Grand Canyon Trail (1948) User Reviews

Wasn't that the guy who played.......?

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 17 April 2002]

"Grand Canyon Trail" is another in the series of Trucolor musical westerns turned out by Republic Pictures in the late 40's starring Roy Rogers. This one is one of the better series entries.

The plot concerns the efforts by Roy and the boys to find a lost silver mine. The musical content is kept to a minimum and Director William Witney keeps the action flowing.

What makes this film interesting is its supporting cast. Robert Livingston, who only a few short years before had been Republic's up and coming star, plays the chief villain. He is probably best remembered for his role as Stoney Brooke in the Three Mesquiteer series. In the best Witney tradition, Livingston murders a helpless old prospector. Roy Barcroft is along as Livingston's chief henchman.

Old time movie fans will recognize Laurel & Hardy's old foil Jimmy Finlayson as the sheriff. Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage replace The Sons of the Pioneers in this one. Jane Frazee in the Dale Evans role and Andy Devine as "Cookie" round out the cast.

Not a bad way to spend an hour or so.

Silver Mine Swindle

[Henchman_Number1 · 6/10 · 15 June 2014]

Roy Rogers becomes entangled in murder and larceny after his friends (Andy Devine) and singing ranchers (Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage) invest $20,000 in a seeming worthless silver mine. When an old prospector who might know where the silver is located disappears, Roy suspects that the project's mining engineer (Robert Livingston) could be behind it. Seeking proof of a crime, Roy's investigation becomes even more complicated when the mine owner's secretary masquerading as his daughter (Jane Frazee) arrives in town. In a case of mistaken intentions Frazee constantly thwarts Roy's attempts to bring the bad guys to justice.

The ghost town set and dark abandoned hotel form the stage for this action oater. Roy's nine pictures with Andy Devine marked a real difference in style from earlier movies. Andy was brought in after Gabby Hayes left the series in 1946. While Andy still provided comic relief, the villains grew more ruthless and Roy sang less. Here there are only three pretty good non-action stopping tunes in the movie. Comedy of Errors inspired sequence in the spooky hotel about halfway through seems a little out of sync with the rest of the movie.

Originally filmed in "Trucolor", seemingly only the black and white prints remain on this one. Unfortunately as with a lot of the later Roy Rogers movies, this one was later chopped to bits to reduce the runtime from 67 minutes down to 54 to fit for television. Good news here is that unlike a few of Roy's other movies where the chopped footage appears lost forever, Grand Canyon Trail can still be found intact in the full length version. For Roy Rogers Fans it's worth the effort to find to 67 minute unedited format.

Pretty decent Roy Rogers flick. 6 of 10*

Not a single canyon in the whole movie!

[stevehaynie · 6/10 · 15 August 2006]

Grand Canyon Trail is another of the Trucolor Roy Rogers films that has shown up on DVD from a black and white print. That does not take away from the movie since black and white was so common at the time anyway.

Roy appeared kind of dumb in this one, and so did everyone else. It was customary for the lead cowboy to be able to figure out the crooks' plan and identify the leader. Roy took forever to suspect Regan, and it was only after other characters helped him that he ever learned anything. Instead of standing on guard duty and being prodded by Cookie, Foy, and the Riders of the Purple Sage, he should have already scouted around looking for clues. As much interaction as there was between the cowboys and Regan's crew someone should have suspected something sooner. There was no battle of wits. Carol Martin never figured out who wanted to hurt her and who wanted to save her until almost the end of the movie despite how obvious it was.

Roy got in a lot of fist fights in this one. More than once he got clobbered over the head and knocked out. Andy Devine bounced people around with his stomach. The sound effect of a kettle drum would have been perfect if not for the fact that the movie was not a vehicle for slapstick comedy.

The Hangman Hotel was an abandoned old building that provided an opportunity for plenty of haunted house stick comedy. There were scenes of characters chasing from one room to the other with fights throughout the building and crossed paths between the good guys and bad guys. Seeing Andy Devine scream once is funny, but there can be too much of a good thing. The hotel was critical to the story as it was the site where a murder victim was discovered, but the hotel was over-used.

Seeing Robert Livingston go from the leader of the Three Mesquiteers to playing a villain is disheartening. Above all he was an actor who played the part of Regan perfectly. Watching past heroes playing villains or small roles always comes across as sad because few of them ever went back to the glory of their previous films.

Overall the story was good, but it I think the characters could have been developed a little better. Not a bad movie, Grand Canyon Trail is a lull in the Roy Rogers series despite having a great cast and, for some, Trucolor.

