Rootin' Tootin' Rhythm (1937)

Such a frustrating disappointment

People are voting emotionally.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

By the time Gene Autry made this film, he had been starring in B-Westerns for almost two years, and was right on the verge of being named "Public Cowboy No. 1" for 1937, based on the box-office returns from his movies. He held that honor for six straight years, before entering the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.Gene and Buffalo Brady (Hal Taliaferro) are co-owners of a large Western ranch from which cattle are being rustled. Gene and his sidekick Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) set out to try to find the rustlers, at one point changing clothes with two lawmen they have found murdered, to aid in hiding their identities in their search. Their journey brings them into some shenanigans with two attractive ladies, and climaxes with a wild stagecoach chase. And I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure Gene himself did the transfer from Champ's back to the stage.Hope I haven't posted any "spoilers" here, because the movie is much better than the other posters here have implied, with their lukewarm descriptions like "OK," "Pleasant enough," etc. And when one posts, "Not up to Autry's usual standard," I'd like to know which "usual standard" of his movies they're talking about, as they almost always say that in their reviews.

Not one of Gene's better programmers mainly because of the cluttered plot that becomes confusing at times. The 60-minutes does have some good Lone Pine scenery, which means they get out of the woodsy San Fernando Valley. (I don't know about today, but in those days if the filming took place 50-miles or more from LA, the producers had to pay location costs, which is why so many of these low-budget oaters were shot just north of LA.) There's also some great stunt work hopping around on a wagon and a team of horses, while Gene and company offer up a tuneful version of Mexicali Rose, and Frog shows us how to squeeze a squeezebox. All in all, the movie's compensations come from the margins instead of the over-done plot.

With so many Gene Autry Westerns restored and played on the Encore Western Channel, seeing this one on DVD was something of a let down, kind of grainy with a story that rambles back and forth a bit. The Apache Kid (Max Hoffman Jr) and Black Jim (Charles King) are a pair of cattle rustlers who make their getaway by shooting a couple of deputies and exchanging clothes with them. In turn, Gene and Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) come upon the dead lawmen and don their gear to impersonate the bad guys. As an outlaw, Gene draws a lot of attention with that gaudy vest that belonged to the Apache Kid. Seems to me one would want to keep a lower profile if you were on the wrong side of the law.Along the way, Gene and Smiley mix it up with a couple of senoritas at the Stafford adobe. The girls mistake them for the real rustlers and hogtie the boys before they realize their mistake. The intended match-ups between Gene and Armida (Rosa Montero) and Frog with Mary Ellen (Ann Pendleton) come off a bit awkward, and there's no romance to speak of even when Gene serenades his gal at the end of the story.With a title like "Rootin' Tootin' Rhythm" you would expect a fair number of tunes and the boys deliver on that score. Al Clauser and His Oklahoma Outlaws provide some of the music along with lending a hand as a good guy posse. This is one of the very few films with Gene where I've seen him yodel and he sounded pretty good to my ear. Frog provides his usual entertaining antics, including gimmicks with sneezing powder and exploding cigars he uses to good advantage.

Pleasant enough Autry film but with no special musical or comedic qualities to distinguish it from the herd.Gene Autry and Frog (Smiley Burnette) are cattle ranchers who must track down their stolen 400 heads of cattle, but Gene has bigger fish to fry as he convinces Frog to don the clothing of the 2 criminal rustlers to infiltrate the cattlemen's association and discover the corrupt officials who are allowing the theft to happen. Along the way of course they meet 2 lovely ladies who refuse to believe they are not the bandits. Buffalo Brady makes a very interesting supporting performance as a hired gunman who takes Gene's men out of camp after the rustlers against his orders.Some singing, not much dancing, typical novelty tunes from Burnette. Not much to distinguish it but should be fun for kiddies and fans of oaters on the light side.