Wells Fargo Days

This was originally released in 1939 by Monogram Studios. Then, in 1944 it was re-named and released by Warner Brothers--an odd occurrence to see a film re-released by a bigger studio. Apparently the film was actually made by the Cinecolor Company and I assume it was done to show off their color process. However, when I saw the film on Turner Classic Movies, it was ugly as can be--with garish, washed out colors that looked more like Two-Color Technicolor than the improved Three-Color process that was gaining popularity in the late 1930s. Now it is very possible that the print has just degraded over time and needs restoration. If it actually did look like this, then I can see why Cinecolor never became very popular.

The film is set in an old West town. A guy arrives because his girlfriend lives in this tiny town. However, she has made him promise to give up his guns and never wear them around town. As a result, he is seen by some as a coward. However, when the bank is robbed and his friend is shot, he rises to the occasion and proves his manliness.

This film is an odd little short film, as it's like an entire 70 minute western crammed into only 20 minutes. It's not at all bad, but very rushed. Also, the star, Dennis Moore, didn't have a huge amount of charisma. But, it's pleasant enough viewing nevertheless.

On top of a dull, uninspired script, badly acted and poorly directed, the final insult is the print shown on TCM is barely watchable. The Cinecolor photography looks like it was filmed underwater.

The short has Bob McAdams riding into the town of Sunrise and befriending the local sheriff Lon Carter. When Carter's Wells Fargo office is robbed by three of the local henchmen, it's up to McAdams to go gunning after them.

In the meantime, he has a few brief scenes with a leading lady who's just as inept as he is in the acting department.

Totally forgettable mini-western says nothing new, has nothing to offer but bad photography and amateurish performances. Forget about it.

The beauty of this two-reeler -- and its physical beauty has faded with the aging of its colorwork -- is that it seems to encompass every single western cliche in 20 minutes. Although it does lack a couple of the plotlines, it includes fancy shooting -- Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, galloping through the sward... ahem -- fancy riding, the pretty schoolmarm and the Old Coot. Yes, truly a western for the moviegoer on the go!

Warner Brothers and Monogram before them who originally produced this short subject western were probably anticipating the coming of television. A lot of early television westerns were cut down versions of B western movies. Roy Rogers films and the Hopalong Cassidy series were the ones most exhibited that way on the small screen at first.

B western hero Dennie Moore comes to a new town where it seems they have a foreign legion type code. Everybody there is wanted, but if they keep their noses clean they can stay there. Moore gets into a scrape, but backs down because his girl Louise Stanley doesn't approve of violence.

Of course as in every western, as Randolph Scott so eloquently put it, 'there are some things a man can't ride around'. That's all I can say here.

When Bill Boyd first had the Hopalong Cassidy series exhibited on television, he edited out the bare essentials and provided voice over to fill in the plot holes. I suspect that's what was done here with Art Baker's narration filling in the gaps between the original Monogram film and what you see.

It's an old Monogram, so don't expect the best production values, but Wells Fargo Days would have made a decent enough half hour television western program.

The only exception was the narrator (voice) added by Warner Bros in 1944. This film (short) was produced by Cinecolor, Inc. (2809 South Olive Avenue, Burbank, California), in order to get more theatrical exposure for their color process Cinecolor. It was shown and distributed to theatres in the U.S. by the film exchanges of Monogram Pictures Corporation. The original, country of origin title was "The Man from Tascosa" in 1939. For whatever reason the Warner Brothers shorts department acquired this film in 1944 and changed the title to "Wells Fargo Days." Most likely because they didn't have the raw film (World War Two shortages) and needed to fulfill their obligations to exhibitors to deliver a certain amount of color shorts for that production season...and they had already edited into a short all the feature Technicolor westerns they owned. And, yes, the reason that some reviewers of the Warner 1944 version thought the "Technicolor was a bit washed out was because it wasn't in Technicolor to begin with...it was in Cinecolor and pale green dominated. The cast and crew credits alone should have tipped the film experts that "Wells Fargo Days" was not produced by Warner Brothers; Dennis Moore, Louise Stanley, Lafe McKee, Mack Wright and Bennett Cohen were not starring in nor directing and writing 1944 Warner Bros. productions...features nor shorts. What Warners did do was have some in-house editors chop some footage from the original and hire Art Baker to narrate the gaps in the plot. And, because there was no new footage shot, the correct attribute for every actor---credited or uncredited--- is and always will be (archive footage), with one single exception...Art Baker's (voice) narration.