Frontier Town (1938) Online

Rodeo racketeers running a gambling/counterfeiting operation are finding their profits dwindling due to the fact that Tex Ritter seems to win every event. Soon Tex and his sidekicks are running from a murder charge, protecting a girl and her brother from the gang and trying to put the wrap on the gang.

Without much action, this is not really one of Ritter's best outings, though he's as likable as ever, rising above the material with his breezy good-natured attitude. Though his surroundings are pretty turgid, he sails effortlessly through the movie and sings some pretty good songs.

The best scene involves Tex's card game with the villains.

Tex "Lansing" is winning quite a few events at the local rodeo, much to the chagrin of the leader of a gang who was hoping to win all the money himself. Tex's side kicks, Stubby and Pee Wee, are told to warn not to let Tex win the last event or Tex will be "pumped full of lead." Tex sings a song, wins all the events, and turns the sidekicks into nervous nellies (Pee Wee does a very convincing imitation of Judy Garland, in fact).

Tex, wandering the rodeo which has miraculously turned into a carnival, comes across a damsel in distress. Her brother, deep in gambling debt, has stolen twenty dollars and refuses to give it back. Tex saves the day and we are introduced to the stock love interest.

The story continues to wind itself around the horrors of counterfeit money, murder, and the acting abilities of Tex's love interest, "Gail Hawthorne" (Pee Wee, Tex's secondary love interest, gets a little "handsy" during a song and gets rejected. Oh the humanity!). As is usual with this kind of film you get sped up footage of horses running which adds considerably to the dramatic tensions:

Will Tex clear his name of murder? Will Tex make things right between Gail and her gambling brother Bob? Will Tex get the girl in the end? Will Tex finally figure out that Pee Wee has the hots for him?

Trash Bin

For a film which is set around the rodeo it strangely has no footage, stock or otherwise,of an actual rodeo,only of a rodeo audience.Apart from this it is competently made with the cowardly antics of sidekicks Murphy and Pollard amusing,the musical numbers are authentic and the dialog delivered by Ritter during the crooked poker game could have come from John Wayne or James Stewart in any A western.Look out for a bearded Hank Worden in a non-speaking bit part as one of Karl Hackett's gang.Hank would go on to become one of the western's best loved character actors ,probably second only to Walter Brennan,and worked into the 1990's with his last western being 'Once Upon a Texas Train' in 1988,