The Carson City Kid

Roy Rogers' title role as The Carson City Kid is another one of those misnomers that makes you think of a bad guy. Of course, Roy is a good guy who has been unfortunately labeled an outlaw. For some reason he rides along with a real outlaw named Laramie (Francis McDonald). Roy looks out for the well-being of the all too trusting Arizona (Noah Beery, Jr.) while he is tracking down the villain, Lee Jessup (Bob Steele).

Bob Steele was a leading cowboy hero during the 30's and continued to be a hero afterward, but it is nice to see him in a different role. The bad-guy/saloon owner was a generic part in B westerns, with only the talents of the individual actors making the part memorable. It was the same year that The Carson City Kid was made (1940) that Bob Steele began making a series of Billy The Kid movies for PRC and also joining The Three Mesquiteers at Republic, so The Carson City Kid may have been made while he was searching for a new movie deal. His talents were put to good use in this movie.

Gabby Hayes was good, but not at his best in The Carson City Kid. His part as the town marshal provides comedy, but not the special appeal of being a sidekick. Seeing Gabby as Roy's pal makes a difference. In The Carson City Kid we get to see Gabby on Roy's side, but there is no real relationship between them.

Overall, The Carson City Kid is an excellent choice for a Roy Rogers movie. The movie is set in the west without automobiles and big band productions. It shows a kind of western that Roy would abandon within a few years in favor of the modern setting movies for which he was known.

The Carson City Kid is a "B" western to be sure, however, this one is a cut above the average.

Rogers had not yet evolved into the the yodeling/singing hero of the range. At this stage of his career, the studio was not casting him as himself but as "good" bad guys. In fact in this picture he sings only one song and that is a duet with the heroine.

What sets this picture apart is the excellent supporting cast. First, we have Gabby Hayes playing the Marshal and Noah Beery Jr. as Arizona who is befriended by Roy along the way. Heading up the villains are Bob Steele and the venerable Hal Taliaferro. Even Yakima Canutt turns up in an unbilled bit as the bartender. Steele always made a better villain than hero and in my humble opinion, takes the picture away from Rogers.

To be fair, Roy was just getting started and didn't do that bad of a job. The Carson City Kid remains one of Roy's better early westerns.

Roy Rogers is The Carson City Kid, a notorious outlaw. Actually, no, it's largely he just has the reputation. He's been trailing the man who killed his brother, and has concluded it's saloon owner Bob Steele, who has just hired him as a guard. Marshall Gabby Hayes deputizes him, in case he needs to kill anyone. Meanwhile, Steele has just cheated miner out of the gold he has mined, and has proposed to saloon singer Pauline Moore, who turns him down. So Steele fires Miss and Rogers, leading to the conclusion.

The ending is a bit rushed. That might be the way it was originally released, or perhaps the four minutes cut off the original for the version I saw helped make sense. Miss Moore and Roy each sing one song, Trigger gets only a couple of minutes of screen time, and there's a well-timed horseback chase towards the end, sure to please oater fans. The story is certain more nuanced than usual for B westerns, because Roy Rogers was a rising singing cowboy star, and he and Steele get to do a little more acting than they would have down in Gower Gulch. Director Joe Kane directs this just a mite leetle too fast, as Gabby would say, but it's a decent way to spend just under an hour.

Roy Rogers (Roy Rogers, and not playing "himself" but playing a character named Roy Rogers), posing as The Carson City Kid, is seeking vengeance on Morgan Reynolds, the man who killed his brother.

Whew!

To find Reynolds in the gold towns, he systematically stops stagecoaches and goes through the mail, hoping to find letters addressed to Reynolds and thus learn his whereabouts.

"The Kid" earns the reputation of a stagecoach robber, although he never takes anything, and the reputation is enhanced by the fact that he travels with Laramie (Francis McDonald), a notorious half-breed outlaw.

Getting complicated yet?

A posse is about to capture them and Roy rides back to get Laramie whose horse has been shot, and Laramie repays the favor by slugging Roy and escaping on his horse Trigger.

The posse rides by the unseen Roy and captures Laramie and, since he is riding the "Kid's" horse, take him to jail as being the "Kid."

Laramie denies this and is told he will be free when he identifies the "Kid".

This is a highly implausible movie that is nonetheless watchable. Nothing is believable. Still it's easy to sit through.

The masked Carson City Kid and henchman Laramie keep holding up stages, but take nothing except the mail. So what the heck is going on.

Good to see so many matinée stalwarts in the same movie—Rogers, Steele, Hayes, and Beery Jr. It's a pretty good screenplay too. At first, I didn't know whether Jessup (Steele) and the Kid (Rogers) were good guys or bad. But eventually it sorts out. And was there ever a better jovial character than the underrated Beery Jr. Then too, Hayes gets to do his usual toothless grouch. And now I see why Rogers soon went to Technicolor—how much better to show off that magnificent blond palomino Trigger. Even in lowly b&w, he cuts a striking figure. No Dale Evans here, instead it's the comely Pauline Moore as the eye candy. No, the movie never gets out of familiar San Fernando Valley locations, but is still a better-than-average little programmer with a few mild twists.