More traditional thrills up next with the festive musical western Trail of Robin Hood from 1950 starring Roy Rogers as a heroic cowboy named Roy, defending a ranch full of Christmas trees from a greedy villain. It’s a cheesy but enjoyable classic action-packed cowboy tale with Roy and his buddies riding out to save the day when a commercial Christmas tree company tries to run ex-movie star Jack Holt out of business. Jack’s had a successful career and is happy to sell trees from his ranch at no profit to ensure that even the poor can always afford one. Well, big business won’t stand for that. Cue some nasty tree-pinching bandits who’ll stop at nothing to spoil Christmas for everyone. Boo! Hiss!
It’s initially the Roy Rogers show - the charming, singing cowboy is on the side of the angels and he clashes with the bad guys a whole bunch of times in some riveting fist fights, horseback chases and plenty of heroic rescuing folk from fires.
Penny Edwards plays Toby, the pretty daughter of the evil business mogul, sent to town to try to straighten things out. Initially at odds with our hero, you can bet your ass that, after witnessing ol’ Roy in thrilling baddie-bashing action she’ll soon be swept off her purdy little feet by his manly ruggedness and oh-so-sweet singing voice.
Carol Nugent is also excellent as Roy’s pre-teen sidekick, Sis. She has her own cute little subplot where she wins and adopts a real live turkey named Galahad in the town’s annual turkey shoot, after awesomely outgunning all the bad guys. She then has to come to terms with the fact that the poor bird might just get eaten. Sis gets the lion’s share of the laughs as she’s constantly shown to be way more capable than the squabbling, bumbling men, whether it be shootin’, horse-ridin’ or just showing a wee bit of common sense.
The film from William Witney is action-packed and squeezes loads into its relatively short 67-minute runtime. I do wish that the stunts and fight scenes were better choreographed though, as I have trouble working out who’s slugging who half the time.
I normally hate musicals (as noted), but here I actually quite enjoy it whenever Roy smoothly segues into a little musical number about how every day is Christmas in the old west. It just seems to work for some reason and feels in keeping with the breezy spirit of the whole thing. Roy’s distinct brand of machismo has evidently convinced me to let my guard down and allow the showtunes in. The songs are cheesy but short and all extol the virtues of simple cowboy livin’ - it’s really a hard film to hate.
The best part, which must have been an absolute treat for fans of westerns of the ‘40s and ‘50s, comes when a whole crew of western movie stars from times gone by all show up at the climax to aid Jack and Roy in their clash against the tree rustlers. I hadn’t heard of most of these guys, but the internet reliably informs me that guys like Kermit Maynard, Tom Tyler and George Chesebro were all kind of a big deal at the time. Their sudden appearance en masse has been likened by modern audiences to that bit at the end of Avengers: Endgame when all the heroes show up at once to save the day, but for me the scene it reminded me most of was the big rival news team rumble Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Each star gets his own funny little badass intro before demonstrating his particular skill and joining the fray to kick some ass.
The movie is really rather Christmassy too for a Western, which I appreciate. There are some hilarious moments with comic relief character Splinters (Gordon Jones) clumsily falling from a great height while trying to decorate a massive Christmas tree. The whole subplot with the turkey is a gas, while Sis shouting “On Donner! On Blitzen…!” and so on from a speeding horse-drawn carriage during the chaotic finale is a nice touch. This is some knowingly corny but satisfying old-fashioned entertainment and also the only film I can think of about the cut-throat Christmas tree business. Films like this are good for the soul and this puts me in a cheery mood for the day.
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