Sadly Over-hyped

Memorable, crazy movie

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I was very happy to find that this Roy Rogers film was the original full version. I say this because in the 1950s, the original Rogers films were edited (in some cases HIGHLY and poorly edited) to fit them into TV time slots. While many of the cowboy films at archive.org are trimmed, this copy is not and free to copy.When the film begins, the viewer is at first sympathetic towards Vera. After all, she's lived on this ranch for some time and considers it hers--but now she's learned it's not hers and was willed to some easterner. So, with the help of her even more evil neighbor, they conspire to ruin the ranch and then buy it off the new owner for a pittance. Interestingly, however, the new owner is a baby--and his guardian is determined to make a go of it since she has help from Roy, Gabby and the Sons of the Pioneers.While the plot isn't unfamiliar, it's handled well and the songs are a bit better than average. Overall, a very good installment of the Roy Rogers films. Not the best but better than average. Plus, it's a rare case where you get to hear Gabby sing as well!

Mr. Rodney P. Black is the young new owner of the Bagley Ranch, but it turns out the kid is just a kid, actually a baby under the guardianship of Miss Sylvia Clark (Helen Parrish). If you've seen more than a handful of 'B' Westerns you know the set up from a mile away, because a dastardly villain is right around the corner attempting to swindle the ranch out from under it's rightful owner. In this case, Gregg Jackson (Onslow Stevens) hooks up with the Bagley Ranch caretaker Vera Martin (Joan Woodbury), and they run through all the tricks in the book - a phony five thousand dollar bank note, rustled cattle and a dammed up stream - to prevent Miss Clark from taking possession.Not to worry, Roy, Gabby, Bob Nolan and The Sons of the Pioneers have a half dozen songs in their arsenal to make this a fairly entertaining Western film. I especially liked 'A Cowboy Rocky-Feller' with it's upbeat tempo sung by Roy around the old campfire. Later on, and this is the only time I've ever seen it in over five hundred Westerns, Roy and his boys slide right into a song on the heels of a bar room brawl. It had to do with an Irish gal named O'Shea, and Gabby does his solo part in brogue! Very cool. Pat Brady's around too, and has some fun with 'A No Good Son of a Gun'.For a flick that comes in under an hour, this one's got a lot going on between the shoot-outs, a rock slide and a flood orchestrated by the bad guys when they blow up their own dam (couldn't figure that one out). The Pioneers set a pie trap for Gabby (don't ask), and by the time it's all over, Roy's serenading Miss Clark one more time with 'Gates of the Home Corral'. The little tyke who figured in the main plot didn't have much to do except hang around and get fed his milk bottle every now and then, which wasn't a bad gig when you come right down to it.

'Sunset Serenade' is a film of simple and snappy plot, one of Roy's most entertaining films from this period because what there is of it is done so well. Crafty rancher-villain Onslow Stevens, aided by Joan Woodbury, is up to the old land-grab trick, hoping to swindle an infant out of his recently inherited ranch by convincing his innocent guardian Sylvia Clark (Helen Parrish) that it is worthless. Enter a bunch of resourceful (and hungry) wandering cowboys, portrayed by, naturally, Roy Rogers, George 'Gabby' Hayes and the Sons of the Pioneers. They decide to throw in with Sylvia and spend the rest of the film matching wits with the villains in order to hang onto the ranch. The real treat is the full half-dozen songs they perform along the way as only they could - a highlight is the lyrical 'A Sandman Lullaby,' in a nighttime scene that provides, I suppose, the film's title. And then when the player piano gets banged during the free-for-all saloon brawl...well, you can guess what happens next. Only in a Roy Rogers movie! There's also a very funny subplot involving the Pioneers' efforts to keep greedy Gabby from hogging everybody's dinner, which leads to the best laugh of all in the film's final seconds. 'Sunset Serenade' would be an excellent movie to watch as an introduction to the singing cowboy genre; it shows how this type of film works in great style.

Sunset Serenade finds Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers lending a hand to Helen Parrish who is the guardian of an infant who inherits a ranch. Joan Woodbury was the housekeeper in the Gale Sondergaard tradition to the previous owner and she's disappointed that she got left out of the will. Onslow Stevens is a neighbor who had designs on the place and he conspires with Woodbury to get the place by fair means or foul.Roy gets quite a few cowboy ballads to warble and in one sequence after a saloon brawl with Stevens and his chief henchman Roy Barcroft, Gabby Hayes takes the lead as the Sons of the Pioneers accompany him in that delightful western ballad Mavourneen O'Shea. Since Gabby got his start in vaudeville, this was probably something he did back in the day.Rule of thumb, kids watching cowboy matinées can always tell who the bad girl is if she lights up a cigarette. Since Woodbury does it in the first five minutes, we already know all we need.Sunset Serenade has some good action moments in it, especially when Roy and Trigger save cattle buyer Frank M. Thomas from a flash flood. Add to that an avalanche that starts a cattle stampede, you can be sure the kids loved it back in the day.So did a few grownups, I'm sure.