corman one. The more you know!
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