Conspiracy theories are many in this western musical where the 12 year old son of a each hand is named as heir to the estate of the obviously murdered ranch owner. This infuriates the deceased man's only surviving relative, grasping Carol Hughes. It's up to singing cowboy Roy Rogers and visiting reporter Dale Evans to protect the heir and solve the crime, with the devoted help of the grizzled "Gabby" Hayes.Pleasant and surprisingly smart, this has several pleasant musical numbers and a warm performance by the lovable Ruby Dandridge (mother of Dorothy) as the ranch housekeeper who provides her own theories to what happened. Lanny Rees is sincere and brave as the reluctant heir. Evans, more of a personality than an actress, is better than normal in this, and even gets to sing a duet with Rogers in Spanish. Less formula and a slightly better script keeps this crackin'.

Sprightly Roy & Dale Western from Republic. It's a fine energetic cast livening up a familiar plot of keeping the ranch out of the clutches of the bad guys. Roy and Dale are reporters trying to out-scoop one another, and it's not hard to see why they stayed together as a team —their easy-going banter puts A-picture pizazz into a B-movie oater. Ditto, the great Gabby Hayes whose gruff comedy relief too often masked genuine acting talent. For example, scope out his versatility here. It's also well produced from Republic, with a lot of extras and even some location shots in the real Oklahoma (IMDB). That outdoor breakfast scene with all the local folks is charming. Of course there's the expected quota of action—a really rough fist-fight, some hard riding, and a pitched battle, all nicely paced by ace action director William Witney. Add vocals from the Sons of the Pioneers (I wish they had more) and you've got recipe for a really likable matinée Western. I guess my only negatives are the lack of good scenery and some rather poorly done process shots. Anyway, these are minor points. I'm just sorry these easy-going entertainments have ridden off into the proverbial sunset.

"Home in Oklahoma" finds Roy and Dale as rival newspaper reporters, he of the local Hereford Heaven Star, and Dale as Connie Edwards from the big city St. Louis Chronicle. I had a little trouble wrapping my head around the name of Roy's home town, could it really have been called Hereford Heaven? So I do a quick Google search and I'll be darned. There's a town in southern Oklahoma called Ada where they have an annual three day auction in the heart of Hereford heaven. The world record price for a prize bull this year was fifty one thousand dollars, only twenty one thousand more than the one in the picture. Not much inflation in prize bulls if you think about it considering the picture was made sixty four years ago.For a newspaper guy, Roy's considered the best scooper in the county, but I had to wonder if that depended on which end of the Hereford he was looking at. The bull in this picture is provided by the name challenged niece of the The Flying T Ranch, alternately called Jane, Jan and Jen throughout the story, at least to my ears. She's portrayed by Carol Hughes, looking an awful lot like Dale Evans, except Dale was blonde. By the time it's over, Jane comes close to capturing the title of most evil female villain in B Westerns, admitting to the murder of her uncle Sam Talbot, shooting undertaker Judnick in the back, and closing out the film by gunning down her partner Steve. But the worst of it was when she tried to kill the twelve year old orphan boy Duke (Lanny Rees) who inherited the ranch. That was one bad mama.Of course, Gabby Hayes is on hand as the ranch foreman hoping to keep his job following the death of Talbot. He has some fun at Dale's expense during the breakfast club initiation. Roy's regulars, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers are also around, handling a number of well placed songs including the title tune bookending the picture. Roy shares a duet with Dale in a lively little number called 'Miguelito'.What always gives me pause in these old Westerns is the way a lot of them approach the finale. The ending for this one is just a little insane if you stop and think about it. Jane's ranch hands are all gathered together in battle formation, and open fire as soon as Roy and his town crew come riding into view. I know it all made for good matinée viewing, but gee, were cowboys really settling their differences that way in the twentieth century? A couple of Roy's guys were mowed down in the charge and it seemed like just another day on the ranch.One last observation. Trigger usually got top billing with Roy in all their pictures, but this one made me curious. Sam Talbot's horse Major had more screen time here and helped out with solving the murder of his master. In effect, he had a bigger role in the story. Where was Trigger's agent on that one?

Local newspaper man Roy Rogers probes the death of one of his friends, a rancher and high-end cattle breeder thrown from his horse and ends up protecting the rancher's heir, an orphan boy, from the ruthless killers. Meanwhile, big city reporter Dale Evans plans to scoop Roy on the story.This is a decent enough cowboy murder mystery, with good performances by George "Gabby" Hayes, Ruby Dandridge (mother of Dorothy Dandrige), and Lanny Rees as the boy. Their scenes together are heart-warming.Roy and Dale have great chemistry here - no surprise, since they got married on location, immediately after shooting wrapped.The film's musical highlight is Bob Nolan and The Sons Of The Pioneers singing "The Everlasting Hills Of Oklahoma".The killer's identities are as plain as the nose on your face, but it's still pretty good.