Touches You

Best movie ever!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

"Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts", alas, is another mixture of good and very bad. Directed by Ray Taylor on a miniscule budget, it's further burdened by labored comic relief (Snub Pollard), a Chinese caricature (Philip Ahn), plus a lot of preachy stock footage and another big minus in minimal action. As usual, the lovely heroine (super-attractive Lynn Reynolds) has naught to do than decorate a few shots here and there. But fortunately, Charles King is on hand as a bad guy, so maybe this entry's not all that bad after all. With a fair amount of judicious trimming, we could cut those pesky scouts right out of the action. Maybe? (Available on a Mill Creek DVD).

I loved it. Not as much as some other Tex Ritter movies, but because it had Tex Ritter in it with his singing, I loved it. (I do wish we had some of those times back, such as wanting to emulate the good character of the scouts again. Couldn't hurt society.) I miss those character building movies, when good was good and evil was definitely evil. The singing was better in some of the other Ritter movies, but his singing here was better than most other actors and singers in western movies. So I guess it boils down to this rule of thumb, if Ritter is in a movie and he is singing in that movie, you sure can't go wrong by watching it! I agree that his sidekicks were not up to par either.

A fairly silly plot has Tex Ritter joining forces with a troop of apparently unchaperoned Boy Scouts who are looking for a dangerous gang of train robbers, something that I don't think would ever happen in real life!Not really one of his best adventures, Tex Rides With The Boy Scouts is pretty inoffensive (unless you're Chinese) and mildly interesting, as long as you don't think about it too much.There just wasn't enough action or memorable songs (with the exception of Tex's rendition of The Girl I Left Behind Me) this go-around, to satisfy.However, Ritter is good as always, the leading lady is quite attractive, and the kiddie audiences of the day probably loved it, especially the real-life scouts.

As the title says, Tex Ritter and sidekicks Stubby and Pee Wee (Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard) hook up with a Boy Scout troop to take down a gang of train robbers in this somewhat offbeat singing Western. What gets the picture off to an interesting start is a brief clip of events from a 1936 Washington, D.C. jamboree. The story includes a couple of unusual elements like the appearance of a Chinese laundry man, and this might be the earliest film in which you'll hear that infamous tag line - "No tickee, no washee". But the real sit up and take notice moment occurs when the chief villain Dorman (Forrest Taylor) actually shoots young Scout Buzzy Willis (Tommy Bupp) in the back!!! Man, what kind of a heel would do that? I always get a kick out of the logistics in these old films, when the laws of physical science were often held in complete disregard. Keep an eye on that early scene when the good guy trio stop to read the Private Property sign on the Black Hawk Mining property. A warning shot knocks Stubby's hat off from the direction in which he's facing, but all three turn left to see a couple of henchmen who were responsible. Had the bullet come from that direction, it might have hit Tex, who was right behind Stubby on horseback at the time.Tex gets to show his stuff with a handful of singing numbers, including 'Girl of the Prairie' with which he serenades pretty Norma Willis (Marjorie Reynolds), but as far as romance, that didn't really go anywhere. As with many of these old oaters, their relationship starts out with a misunderstanding before they patch things up to wind up on the same side. Little brother Buzzy survives his near fatal gunshot to identify Dorman as the shooter, and pretty soon, Tex and his boys round up all the bad guys and the stolen gold.Back in it's time, the picture probably served as a reliable recruiting vehicle for the Boy Scout organization, with it's emphasis on building character and good citizenship. Some of the scenes took me back to my own Scouting days, though that wasn't until a couple of decades later. It's the Boy Scout connection that warrants catching the picture, otherwise it's pretty much a run of the mill Western where the good guys come out on top.