Rollin' Plains

Totally unremarkable oater with your typical damsel in distress that Tex has to rescue. A "surprise" villain, once again there's a respected town resident who's in on it and spying on our heroes. Perhaps the most noteworthy item in the movie is that it's the sheep guys that are the bad guys, trying to overpower the cattlemen. Usually, it's the other way around. The songs are OK but not Ritter's best ones.

The sidekicks are Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard, who appear in several of Tex's westerns. This isn't Murphy's best performance. His dumb as a post act lacks humor I think. Snub is the more intelligent of the two but that's not saying much. He's got a great mustache though.

Poverty row studio Grand National Films opened shop in 1936 and survived just long enough to crank out this horse opera before closing it's doors the following year. Country singer and B-movie western superstar Tex TENTING TONIGHT ON THE OLD CAMP GROUNDS Ritter and his faithful horse sidekick White Flash investigate land disputes between sheep herders and cattle ranchers. A wealthy land owner named Barrow (Karl SING, COWBOW, SING! Hackett) has been instigating the disruptions while simultaneously setting up gang leader trigger (Charles DEADWOOD DICK King) to take the fall. If all that rootin' and tootin' wasn't enough there's also the tangy, twangy musical stylings of The Beverly Hillbillies to sweeten the B&W pot! What you'd expect from screen write Lindsley TROUBLE IN TEXAS Parsons and director Albert DELINQUENT DAUGHTERS Herman. Certainly not for all tastes but genre addicts may have some fun with it.

Ritter plays a Texas Ranger who comes to the aid of a group of cattlemen who've found themselves in the middle of a vicious land war with ruthless sheep farmers (You heard it right!) and of one landowner in particular who finds himself framed for murder by the sheep men and by his own half-brother, who's in their back-pocket.

Though not the best of Tex's vehicles, It's an alright way to pass an hour, with the requisite amount of action and music, though not as much of the latter as I'd have liked. The title song is pretty good.

Once again, there's a great, rowdy saloon fight between Ritter and eternal heavy Charles King. Tex also shines in the climactic "ghost" scare scene, where he uses his deep voice and accompanying organ music to great effect.

Rollin' Plains finds Tex Ritter once again as a Texas Ranger and this time getting into a cattlemen versus sheepmen range war which the villain has started for his own nefarious purposes.

Tex is also once again saddled with his two inept sidekicks Snub Pollard and Horace Murphy. When Murphy blabs Tex's hideout to the chief villain youjust want to cry. How did these two ever get to be Texas Rangers?

Less singing in this Ritter western than usual and that's not ever good.