Shooting High

Calling this an Autry Western is a bit of a stretch. Gene's in it, but his part is overshadowed by an over-emoting Jane Withers whose boisterous personality is, I think, a matter of taste. Then too, you may need a score card to keep up with the meandering plot that mixes a family feud with a town's survival with a love triangle with a movie shoot, and finally with real bank robbers. If this sounds complicated, it is, but despite the mix, the results are still pretty entertaining. The opening Autry-Withers duet "Wanderers" is delightful. Too bad we don't see more of Charles Middleton (Flash Gordon's Ming the Merciless) whose graveyard voice and Grim Reaper looks always made me cover my little-kid eyes back in matinée days.

This was a big studio production, Twentieth-Century Fox, which probably accounts for the odd mix, especially a cast that includes familiar Western types like Tom London and Eddie Acuff, but also city dudes like Jack Carson and Robert Lowery. For viewers interested in seeing how horse operas were filmed, this is an opportunity. Carson plays a fast-talking movie producer come to town to shoot an oater based on the town's most famous cowboy citizen. The behind-the-scenes look is fascinating and I'm sure the crew got a kick out of filming "a movie within a movie". But there's not much hard riding or fast shooting, so for fans of more conventional B-Westerns, this one may be a "skip it".