Robin Hood of Texas (1947) User Reviews

Gene's last for Republic Studios...and it's a pretty good one.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 6 April 2023]

It's interesting that I watched another Gene Autry film, "Saddle Pals" before I watched "Robin Hood of Texas" because many of the cast members are the same....the Cass County Boys, Lynne Roberts as well as Sterling Holloway. Considering that both films were made by Republic in 1947, this isn't totally surprising. What is surprising is that Holloway plays a hypochondriac in both!

When the story begins, Gene and his friends (the Cass County Boys) are broke and need money fast. A man offers them $40 to sing outside his store and they quickly take this job. But the man turns out to be a crook and he wanted the band to sing to distract folks from a robbery! Not surprisingly, the law thinks Gene and his pals were in on it...but without a lot of evidence they decide to let them out of jail...hoping that they'll soon meet up with the robbers. Oddly, and for no logical reason at all, one of the robbers DOES show up at the dude ranch Gene and his friends operate...and soon more follow.

Overall, this is an enjoyable change of pace. Sure, the fact that the gang shows up at the dude ranch makes little sense...but if you ignore that, you'll likely enjoy this murder mystery western.

"Howdy partner. That's cow talk."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 19 February 2012]

With no sidekick to speak of, Gene Autry teams up with the Cass County Boys in a fairly standard oater where they're arrested as accomplices in a bank robbery, but are then let off the hook, presumably to lead the authorities to the rest of their gang. They head off to Serenity, Texas and nearby Hidden Valley, where Cass County member Jerry (Jerry Scoggins) has inherited a ranch along with his sister Virginia (Lynne Roberts). With little money and bills coming due, Gene hits on the idea of turning the spread into the Serenity Rest Ranch, a place where harried city folk can go to find some peace and quiet.

What passes for the comedy relief in the picture is handled by Sterling Holloway doing a hypochondriac gimmick. His character Droopy Haynes gets entirely flustered if he's overdue a medication or misses ten o'clock bedtime by more than a minute. For some reason I always liked seeing Holloway in these stories when I was a kid, so catching him in this one today on Encore Westerns was a welcome treat.

What's somewhat different about this picture is that once the story focuses on the bad guys, they wind up having a fall out over the hundred grand they robbed to open the picture. Duke Mantel (James Cardwell) robs his partners at gunpoint, and wouldn't you know it, heads for Hidden Valley for his own version of rest and relaxation. When the rest of the outlaws catch up with him, it's curtains for Duke, while the remaining hoods continue to battle it out among themselves.

By my count there were only four songs in this Western, unusual for an Autry flick where he often got in as many as nine tunes between himself and his supporting cast. Except for serenading Miss Virginia once, all the rest were done with the Cass County Boys providing backup. The one thing I kept thinking about while watching this one was the name of that villain Duke Mantel. I wondered if it might have been inspired at all by Humphrey Bogart's character in the 1936 film "The Petrified Forest". Bogey was a bank robber in that one, and he went by the name of Duke Mantee.

Standard Autry film

[funkyfry · 5/10 · 30 October 2002]

Basically your regular Autry picture. Judging by this one and the other Autry pics I've seen from just after the War, it looks like here Republic was trying to depart with each film from standard oater locations. In the case of this one, though, when they decided to add big-city bank robbers, a search for the stolen money, and a noir-esque gun moll to the Autry brew, they did little to thicken the stew. Diverting, but standard. And........ where is Robin Hood?

Robin Hood of Texas

[frontrowkid2002 · 3 January 2009]

Robin Hood of Texas was one of five movies Gene Autry made for Republic, while waiting for the courts to decide if his contract was still valid after serving in the Army Air Corps. Autry maintained that the time limit had expired while he was in the service and Republic claimed that they still had the right to his services. Autry had returned to Republic to find that Roy Rogers was known the Western king of the box office. He wanted to produce his own films over at Columbia, but needed a release from Republic. Robin Hood of Texas was heavy on music and comedy, using the talents of the Cass County Boys, Autry's musical back-up on his radio show. Republic used the term "Robin Hood" in several of their movies to create the image of the hero who often had to flee from the law to capture the real thieves. In this particular picture, Autry and his friends are accused of assisting bank robbers make their getaway.

Random Title For Autry's Last Republic Flick

[boblipton · 5/10 · 30 August 2023]

Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys are broke, but they've got a gig to play in front of a saddle store. It turns out that they've been hired by bank robbers, why want a distraction while they hit the bank across the street. They get away with the money, and the cowpokes are thrown ino the pokey as part of the gang. While there, one of their number gets a telegram that he and his sister, Lynne Roberts, have inherited a ranch. The cops let them go, figuring they'll meet up with the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Gene and company have converted the worthless ranch into a dude rest ranch for tired city slickers. James Cardwell steals the money from the other bank robbers and decides to hide out on the ranch. Eventually the others make their way there.

Autry's last movie for Republic is directed by the competent Lesley Selander, and there are the usual good songs like "The Merry-Go-Round Roundup" and "Going Back To Texas" and a couple of nice stunt sequences. The story makes sense, although it sags a little in places, and the title makes no sense at all. With Sterling Holloway and Adele Mara.

