Man from Oklahoma (1945) User Reviews

Dumb bravado

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 11 June 2013]

Man From Oklahoma finds Roy Rogers and Dale Evans as the offspring of some feuding western families which goes way back to the Oklahoma land rush. Both own half of a valley that Roger Pryor covets because he knows there's oil on the land and they don't.

Through a bit of some dumb bravado both Gabby Hayes and Maude Eburne who are the heads of the clans put up their halves of the valley as a prize in the annual Land Rush recreation race. So both families and Pryor are playing for all the marbles.

I never would have thought a Duke Ellington song would have gotten into a Roy Rogers movie, but Dale Evans wins vocal honors here as she gets to sing I'm Beginning To See The Light in a nightclub setting.

Fans of John Wayne will recognize some of the footage of John Wayne's film In Old Oklahoma during the recreated Land Rush. I'm sure the idea for this film germinated with Herbert J. Yates not wanting to waste any of the expensive footage he shot for that film which was Republic Pictures big budget item from two years earlier.

Man From Oklahoma should satisfy the still legion of fans that Roy and Dale still have.

Roy and Dale end the feud between the Whittakers and Lanes

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 30 April 2019]

The Whittakers and Lanes of Oklahoma have been feuding since they came to the state in1889. Roy and Gabby Hayes are Whittakers, while Maude Eburne, as Grandma and Dale Evans, as Peggy, are Lanes........The beginning finds Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers, from Oklahoma, auditioning for a spot on a NYC radio program as country/western singers, believe it or not. Meanwhile, once neighbor, Dale is singing swing music at a fancy NYC nightclub. Roy gets a telegram from Gabby's brother that Gabby has had a stroke and is in a bad way. So, Roy and the boys decide they should ignore their new contract and visit Gabby. Only problem is they are broke. So, they go to Dale's nightclub and plead for travel money. She very reluctantly loans them the money.........When they arrive in Oklahoma, they discover that Dale had taken the same train, with no explanation. All are surprised to find Gabby perfectly healthy, after his brother, at the train station, had assured them that he was in a bad way. Seems Gabby wanted some help in countering the Lanes, whom he claimed were guilty of various depredations against him, including stealing horses. As Roy discovers, the horse thief actually is Jim Gardner, who has bought water drilling rights on part of the Lane estate, in Lone valley. Roy finds horses from both the Whittakers and Lanes there. Perhaps , Gardner is trying to foment friction between the 2. He wants to buy both the Lane and Whittaker halves of the valley. Roy notes that should end the fighting between the Whittakers and Lanes. However, Roy meets Little Bird: new wife of the oil-rich Chief Red Feather. She's selling water to Gardner. This greatly puzzles Roy, as Gardner is supposed to be drilling for water. Thus, Roy sneaks to Gardner's camp. After distracting the workers, he checks out the pump area, and finds petroleum. Now, he knows why Gardner is so anxious to buy the valley. But, Gardner may not have to buy it. Incongruously, Grandma Lane has offered her side of the valley to the winner of the annual wagon race. Not to be outdone by a Lane, Gabby likewise offers his half to the winner. Neither knows that oil has been discovered in the valley........ Gardner has his men sneak to the Whittaker's barn, where the wagons are kept, and set it ablaze. All the wagons are destroyed. Roy gets the idea to borrow several water wagons from Little Bird. She agrees. Gabby will drive one, but, for some reason(?), Roy opts out of driving the other. Half way through the race, the driver of the remaining Lane wagon quits, saying it's too dangerous, having seen several wagons wreck. Unclear why Roy, Dale and Grandma are beside the road at this point? Anyway, it's decided that Roy will take over, thus a Whittaker will drive a Lane wagon. Roy offers to split the prize with Dale, if he wins. Well, close to the finish line, Roy is clearly in the lead, with Gardner's wagon next. But, suddenly his wagon detaches from the horses, and the wagon turns over. Luckily, Roy isn't seriously hurt. Gardner's rig is declared the winner. However, during the evening festivities, a newsreel of the race is shown. Included is a segment showing a man jumping from Gardner's wagon to the flatbed of Roy's buckboard, then going underneath the wagon and messing with something. When the race judge sees this, he declares Garner's rig disqualified, and Roy the winner, even though he never crossed the finish line. The Whittakers and Lanes are happy, even though this result seems to restore things to their previous status. Roy and Dale look like a couple in the making, potentially starting out their life together oil rich.........As reviewer bkoganbing pointed out, parts of the wagon race appear to have been taken from the John Wayne film "In Old Oklahoma", which also involved petroleum. I particularly remember the large brush fires on either side of the road, engineered by the bad guys. Also, the many rigs that fell apart and crashed along the way, and the grinding of axels from parallel wagons. Despite the many very unlikely coincidences or other happenings in this film, I rate it as entertaining.

A Thoroughly Modern Western

[FightingWesterner · 7/10 · 22 December 2009]

Seeking fame and fortune in New York city, Roy Rogers and The Sons Of The Pioneers are called back to Oklahoma to help Gabby Hayes in his ongoing feud with Dale Evans' grandmother. Unbeknownst to both parties, the feud is being stoked by an unscrupulous businessman who discovered oil in the valley.

