Gene Autry Ramblings
Posted: October 6th, 2007, 1:32 am
As a very feminine little girl (my older sister was the tomboy), I never knew much about Gene, Roy, Hopalong or any of the others. My sister loved Hopalong, in fact she received a complete outfit from hat to boots one year for Christmas. Then my younger brother was born at the tail end of the cowboy years, so by the time he could make choices, it was space stuff. So I didn't get into the cowboy thing until my pre-teen years - right in the middle of the TV heyday with Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Bronco, Maverick, etc.
Gene always eluded me for some reason. Roy Rogers was a weekly event at our house, I recall my dad liked the jeep (Nellie belle), and I know the whole bunch of them were on all the time - Roy, Dale, Trigger, the dog, and the sidekick.
A few years ago, I guess when he died, I saw a lot of different tributes to Gene and his movies and songs. I watched with interest, but when the time frame ended, so did my attention span. Then I got the Western channel and insomnia. Suddenly I was watching Gene Autry movies from the 30's through the 50's at 2 and 3 o'clock a.m. It's hard to tell with some of them what era they're from because 1. they're all so similar, the plots are interchangeable. 2. The refurbishing job on most of them are fantastic. I believe Autry himself, owned the company that did the work, and they did a wonderful job. Most of the audio tracts are clear as a bell, and the films themselves are sharp without that horrible brightness that so many older films have.
Although I don't care a lot for his singing, he sure introduced a lot of great songs both western, and contemporary. I always loved Ghost Riders in the Sky, and didn't realize he sang it first, before Vaughn Monroe. Also, a lot of the songs I attributed to Roy, were actually Genes'.
Anyway, Gene was not a tall guy, and occasionally he has to literally jump to slug a guy. It's kind of funny, but he was a real scrapper. The horse (or horses) were quite amazing, and the stunt riding must have been really exciting to little boys watching in the movie houses. He handled the transition from totally western pioneer type days, through to airplanes and automobiles in his movies and you barely noticed the new applications because it was done so smoothly. If his friend landed a plane in the middle of the grazing land, well, that's how it was - no questions asked. I noticed John Wayne and the three Mesketeers did the same thing. Gene always had a song to sing, not necessarily to a girl (although he always had a lady in his films), but if not to a girl, he could be riding in or out of town singing, while Pat Buttram or Smiley Burnette accompanied on an accordian, or harmonica, or at night on a cattle drive, at a barn raising. In other words, he could sing a song at the drop of a hat.
Gene apparently had some 15 rules for good cowboys to live by. I guess little boys learned them from lunch boxes, pencil boxes, and other things, but as a girl, I wasn't in the group. But they were rules like: Cowboy Rule 1: Be Polite, Cowboy Rule 2: Always take care of your horse or your dog. They were things like that - just kind of rules to live by. This guy was a good man, and he tried to leave a good mark as a memory. If he lived today, he would probably be a contender for one of the richest men in the U.S. but considering the kind of man he was, I don't think anyone would begrudge it to him for all the good works he did.
Gene, Roy, Bill Boyd (Hopalong), Clayton Moore - all were a special breed of man. We could certainly use a few of them around today. If you have an opportunity to sit and watch some of his movies, give it a try, it may bring back some memories that you've got hidden 'way back in your mind.
Anne
Gene always eluded me for some reason. Roy Rogers was a weekly event at our house, I recall my dad liked the jeep (Nellie belle), and I know the whole bunch of them were on all the time - Roy, Dale, Trigger, the dog, and the sidekick.
A few years ago, I guess when he died, I saw a lot of different tributes to Gene and his movies and songs. I watched with interest, but when the time frame ended, so did my attention span. Then I got the Western channel and insomnia. Suddenly I was watching Gene Autry movies from the 30's through the 50's at 2 and 3 o'clock a.m. It's hard to tell with some of them what era they're from because 1. they're all so similar, the plots are interchangeable. 2. The refurbishing job on most of them are fantastic. I believe Autry himself, owned the company that did the work, and they did a wonderful job. Most of the audio tracts are clear as a bell, and the films themselves are sharp without that horrible brightness that so many older films have.
Although I don't care a lot for his singing, he sure introduced a lot of great songs both western, and contemporary. I always loved Ghost Riders in the Sky, and didn't realize he sang it first, before Vaughn Monroe. Also, a lot of the songs I attributed to Roy, were actually Genes'.
Anyway, Gene was not a tall guy, and occasionally he has to literally jump to slug a guy. It's kind of funny, but he was a real scrapper. The horse (or horses) were quite amazing, and the stunt riding must have been really exciting to little boys watching in the movie houses. He handled the transition from totally western pioneer type days, through to airplanes and automobiles in his movies and you barely noticed the new applications because it was done so smoothly. If his friend landed a plane in the middle of the grazing land, well, that's how it was - no questions asked. I noticed John Wayne and the three Mesketeers did the same thing. Gene always had a song to sing, not necessarily to a girl (although he always had a lady in his films), but if not to a girl, he could be riding in or out of town singing, while Pat Buttram or Smiley Burnette accompanied on an accordian, or harmonica, or at night on a cattle drive, at a barn raising. In other words, he could sing a song at the drop of a hat.
Gene apparently had some 15 rules for good cowboys to live by. I guess little boys learned them from lunch boxes, pencil boxes, and other things, but as a girl, I wasn't in the group. But they were rules like: Cowboy Rule 1: Be Polite, Cowboy Rule 2: Always take care of your horse or your dog. They were things like that - just kind of rules to live by. This guy was a good man, and he tried to leave a good mark as a memory. If he lived today, he would probably be a contender for one of the richest men in the U.S. but considering the kind of man he was, I don't think anyone would begrudge it to him for all the good works he did.
Gene, Roy, Bill Boyd (Hopalong), Clayton Moore - all were a special breed of man. We could certainly use a few of them around today. If you have an opportunity to sit and watch some of his movies, give it a try, it may bring back some memories that you've got hidden 'way back in your mind.
Anne