Raiders of Sunset Pass (1943)
World War II is raging and the manpower shortage has hit the range since every able-bodied cowboy of military age is off fighting for Uncle Sam. Dad Mathews, a rancher with a huge government contract order for beef, has trouble with the cattle rustlers, led by Henry Judson and Lefty Lewis, who are taking advantage of the situation to steal his herds. John Paul Revere, Special State Investigator, arrives, and upon meeting Mathews' daughter, Betty, gets the idea of recruiting the hard-riding daughters of the district into the WAPS, an organization which will be to the cattle country what the WACS and WAVES are to the Army and Navy. He trains them in military procedure and provides them with radio sending-and-receiving sets. Johnny's sidekick, Frog Millhouse, finds himself the possessor of a "walkie-talkie" which he considers just a "doo-dad" at first, but which is instrumental in the end, in helping Johnny and the WAPS trap the gang of rustlers in their hideout.
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SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Smiley Burnette continues his tradition of going from cowboy hero to cowboy hero as a roving sidekick at Republic after Gene Autry left for military service. In Raiders Of Sunset Pass, Burnette is teamed with Eddie Dew where they play state cattle inspectors in the modern wartime west of 1943.Rustlers are only one problem that cattlemen like Charles Miller have to contend with. In fact with the rationing and the wartime need to feed the troops cattle rustling was never more lucrative.Plus there's the manpower shortage, no one to herd the cattle, no one to form a posse if the cattle is stolen. But Miller's daughter Jennifer Holt has the answer. With Dew and Burnette tutoring on the fine points of cattle herding, Holt organizing her own Woman's Army Corps of the range with walkie talkies to report on rustling.The rustlers are hurt, but far from finished. Still in the end our heroes have the situation well in hand.The timeliness of the film impressed me. Dew himself points out that women are already in the factories and in the armed services. Rosie the Riveteer now rides the range as well as does the swing shift.I have to give credit to Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures for this forward looking film of its time.