Enough Action to Make it Worthwhile

[Snow Leopard · 2 December 2002]

While it's probably just average among the many Roy Rogers features, there's enough action in "Grand Canyon Trail" to make it worth watching. The story is pretty thin this time. What there is of it has Roy, Andy Devine, and a spunky but sometimes misguided heroine battling the bad guys over a silver mine, while also having to deal with the usual dull-witted sheriff (played by an old silent comedy favorite, James Finlayson). There's also a supposedly haunted hotel that is mainly played for a few laughs, most of them at the expense of Divine's character. It does not always fit together as well as it could have, but there is plenty of action, plus a couple of songs, and it has pretty much everything you would expect from one of Rogers's movies.

"I hope you get bit by a rattlesnake!"

[classicsoncall · 4/10 · 7 August 2008]

I'd have to say that this was a little embarrassing for the 'King of the Cowboys'; made in 1948, the picture came out a decade after Roy Rogers' earliest pictures in which he had a starring role. Roy's character comes off as a bit clueless in this one, along with his female co-star Jane Frazee, who alternates her allegiance between Roy and Robert Livingston, portraying chief bad guy Bill Regan. The whole story seems kind of muddled, with missed opportunities for what could have been an entertaining hour or so. Like the legend of the 'Hangman's Hotel' for example, which says the hanged man comes to life at midnight. With Andy Devine in the cast as Cookie Bullfincher, you would think the story would get a little mileage out of that set up. Instead, you have some convoluted proceedings that would have been better served if this had been a Bowery Boys flick. It was a sad attempt at a haunted hotel gimmick that relied on poor old Genevieve, who truth be told, wound up getting more screen time than Trigger, who's contract as 'Smartest Horse in the Movies' didn't have anything to say about getting upstaged by a mule. And then you have Foy Willing and his Riders of the Purple Sage replacing Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers for your musical interlude. I don't know about you, but it was already half way into the picture and I was still looking for Pat Brady - oh well!

Yet there was still an interesting element to be found here if you were looking hard enough, and that turned out to be Roy's athletic dismount of Trigger while still on the run from the bad guys. OK, it was probably a stunt double, but I haven't seen that one before in a couple hundred Westerns.

Jane Frazee does the honors as the female lead in this picture, as she would in four other films opposite Roy in the 1947/1948 time frame. In "Under California Stars", she appeared as Andy Devine's cousin, appropriately named Caroline Bullfincher. You're never quite convinced what side she'll come in on in this story though, since she starts out pretending to be someone she's not, and winds up on the good guy side almost by accident.

Fans of the old Laurel and Hardy films might be as surprised as I was to see James Finlayson here as the Sheriff of Sintown. I would have liked a little more comedy relief written into his role, but he played it pretty straight after all. I had to wonder, when it was all over, why he and old Vanderpool (Charle Coleman) wound up in the mine shaft with Cookie when there was no reason for that to be. Just a way to close it out I guess, with about as much thought as went into the rest of the picture. I hate to be that harsh, but if you've seen enough Roy Rogers flicks, you've got to know that this was not one of his finer efforts.

Say, Sintown - I wonder if that's the same place that grew up to be Sin City?

roy rogers, andy devine. and trigger of course.

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 18 March 2022]

Is there silver in sintown or not? Half the folks think its a swindle and the other half thinks there's still treasure down there. Carol (jane frazee) is willing to take a chance and get investors in on the deal. She gets off on the wrong foot with roy rogers (and his horse trigger)... she fires him, not realizing he's not even an employee. Regular sidekick andy devine is in here as cookie. Turns out regan, one of the hired hands, wants to keep the silver for himself. This has all the usual fistfights, the horse chases. The mining schemes from republic pictures. Throw in a haunted house too! It's silly, but it's roy rogers in his prime. Directed by bill witney. Story by gerald geraghty. He worked on 19 films with roy rogers! Then died young at age 47.

Bad Investment

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 15 May 2011]

Some poor editing prevents this particular Roy Rogers western from being one of his better ones from Republic. The Grand Canyon Trail also does not have the greatest group of songs.

The story line gets a bit incoherent at times. Jane Frazee comes west to see if an old silver mine that her boss Charles Coleman had sold stock in was really played out as chief engineer Bob Livingston has told them. She thinks not. Also investigating is Roy Rogers who because Andy Devine invested his money in this silver mine has now a real interest in seeing it's not a dud.

Old timer Emmett Lynn might have the key, but he's rather inconveniently disappeared. It's the sloppy editing around his part that makes the plot hard to follow at times, you have to fill in the blanks.

