Saddle up, everyone…
Westerns are a notoriously cheap genre, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that they always have a lot of the same design and story elements. Horses. Dusty streets. Weathered buildings with board sidewalks. Open spaces. Various firearms. A saloon. A bar brawl or a shootout, possibly both. Maybe a stagecoach or two. At least one plate of flapjacks and maybe some beans, although not necessarily in that order. There might be a chase, possibly involving passing the same rock more than once. The trick is to not let anything feel cheap.
Then there’s 1938’s Utah Trail, a quickie western produced by doomed Poverty Row studio Grand National Films and starring singing cowboy Tex Ritter. In so many ways it’s bare as bare can be, but Tex is always there to fill in the gaps with a song, a strum of his guitar, and a charming smile.
Among the interesting things to know about Tex Ritter: One, he was John Ritter’s dad. Two, he played a character named Tex in forty of his seventy-eight film credits. Three, he sang the title song in the classic western, High Noon. Four, even though he died in 1974, Tex’s music is still being used in films, one of his most recent credits being Asteroid City.
Speaking of music, the film opens with Tex Stewart (Tex Ritter) and his two sidekicks, Ananias (Horace Murphy) and PeeWee (‘Snub’ Pollard) singing a bouncy tune, “A ‘Roamin’ I’ll Be” as they ride the rails to help a friend of Tex’s, Jeffers, whose rail line has been taken over by a mysterious “ghost train.” Once they get into town, whatever town it is, it doesn’t take long for them to run afoul of the local toughs, but Tex yanks off the leader’s hat and makes him say sorry.
Tex finds out Jeffers has died and his daughter, Sally (Pamela Blake, credited as Adele Pearce) has taken over for him. Sally’s not at all keen on the idea of Tex helping her solve the mystery of the ghost train, but Tex says he’ll do it anyway because he made a promise to his friend and he intends to keep it.
The mystery is a pretty simple one, because Tex, Ananias, and PeeWee, after procuring three horses, including Tex’s trusty steed, White Lightning, stake out the railroad tracks that night, only to find the ghost train is run by the three toughs who met them when they got into town. They’re stealing cattle and selling them off.
Tex relays this new information to Sally, who’s still not receptive to his help, but she agrees to meet Tex later so he can sing her the film’s title song. Ananias and PeeWee, who were supposed to guard the cattle, get into a bar brawl at the local saloon, which mostly consists of them hiding under a table and waiting for it to be over. Meanwhile, Tex throws punches and has a grand time ducking when someone chucks a chair at him.
Our heroes all ride off just before the bad guys can collect themselves, after which Tex croons to White Lightning while giving him a good grooming. White Lightning looks bored and sleepy, or maybe the sun’s in his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to mind Tex’s attention or the song.
It’s only a brief respite, though, because the ghost train must be apprehended and the bad guys must be caught. Unfortunately, Sally’s foreman is in league with the bad guys and lies to the town sheriff about Tex, thinking he can frame him for stealing the train. When Tex, PeeWee and Ananias pull into town they’re immediately arrested and put in jail, where they presumably await their hanging.
Tex doesn’t seem too worried, though. He pulls out his guitar and contentedly croons “Give Me Back My Saddle” because he knows there are some surprises in store for everyone.
If it isn’t obvious by now, Utah Trail has an extremely thin plot. The entire movie has a running time of less than an hour, and everything seems to revolve around Tex singing. He does amazing things with that guitar of his; it’s completely unseen until he needs it, and then Tex pulls it out of his inventory, as it were, as if Utah Trail is a video game, and it doesn’t hamper his mystery-solving skills in the slightest. I kept wondering Tex would make like El Kabong and whack people over the head with his trusty instrument, but it’s highly likely that budgetary constraints must have been considered.
Oh yeah, the limited budget is extremely obvious as well. There are only a few sets, most of them outdoors, and a scene may consist, for instance, of Tex crooning to Sally while she sits on a fence. The ghost train is impossible to tell from the train Tex, Ananias, and PeeWee rode in on, and Tex and Sally seem to be the only characters who have any costume changes.
Still, the production seemed to make the most of its teeny budget, because there’s some fun schtick to be had, particularly with Ananias and PeeWee, the latter of whom was played by ‘Snub’ Pollard, a longtime veteran of comedy and frequent collaborator with Harold Lloyd. The music isn’t bad although not exactly memorable.
Unfortunately, the movie was basically a blip in 1938’s cinematic calendar, with little to no publicity and no reviews, although Tex Ritter was predicted to be a draw when he came to Grand National in 1936. Utah Trail’s biggest flaw was that there wasn’t much to distinguish it from the bumper crop of quickie westerns put out by Hollywood during the studio era. Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were also coming up around this time and likely eclipsed everyone.
Utah Trail was the last movie Tex Ritter would make for Grand National Films, which, sadly, couldn’t seem to get itself off of Poverty Row despite its pretty steady stream of respectable movies featuring big or reasonably big stars. Tex’s next studio was Monogram Pictures, and after three years there he made the rounds of several Hollywood studios, both on Poverty Row and off of it, working steadily in film and radio until his death. Grand National folded roughly a year after Tex left, its catalogue divided among rival studios.
Utah Trail might not have been received well or even noticed when it was released, but it’s not terrible. It’s just a pleasant hour with lots of music and that’s pretty much all.
For more Legends of Wester Cinema, please see Heidi at Along the Brandywine, Rachel at Hamlette’s Soliloquy, and Olivia at Meanwhile, In Rivendell… Thanks for hosting this, ladies–it was a blast! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you tomorrow for another post…
Utah Trail is available to own on DVD from Amazon. It is also available to stream on Tubi.
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Love the focus on westerns!
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