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Song of Old Wyoming
USA 1945
produced by Robert Emmett Tansey for PRC
directed by Robert Emmett Tansey
starring Eddie Dean, Lash La Rue (= Al La Rue), Sarah Padden, Ian Keith, Jennifer Holt, Emmett Lynn, Robert Barron, Pete G. Katchenaro, Rocky Camron (= Gene Alsace), Bill Lovett, Horace Murphy, Don Williams, Johnny Carpenter, Frank Ellis, Chick Hannon, Steve Clark, Richard Cramer, Lee Bennett, Jack Tornek
story by Robert Emmett Tansey, screenplay by Frances Kavanaugh, musical director: Carl Hoefle, songs by Carl Hoefle, Milt Mabie, performed by Eddie Dean
Eddie Dean and Lash La Rue, Cheyenne Kid
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Ma Conway (Sarah Padden) is a resolute woman who doesnt't only run a
big ranch but also the local newspaper, which promotes for wyoming to join
the Union ... much to the dismay of crooked politician Lando (Ian Keith)
and shady banker Dixon (Robert Barron), who see their illegal businesses
endangered. So they hire notorious outlaw Cheyenne Kid (Lash La Rue) to
break the woman. Cheyenne soon gets a job at Ma Conway's outfit, even
though she knows he's an outlaw, and while everyone else in her employ,
first and foremost her foreman Eddie (Eddie Dean), distrust Cheyenne, she
believes there's something good in everybody. Doesn't seem so at first
though because Cheyenne sees o it that by and by all her cattle is stolen,
her water supply is cut off, and her printing plant goes up in a boom. But
eventually, his conscience gets the better of Cheyenne, as Ma Conway was
the only one to ever give him a chance to be something other than an
outlaw ... and when he learns that he is actually Ma Conway's long-lost
son, it's easy for him to switch allegiances, and he plans to give all the
money he's to get for his job from Lando and Dixon (quite a um) to Ma
Conway. By that time though, Lando and Dixon have already decided to get
rid of Cheyenne once and for all and lure him into a trap, and they even
succeed in disarming him ... but Cheyenne is a master with the bullwhip,
and thanks to that, he has soon relieved some of Lando's men of their
guns, and engages the others in a big shoot-out. Still, Cheyenne seems to
be losing the fight when Ma's foreman Eddie and her farmhands arrive to
help out. In the finale, Cheyenne has to die of course, but he dies a
hero's death and takes Dixon and Lando to hell with him. Jennifer Holt
plays Eddie Dean's sweetheart who shows quite an interest in Lash La Rue. Routine
B-Western in which the plot is interrupted every now and again by one of
Eddie Dean's tunes, which somehow don't quite fit in with the film's story
as such, more often than not interruptint the film's pace. Other than
that, Eddie Dean is rather pale in this one, leaving center stage to Sarah
Padden as resolute rancher and Lash La Rue (in his first bigger role) as
the bad guy with a heart of gold. La Rue's performance comes off so well
in fact that it's hardly surprising that he soon got the lead in the Fuzzy
and Lash-series, playing a role modelled closely after the one
in Song of Old Wyoming.
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