Here is a pacey work that employs standard elements to be found in Republic Pictures' contemporary Western films starring Roy Rogers, including the familiar plot artifice of shooting a movie within another, cowboys on horseback chasing motor vehicles bearing villains, musical interludes that interrupt the action at random, et alia, with an additional device utilized herein: "cameos" from cowpoke stars under contract with Republic: Wild Bill Elliott, Robert Livingston, Allan Lane, Don "Red" Barry, and Sunset Carson. Sue Farnum (Dale Evans) has been willed her father's traveling circus but his erstwhile partner Bill Ripley (Grant Withers) intends to take it from her as she cannot locate a receipt confirming that her sire had repaid a loan enabling him to gain title to the big top company, and when she and her employee and friend Gabby Whittaker (Gabby Hayes) accept aid from her dad's pal Slim Phillips (Addison Richards), the three, along with Slim's daughter and troupe entertainer Patty (Adele Mara), entrain to the southern California fictional town of Cabrillo wherein Slim believes he will locate the missing receipt, thereby ending Sue's plight. The Forces of Evil soon kidnap Slim but subsequent events are but ill-explained by a slapdash screenplay that accords space for eight musical numbers (not counting repeats) and while Rogers plainly is tasked, as is his wont, with rescuing a city-bred damsel in distress, he is equally motivated by a primal need to burst into song, a predilection shared with, among others, Evans, Mara, Janis Martin, and the baritone Bob Nolan-led Sons of the Pioneers. This lower case effort benefits from a panoply of Republic casting roster supporting players from whom, despite the film's following the accepted trend of Rogers "B" Westerns, a number of telling performances will be enjoyed from uncredited actors (including dancing girls!); Hayes reprises his wearisome shtick that he displays in each of his movies, even to the phrases, but Evans has a clamp on the acting laurels with a vivacious turn, while able editing supervised by Arthur Roberts makes for a snappily moving although somewhat goofy picture.
Review of Bells of Rosarita
