The storyline of this movie like in many of these B westerns is very simple. Tex and Slim Andrews are Texas Rangers. A notorious outlaw (Forrest Taylor) has been hiding in the Cherokee Strip so the law can't catch him. Tex and Slim pretend to be fellow outlaws so that they can lure this man over into Texas where they can legally arrest him.
With this very simple story, this movie gives us all the entertainment we could want from a film like this. This film offers some great songs. As well as Tex performing some of these songs we also get some performed by the country band, The Tennessee Ramblers, who also worked with another singing cowboy in the movies, Gene Autry (in the films Ride Ranger Ride (1936), Yodelin' Kid From Pine Ridge (1937)). They were a very talented band and it is a delight to hear them here. Two of the members of that band (Jack Gillette and Harry Blair) wrote the majority of the songs used in this film. Costar Slim Andrews wrote two of the songs himself and cowrote one with Tex Ritter. This simple story leads to a fantastic action filled climax that is simply a heck of a lot of fun. Another treat in this movie is its sense of humor. Slim Andrews is the comedy relief in this movie (a role he played in quite a few Tex Ritter movies), and he is quite good. For instance him pretending to be a tough guy in the bar definitely made me giggle. One of the best scenes of humor in this movie though is when Tex tries to turn a classic piece played by the villain into a cowboy song (one he claims to have wrote himself).
This movie made its premiere on February 24, 1941 at the Tryon in Charlotte, North Carolina. At this premiere The Tennessee Ramblers gave a live performance before the movie.
The film's director was the very capable Spencer Gordon Bennett. At this time he was directing many B westerns, and some very fun ones.
No one would ever call this movie high art but it certainly is top notch entertainment.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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