Song of Arizona (1946)
Gabby's ranch for homeless boys is a week from foreclosure when one of his charges secretly pays off the debt with money left behind by his outlaw father, forcing Roy Rogers to untangle the stolen fortune before the law lands on the wrong culprit.
A fairly typical entry in the “singing cowboy” hybrid genre, Song of Arizona pairs Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with George “Gabby” Hayes’s ranch-for-strays premise and closes, as the series usually did, on a musical number rather than a shootout.
Background
Song of Arizona is a 1946 Republic Pictures western directed by Frank McDonald, released March 9, 1946, pairing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with George “Gabby” Hayes, who runs a ranch for homeless boys threatened with foreclosure. One of Gabby’s charges, Chip, played by Tommy Cook, has secretly been paying down the ranch’s debt with money left behind by his father, outlaw leader King Blaine, played by Lyle Talbot. When the law starts closing in on the wrong suspect, Roy Rogers has to untangle where the money actually came from before an innocent man takes the blame.
What to watch for
Written by Bradford Ropes and M. Coates Webster and shot by Republic cinematographer Reggie Lanning, the film follows the standard formula of the studio’s Roy Rogers series: a plot built around a wholesome communal institution in trouble, light criminal intrigue resolved more through talk than gunplay, and a musical number to close things out rather than a shootout. It is a representative rather than exceptional entry in the “singing cowboy” cycle Republic ran through the 1940s, of interest mainly to fans of the series or of Rogers and Evans specifically.
