Really Surprised!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Copyright 4 September 1938 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York release date. U.S. release date: 4 September 1938. U.K. release through British Lion. Never theatrically released in Australia. 6 reels. 54 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A lawman impersonates Billy the Kid in order to stop a rancher hassling nesters. NOTES: Rogers' 14th film and second starring vehicle. Mary Hart is sometimes billed under her real name, Lynne Roberts.COMMENT: A singing Billy the Kid? Well no, it's actually Leonard Slye's Roy Rogers impersonating Billy the Kid - though he does play in a straight fashion Billy himself as well. The two characters never appear on screen together as the real Billy is shot before the Rogers character appears on the scene. Aside from this unusual intro, it's a likable enough if thoroughly routine offering. Fred Kohler does the honors as the villain's chief henchman, the heroine is pretty, Mr Rogers does a bit of fast riding culminating in a spectacular horse-and-rider leap from cliff-top into a lake, whilst Mr Burnette's foolery and novelty numbers are fairly tolerable. A couple of Mr Rogers' songs are melodic enough to deserve more than the somewhat perfunctory treatment they're given here. Not that this will worry the fans. What will disappoint the juvenile audience is that there's no action climax. The villains are captured by a ruse and quietly, hang-doggedly submit. Direction and other credits are competent but thoroughly routine. Production values are firmly "B".

Billy the Kid Returns (1938) *** (out of 4) Pat Garrett kills Billy the Kid (Roy Rogers) but in another town a lookalike named Roy Rogers shows up and is mistaken as the real person. Rogers agrees to pretend to be Billy the Kid so that he can uncover a group of bad guys trying to steal land from the poor. This here was one of Rogers earliest films and as many reviewers pointed out at the time, there's really no question that crowds would enjoy his brand of singing and acting and it was clear that his personality jumped right off the screen and he was perfect for this type of character. He has to play pretty much two different roles here and I thought Rogers did a very good job with each of them. This includes playing a bad guy with no heart in Billy and the good guy who cares about those around him. Smiley Burnette gets the role of the sidekick and he too is charming in the film and adds some nice humor. Lynne Roberts plays the love interest and nearly steals each scene that she's in. She's plays the hard-working daughter of a hard-working store owner who just knows that Rogers isn't a bad guy. She's quite attractive to look at but she also gives a performance that comes across quite soft and charming. There's plenty of action to be had here and the majority of the gunfights are good, well-staged and entertaining. I'd also say that the cinematography is much better than you'd expect from this type of low-budget Western. Just check out the early scenes inside the house that is on fire. There's a shot of Billy the Kid firing guns with the fire and smoke behind him and it's a very good looking shot. Fans of Rogers will certainly find this to be one of his better films even if it's certainly not worth viewing as any type of history lesson on the real Billy the Kid.

Sheriff Pat Garrett corners and kills Billy the kid. The next day, lookalike Roy Rodgers rides into town and is immediately mistaken for the outlaw, who's death has yet to be reported. Roy's then pressed into service by Garrett, who wants him to take the place of Billy in a range war pitting ruthless ranchers against the homesteaders that the late kid had intervened on behalf of.This second starring vehicle for Rodgers is decent enough, with lots of great songs from Roy and sidekick Smiley Burnette. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of the acting profession, with a less sure Rodgers delivering his lines in a slightly different tone of voice!This was the first of three times that Roy played a dual role in his films, the second being 1941's Jesse James At Bay and the third being 1942's Sunset On The Desert.

Bad guy Billy the kid is cornered and killed by Pat Garret. Not long after singing cowboy Roy Rogers shows up and is mistaken for the dead villain. He has to prove himself as a lawman in order to convince people that he's not the deceased bad guy. Okay Republic Pictures programmer is well made and has a certain flair for the dramatic. The problem is that its is one of a series of films where Rogers essentially plays himself, granted in period, so any sense that anything can happen is lost. Rogers was a stalwart hero and its easy to understand why he became a star with him shining in a variation of a plot he'd done before and run into again. The problem is that like much of the Republic production at the time, the film is too by the numbers. There was a point when Republic became so good at what they did that there films became essentially off the shelf machine with the various parts switched in and out in an off the shelf formulaic manner. The serials and many of the westerns they cranked out all looked the same because they just switched parts that worked around. This doesn't mean its bad, its not its just that the film looks and acts like the rest of the republic western product. Worth a look if you've not seen a great number of republic westerns recently.