This Gene Autry western, Man From Music Mountain uses the opening of Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam as the springboard for the story of this B film. The dam will now provide electric power for the residents of three states and some sharp operators are going to take advantage.As this film is set in the modern west, it's a 20th century plot we're dealing with. Ivan Miller is the chief villain and he's selling real estate, lots in a ghost town to be precise. But the scam he's working is that with Boulder Dam in operation there will be power lines coming soon and there is a gold mine nearby. Oh, Miller's selling shares in that as well.As Gene and Smiley Burnette have dealt with Miller before, they smell a rat. But in trying to outsmart him, they nearly outsmart themselves. You'll have to see Man From Music Mountain to know what I mean.The feminine leads are Carol Hughes and Sally Payne who have traveled west and bought those lots to open a beauty salon. It was nice that Republic Pictures thought of giving Smiley Burnette a girl as well for a change.The title song is the only new song in the film that was not written by Gene Autry, but it's the best number in the film. It's not a bad B western with a topical event to center the plot around.

Gene Autry takes on land speculators who use the promise of electricity from the then new Boulder Dam to lure people to an old ghost town promising them not only cheap land and cheap power but also a share in a gold mine. Less action and more songs than many other Autry films I've seen this is a rather bland affair. Frankly its one of the few films where it's the music that's the reason to watch since most of the drama involves Autry and others going in an out of offices and shops and such. Most of the battles are verbal with only a runaway wagon at the start and a shoot out at the end being anything of the physical sort. For me it's a take it or leave proposition, with the best way to see it is stumbling upon it rather than seeking it out.

Not to be confused with the later Roy Rogers film (THE Man from Music Mountain), this is very much a Poverty Row assembly-line oater, yet it's also better than most by far. For one thing, Autrey's foe isn't so much a villainous individual as a corporate usurper trying to suck the lifeblood by duplicitous means from an already-impoverished mining town that might or might not have a still-unmined gold reservoir. FDR would approve! For another, the musical sequences are frequent and often humorously eccentric. (I loved the number partially played on sleigh bells.) The whole thing is pretty tongue-in-cheek, with more singin' and yappin' than ridin' and shootin' until the last reel. I saw fhis on a cheap DVD collection (50 Gunslinger Classics) and it looked fine. I need to fill ten lines, right? Kerfuffle. Kablooey.

Gene Autry stars in this 1938 vintage musical western. Things get shady when crooked real estate developers 'hoodwink' poor honest cattle ranchers. Worthless mining stock is sold for the asking in a desert mining town. Gene and his sidekick Frog Millhouse(Smiley Burnette)put the kibosh on the white-wash, when word circulates that gold has been found. The guitar slinging cowpoke sings several tunes including "Love Burning Love" and "I'm Beginning To Care". Even Frog strains his vocal chords with "She Works Third Tub At The Laundry". Other cast members include: Carol Hughes, Ed Cassidy, Polly Jenkins, Ivan Miller and Sally Payne. All in all...the Autry movies are pretty much formulated.