Gene's last for Republic!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 30 January 2018]

Even worse than "Sioux City Sue", however, is Gene's final fling at Republic, "Robin Hood of Texas" (1947). No, our genial Gene isn't Robin Hood. True, there's a bit of robbin' in the movie and four hoods, but no Robin Hood. Instead of an English fairy tale legend, writers John Butler and Earle Snell drew their inspiration from Fred Allen's 1945 remake, "It's in the Bag", based on the famous Russian picture, "The Twelve Chairs" (1933). They probably reasoned that Gene's hayseed audiences were far too simple-minded to appreciate Fred Allen either as a radio or movie entertainer and thus they could easily get away with recycling the chairs. Director Leslie Selander and associate producer Sidney Picker likewise treated Gene's audience with contempt when they cobbled a fake climax, mixing inserts from a previous Autry entry of the real Gene riding the real Champion with a really extensive amount of "new" footage of Gene's double riding Champion's double up hill and down dale in pursuit of a couple of fleeing bank robbers.

A good cast (including Lynne Roberts) was wasted in this one, although Adele Mara did what she could to spice up the scenes-even to the point of offending the censor.. True, if you're not expecting much of producer Sidney "Saddle Pals" Picker, you may find this one fairly entertaining. Let's just say that Gene's opinion of Picker was somewhat less. It wasn't Picker he picked to take with him to Gene Autry Productions but Armand Schaefer who'd produced some of his best movies including my number one favorite, "The Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge" (1937).

Gene Autry: a decoy for the law.

[michaelRokeefe · 5/10 · 3 September 2006]

This Republic Picture has Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys accused of bank robbery. To prove their innocence, Gene and the boys are used as decoys to find the missing money. A dude ranch is renovated and who is among the first to check into the Serenity Ranch; dudes for sure, two rival groups of gangsters with two purposes...to hideout and search for the stolen money. Plenty of action; the usual fisticuffs, horse and car chases plus Gene and the Cass County Boys sing several songs including: "Going Back to Texas" and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down".

Where is Texas? This oater is filmed in Chatworth, California. To be exact...where is Robin Hood? Among the list of players: Sterling Holloway, Lynne Roberts, Adele Mara, James Cardwell and Ray Walker.

'Robin Hood' was a Republic catchword

[corporalko · 8/10 · 13 October 2015]

This is a different Gene Autry film, not featuring either a lot of music or a lot of action. That's why I gave it only an "8" instead of a "10." But the complaining some other reviewers did about "Where's Robin Hood?" was explained by the first review posted above. It was a phrase often used by Republic Pictures to identify a movie in which the hero has to defy the "powers that be" in order to catch the bad guys and return the working people's money that has been stolen -- as Gene does in this film about a bank robbery in which he and his partners, the Cass County Boys, are accused (unfairly) of being "accomplices." A series of coincidences leads Autry and the Cass County Boys to a dude ranch they set up on property inherited by one of the Boys. The "bad guys" who robbed the bank, one by one show up there, thinking the money they stole has been hidden on the ranch, and so does an undercover police officer who still believes Gene and the Boys were somehow "in cahoots" with the crooks.

While there is not very much action in the film as a whole, the climactic scene involves a hell-for-leather pursuit of the two remaining bad guys by Gene on Champ, and a fist fight among the three aboard a barreling, two-up farm wagon.

An element not mentioned by any other review I've read is the amoral evil of the bank robbers -- attractive men (and one woman), well-dressed, but with absolutely no compunction about killing each other off in order to make off with the entire load of swag.

All in all, a good, and different, Gene Autry flick. Sometimes "different," IS good.

Autry's final roundup for Republic

[hines-2000 · 10/10 · 28 December 2021]

Things start off with a bang when Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys play a show in the middle of town unwittingly hired to front for a bank hold-up. Things get even more lively when one of the boys is willed a ranch and they arrive to find the gorgeous and talented Lynne Roberts playing the piano. Detective Lacey (Ray Walker) arrives as a guest undercover and Sterling Holloway comes on strong with his comic shenanigans as a hypochondriac futilely trying to get some peace and quiet. James Caldwell, who left us too soon is next to arrive as the Duke with the lute. The kingpin Jim Prescott (Archie Twitchell) is hot on Duke's trail. He's accompanied by his undercover nurse, the lady who taught John Wayne to Jitterbug, Adele Mara. Good to see the most versatile actor in the business Al Bridge, Fred Ziffel himself Hank Patterson and everyone's favorite grandmother Dorothy Vaughan.

A "5"on the Matinée Scale

[dougdoepke · 21 October 2014]

There's a slam-bang finale with-- surprise, surprise-- some good rear-projection. Usually, a matinée production's got the rear-projection going one speed while the horse or buckboard goes another. Not here. Anyhow, Gene and crew start up a dude ranch, even while the cops think they've robbed a bank. Meanwhile, the real baddies show up, except they're even meaner to each other than to Gene. It's a more complex screenplay than usual, playing more like a modern crime drama than an oater. Frankly, too much so for my liking, plus too much time is spent indoors rather than out. Nonetheless, the bad guys really are a convincing lot, while there're two eye-candy girls instead of just one. Holloway does comic relief, but in a less annoying way than usual. On the whole, it's a rather odd Autry oater, his last for Republic. His new studio, Columbia, would provide a big production boost. Good!

A "5" on the matinée scale.