Former Mesquiteer Livingston shows up this time on the wrong side of the law and perennial western villain Roy Barcroft is his chief henchman.

Andy Devine usually provides a lot of the comedy in the Roy Rogers films of this period, but we have a special treat in the person of familiar Laurel&Hardy stooge James Finlayson. Jimmy plays a rather dull witted sheriff who Frazee and the Riders of the Purple Sage get him tangled in his own handcuffs. Finlayson must have thought he was back with Stan and Ollie with that routine. All done on a moving stagecoach as well. I wish we had more Finlayson in the film.

The Grand Canyon Trail while not anything outstanding should please a lot of Roy Rogers fans out there.

For a completely depleted mine, there sure are a lot of folks trying to prevent Roy from seeing it!

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 15 October 2020]

I saw the complete black & white version of "Grand Canyon Trail". I say complete because many Roy Rogers films were trimmed in the 1950s to fit television time slots but the one I found on YouTube was complete.

The story is pretty simple. An old silver mine was thought to be depleted but recently there's been some indication that much more could be extracted using modern mining techniques. Cookie (Andy Devine) is so sure this will pan out (get it?) that he invests all of his and Roy's money in this mine. Soon after, the scene switches to the mine owner and his secretary....and he's just received word that the mine is NOT going to be productive and all the investors will be screwed.

Roy goes to investigate and meets one of the worst tropes in these old B-westerns...the know-it-all woman who instantly takes a dislike to him even though Roy is a hero and a swell guy. Much of the movie is spent with her yelling at Roy or sicking the sheriff (James Finlayson...a most unusual casting choice) on him. But there's more to the mine than the stories the mine owner has gotten...and the fact that the workers try so hard to prevent Roy and this super-annoying woman from getting close to it tips him off about their scheme to defraud everyone! What's next? See the film.

This is a pleasant film aside from the woman you want to violently shame and tell to shut up!! That is why although Rogers was fine here, I cannot give the film a score any higher...the trope has been so overused and is so annoying. Plus, it doesn't age well and seems pretty sexist. Still, the movie is worth seeing...just try to ignore her antics.

A Mule in Sintown

[wes-connors · 2/10 · 7 September 2007]

Roy Rogers and company try to bring "Sintown" back to life - it's a ghost town which may go boom if silver mining is successful. Andy Devine (as "Cookie") slapsticks around. Jane Frazee (as Carol) loses a piece of her bitches to Mr. Rogers' sharp leer. Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage stand-in (or, is that sing-in?) for the A.W.O.L. Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. James Finlayson (from the Laurel and Hardy films) adds to the "slapstick" look of "Grand Canyon Trail". A loose floor board delivers the winning comedy performance. Mr. Devine's mule kicks its heels. There are energetic human performances, too - but, the material isn't Grand.

** Grand Canyon Trail (1948) William Witney ~ Roy Rogers, Jane Frazee, Andy Devine

Deserted Ghost Town

[StrictlyConfidential · 5/10 · 15 September 2021]

"Grand Canyon Trail" was originally released back in 1948.

Anyway - As the story goes - A crooked mining engineer hopes to convince his millionaire silver magnate boss the mines in Sintown are worthless, then taking the silver for his own. The magnate's secretary is suspicious of the engineer so she heads to Sintown to investigate the mines.

Roy Meets Wall Street

[dougdoepke · 21 January 2017]

Plot-- Roy stumbles into business dealings surrounding a lost silver mine. In the process, he meets up with a spunky girl and some sneaky crooks. Good thing Andy's around to help.

This Front Row Geezer really enjoyed the 67-minutes. Especially a spirited Jane Frazee who all but steals the show with her assertive Carol Vanderpool or is it Martin. Oh well, either way she's a scene stealer. Roy gets to do a lot of well choreographed flying fists, and I hope they paid him double for his extra trouble. And, of course, Andy Devine is Andy Devine, but with less clowning than usual. Catch that early scene with Roy and Frazee on the stagecoach—it's a little gem of battling attraction between guy and gal. Frazee was a really good foil for Rogers, as, I guess, both Roy and Dale knew.

There's some canyon scenery, but not much. Most of the action settles into familiar greater LA locations. And what about that hurricane Katrina slammed place called Sin Town and a hotel called Hangman's that shows all the litter and crud that the studio could muster. They're like nothing I've seen in an oater. Not much hard riding or fast shooting, but likely enough for matinée fans, including myself. All in all, it's a good action-filled Republic production. My only complaint is the bland b&w instead of Technicolor. But Trigger still looks good, even if upstaged by a sombrero-wearing mule.

A "7" on the Matinée Scale