Unlike most Rogers vehicles, this fairly lavish Republic Pictures production never lets you forget that it's set in modern times. It starts in a New York skyscraper and ends with the villain being caught red-handed via newsreel footage, shown as part of a Broadway style song-and-dance number!

This has absolutely no gun play (except for Dale's grandmother's shotgun) and very little brawling. However, the climax features an exciting, action-packed wagon race re-creating the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, loaded with heroics and villainous skulduggery.

Man From Oklahoma features some great songs by Roy, Dale, Bob Nolan, and The Sons Of The Pioneers.

The Lanes and Whittakers are mighty dim in this one!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 4 November 2020]

"Man From Oklahoma" is a pretty bad film....and I don't like saying that because I generally like Roy Rogers movies. But the plot is poor, the finale very stupid and the film offered little that I enjoyed.

Now before I go on, I should point out that I could not find the original version of this movie but watched one that was edited down for television back in the 1950s. And, inexplicably, they removed some plot but left in two god-awful songs that clearly did nothing to advance the plot. You wonder WHO was in charge of editing this down to a television time slot. Was his mother or brother in one of those song and dance numbers?! And, why keep one of the numbers in particular..the very offensive Cherokee song that is guaranteed to make anyone (particularly Native Americans) wince!!

The story begins with Roy and his band stuck in New York City after a crook stole their money. In desperation, Roy approaches Peggy Lane (Dale Evans) and begs her for a loan so they can return home to Oklahoma, where they think Gabby is on death's door. This is desperate, as the Whitakers (of which Roy is one) and Lanes hate each other and have been feuding ever since the Land Rush of 1889! That's a LONG time to hold a grudge! Inexplicably, she does give him the money and they head back home. Also inexplicably, although Peggy never mentioned it, she is also back in Oklahoma now...and seems to have beaten Roy and the band there!

Soon the nasty feuding (with words only, fortunately) is on again and Gabby (who is NOT dying) and the matriarch of the Lanes (Maude Eburne) start trying to one-up each other at the festival....and it gets both sides in major trouble. Both the Whitaker and Lane properties are put up by the two old goats as the prizes for whoever wins the big wagon race. But they didn't consider that a Lane or Whitaker wouldn't win...as the evil J.J. Gardner plans on winning at ALL costs. Why? Because he alone knows that the Lane and Whitaker clans are rich and don't realize it, as the land is rich in oil! What's next? Why, the big race...and the future of the Lane and Whitaker clans!

The songs are terrible. But what REALLY is terrible is the finale where Gardner's men cheat horribly. This is because apparently there were about a dozen invisible camera crews who caught every single incident of cheating...with one impossible close-up camera shot after another after another. Heck, the camera people would have needed to have been in wagons along side the Gardner wagon to get half the shots!! It was just stupid and horribly handled and showed a lot of contempt for the audience watching this film. And, no one noticed any of this until footage of the race was shown later!!! All in all, a huge letdown of a movie...with a dumb ending.

"A Lane hasn't got sense enough to listen to a Whittaker!"

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 15 March 2022]

Entertaining it is as usual for a Roy Rogers flick, but a lot of the story doesn't make sense, so just settle back and go along with it. At the center of the story is a decades long feud between the Whittaker clan and the Lane Family, with Roy and Peggy Lane (Dale Evans) on opposite sides. You'd never know it though, since the bickering is more like the good natured variety, and Roy even agrees to drive a Lane wagon during the Oklahoma Land Rush celebration, now in its fifty sixth year! What doesn't seem rational is why both the Whittakers and Lanes would each offer up their half ownership of Lone Valley to the winner of the big race. With your usual expected villain (Roger Pryor) lurking in the background trying to take advantage by sabotaging the race and by proxy, winning the land with its newly discovered oil riches, the heat is on Roy to win the race and outsmart the bad guys. What could have been a bad day for both families is eventually set right when newsreel footage of the race shows how a Gardner henchman sabotaged the rig Roy was racing for the Lanes, thereby earning him the win for both families. I have to agree with another viewer who stated how it would have been impossible to get the incriminating film footage, but one generally doesn't go into these pictures with a rigid reality test. Made for young matinee fans of the Forties, the film makers could dispense with real life and simply go along for entertainment value. This one delivers if you go along with the flow.

And The Girl From There

[boblipton · 5/10 · 26 July 2023]

Gabby Hayes and Maude Eburne have been feuding since they became neighbors in the Oklahoma Land Rush, which means that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans must also be feuding, even though Roy is his usual amiable self.

There is no gun play in this entry in Rogers' series, although there is a big fire and a Land Rush Reenactment Race offer some excitement. Most of the songs are forgettable, although Miss Evans sings a nice version of "Beginning To See The Light" at the beginning. Frank MacDonald is the director here, so the more usual sort of plot is downplayed in favor of comedy .... which, alas, has not aged all that well. With Roger Pryor, Si Jenks, Eddie Kane, and the usual players in Rogers' movies.