BY JOHN M. WHALEN
“Springtime
in the Sierras†(1947) is one of Roy Rogers’ better movies. There are three or
four great action scenes, half a dozen songs, a solid cast, including the most
cold-blooded villainesses to ever show up at a Saturday matinee, and a worthy
theme dealing with wildlife protection. Republic Pictures must have splurged on
the budget for this one too, just for wardrobe alone. By my count Roy wore a
dozen of those colorful western shirts that John McClain said he was so partial
to. It’s a very cool movie but it’s a pity that most people have only seen a
version of it that has 20 minutes of footage missing. A quarter of the original
75 minute version ended up on the cutting room floor back in the 1950s, when it,
along with many other of Rogers’ movies, were sold to television and had to be
edited to fit into a one-hour TV broadcast. That’s the bad news. The good news
is that there is a full-length version available. It’s not perfect but better
than the alternative. We’ll get into the details later.
“Springtime
in the Sierras†starts with Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers delivering a herd
of horses to Jean Loring (Stephanie Bachelor) the new owner of the Lazy W ranch
in the Sierra Nevada country where Roy grew up. Things seem normal at first except
for an abandoned fawn that Roy finds wondering in the forest. He takes the fawn
to an animal sanctuary run by his old friend, game warden Cap Foster (Harry
Cheshire), where he finds the fawn’s mother dying of a gunshot wound. Foster
tells him a lot of animals are being killed out of season by a gang of professional
hunters who sell the illegal meat at a high profit to big city restaurants and
private clubs.
Roy leaves
the game warden, who puts Bambi’s mother out of her misery, and goes into town
where he meets with old friends, brother and sister Bert (Harold Landon) and
Taffy Baker (Jane Frazee). Taffy is gaga over Roy and while Bert seems to be
glad to see Roy, there’s a dark cloud of some kind hanging over him. The next
day Roy spots a hunter with a high-powered rifle and chases him through the
woods. The hunter manages to get away, but Roy suspects, much to his dismay,
that it was Bert. A little later, Cap Foster comes upon the gang of hunters,
which, as it turns out, includes Bert, and attempts to place them under arrest.
Jean Loring, with her vicious sidekick Matt Wilkes (Roy Barcroft), comes up
behind Foster and take his gun. Bert is horrified when Jean aims Cap’s pistol
at the game warden, saying very casually, “This might hurt a little,†and
cold-bloodedly shoots him. For a movie filled with cuddly animals, and cowboy serenades,
this, nonchalant burst of brutality comes as a shock. It certainly unnerves
Bert, who decides he no longer wants any part of the hunting racket.
Let’s stop
the action here and discuss this unusual twist in the screenplay by A. Sloan
Nibley, who wrote this and several of Roy’s other flicks. Normally a writer
would have had Roy Barcroft, as Jean Loring’s henchman, do the killing. But
Nibley and director William Witney give the story a decidedly dark turn by having
the femme fatale shoot him herself. And from that point on the story takes a
decidedly weird direction, especially when Cookie Bullfincher (Andy Devine),
the local photographer, tells Roy that shortly after Loring bought the ranch
she had a bunch of refrigeration equipment brought in. Dum-de-dum-dum. Of
course I don’t have to tell you that the freezers are used to store the illegal
meat and that it won’t be too long before Roy and Bert both end up hogtied and
left to turn into popsicles in one of the freezers.
While Roy and
Bert freeze, Jean is all smiles hosting a big party for everyone, as a farewell
tribute to the late Cap Foster no less. She was a cold one. Obviously Roy isn’t
going to freeze to death, and I don’t want to give away the ending, but I will
say it involves the use of a large white truck. That’s right a truck. And that’s exactly what makes Roy Rogers’
movies so unique. Up until that scene, which is near the end of the movie,
we’ve seen every one riding on horseback, dressed in cowboy outfits in scenes
that could have taken place in the 1880s. But now all of a sudden there’s a big
1947 Ford Box Truck in the movie and you know what? We really don’t even notice
the incongruity. We’re not jolted by it because Roy Rogers’ movies take place
in a world of their own. In a Roy Rogers movie, the horses and stagecoaches of
the Old West exist in the same world as modern day airplanes, cars, radios and
movies.
Quentin
Tarantino, who is a big William Witney and Roy Rogers fan, in an interview once
said Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly†tops his Top Ten List of
great movies, because Leone creates his own world in his films. He said Leone
is a combination of “a complete film stylist, where he creates his own world,
and storyteller.†The same thing is true in a good Roy Rogers film, especially
those directed by Witney. They exist in Roy Rogers’ special world, and it’s a
damn cool world.
While the
most often seen version of “Springtime in the Sierras†is the 55-minute one,
back in 2012 Film Chest released a DVD that it billed as a “restored†version
“in its original Trucolor.†At the current time, it’s the only full-length
version available, but if you’re expecting to see a Blu-ray quality picture in
vivid color and detail, you’ll be disappointed. There’s been no attempt to
clean up the DVD, and the result is something about as good as a decent VHS
tape. It’s a far cry from Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray restoration of “Sunset in the
West,†which has brilliant color and sharp picture detail. What has been
“restored†in “Springtime in the Sierras,†apparently, is the film’s original
75-minute length. The DVD has gone out of print but is still available through
Amazon and other outlets, and until someone like Kino Lorber, decides to
restore it on Blu-Ray, it’s the best version available.
There’s
another feature that makes this DVD even more worth checking out. As a bonus
feature, there’s a copy of a 1961 Chevy Show, an Easter special starring Roy
and Dale Evans, with special guests that include Charley Weaver and a rare live
appearance by Martin Milner and George Maharis, the two dudes from the “Route
66†TV series. They actually do a live Chevy commercial—something they never
did on “Route 66,†even though Chevrolet sponsored the adventures of the two
guys in the Corvette. Maharis, who was trying to launch a singing career at the
time, gets to sing “Free and Easy.†It’s a real curiosity. Does anybody do
Easter specials anymore?
So there it
is—the good the bad and the ugly of “Springtime in the Sierras.†All in all, it’s
a DVD worth owning until a truly “restored†version becomes available. Happy
Trails.
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(John M. Whalen is the author of "Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto". Click here to order from Amazon.)