Hands Across the Border (1943) User Reviews

Not A Great Western, But Well Produced

[boblipton · 6/10 · 14 April 2021]

When ranch owner Joseph Crehan is killed,his daughter, Ruth Terry, thinks about letting Onslow Stevens run the ranch, while she scurries back to her Broadway career. But Roy Rogers is willing to be her top hand if she sticks around, and three generations of ranching tradition impel her to try for an army contract that eluded her father.

Roy starred in nine westerns for Republic Pictures in 1944, and this good-natured effort was priced for success. There are no villains in this wartime western, just a bunch of people in friendly competition, with dance director Dave Gould running three production numbers. The lyrcs are by Ned Washington, the music for the title number was written by Hoagy Carmichael, and if it occasionally seems a little florid in those production numbers, the race to see who gets the contract is well shot by Reggie Lanning; the Alabama Hills have rarely looked so good. The supporting cast has Big Boy Williams, Duncan Renaldo, Mary Treen, the Wiere Brothers, and of course, the Sns of the Pioneers. The money shows n the screen, even if it's a far more introspective movie than you'd expect from a B Western; clearly, Herbert Yates knew who made money for Republic and was willing to spend some to bolster the brand.

More Musical Revue Than Western.

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 23 June 2010]

I read in a history of the movie western that at one point in his career the films of Roy Rogers were more musical than western. That was never more true than in describing Hands Across The Border. Republic might well have just dispensed with the plot and made this one a western musical revue.

The film has all kinds of numbers done by Roy Rogers, Sheila Terry, the Sons Of The Pioneers, dancing by Janet Martin and the Wiere Brothers and comic relief by Guinn Williams and Mary Treen. Even the sequences involving Trigger could just as easily been worked into a revue.

The very thin plot has cowboys Rogers and Williams hired by Joseph Crehan a ranch owner with a lovely daughter, Sheila Terry. Crehan and rival owner Onslow Stevens are competing for an army contract to sell cavalry horses. This mind you in an age of mechanization. Crehan gets killed trying to ride Trigger, but it's Roy who eventually rides Trigger and saves him.

Onslow Stevens's part is strange as well. He's built up to be the bad guy as he usually is. But when the film is over all this guy really has done is pay some attention to Sheila Terry in an effort to get that contract one way or another. He never really does anything all that villainous except look like one.

The last quarter of the film is simply a reprise of all the numbers that had been done before in the film. Later on Roy's films got a little more action in them. This one probably disappointed the kids.

Okay, Lightweight Roy Rogers Picture

[FightingWesterner · 6/10 · 11 June 2010]

In order to escape trouble in a town that doesn't take kindly to vagrancy, Roy Rogers and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams pretend to be entertainers hired for a party at a local ranch, where they talk themselves into a job. When the kindly ranch owner is killed trying to break a wild horse, Roy and company try to save the horse from being destroyed by the ranch's soon-to-be new owner.

An okay and offbeat (at least for Roy Rogers) cowboy melodrama, this is pleasant enough, with an unusual (and unusually loose) plot that does away with the usual "Roy versus armed heavies" storyline in favor of laid back horse-play and an abundance of song and dance numbers, some of which are pretty odd.

There's some really nice location photography and good horse-riding stunts that show why Trigger was so popular.

This is also a good showcase for co-star Duncan Renaldo, who a few years later would gain great fame as The Cisco Kid in movies and television.

Not Horrid But Not Rogers Best

[Michael_Elliott · 10 May 2012]

Hands Across the Border (1944)

** (out of 4)

HANDS ACROSS THE BORDER has the reputation of being one of Roy Rogers' worst film but I'm not quite certain I'd go that far. It's certainly one of the strangest ones I've seen and I only viewed the edited TV version, which was missing a few of the musical numbers but more on that in a bit. The "story" has Rogers and Teddy Bear (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) getting a job on a ranch but when the owner is killed after being thrown from Trigger, Rogers must convince the man's daughter not to have the horse killed. Yeah, that's pretty much the entire story to be found in this film. It's easy to see why so many people might hate this movie as it often gets attacked for having way too much music and not enough action or story. In the TV version I watched there were countless musical numbers so it's pretty amazing that a few are still missing. I'd be lying if I said this was one of the worst Westerns I've ever seen because it's really not close to being that bad. With that said, the entire film is pretty much a waste for a number of reasons. The biggest is certainly the lack of any real story. I'm sure many fans came to this picture at least expecting some sort of action but we really never get any. The story seems to be all over the place because when we're introduced to Williams he is having people chase him but it never makes much sense why or why when they catch up they believe he's a different person than who they were chasing. It also doesn't make sense that the Onslow Stevens character is made to be the bad guy but then this here goes nowhere. The entire story is a real mess but it's not helped by the fact that the majority of the music numbers aren't very catchy and just come across as bland. Rogers is good in his role, as usual, but Williams isn't nearly as effective as he usually is and even Stevens appears to be bored. Ruth Terry isn't too bad as the love interest but the screenplay gives her very little to do. HANDS ACROSS THE BORDER will probably disappoint Rogers fans but I think fans of the weird, such as myself, might get some mild entertainment out of the strangeness.

"You almost revive my faith in human nature."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 18 July 2021]

Unlike a handful of reviewers here, I happened to catch the full version of this movie, and can attest to the fact that it's chock full of musical numbers. It's also one of a handful of Roy Rogers Westerns where he's not the owner of Trigger when the story begins, and has to intervene with the original owner's daughter when the man died as a result of a fall when Trigger took a leap over a fence - yikes! She would have sent Trigger off to a dog food factory if Roy couldn't convince her that he could be tamed and trained to help her ranch win a coveted cavalry contract.

Besides being a good judge of horse flesh, Roy also takes the side of an outlaw on the run who holds him up and tries to steal his horse! That opening to the story wasn't very realistic, but it was useful in setting up Roy and Teddy Bear (Guinn Williams) as partners headed for the Adams Ranch. There, Roy schmoozes his way into a musical number with Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers, and gets hired along with Teddy Bear as ranch hands. Meanwhile, Brock Danvers (Onslow Stevens) is doing a little schmoozing of his own with Kim Adams (Ruth Terry), hoping he can persuade her to sell him the ranch now that her Dad has passed on. This one isn't your typical 'by hook or by crook' scenario, Danvers pretty much plays it straight, even with Roy keeping an eye on things. The only thing that might have looked a little shady was the obstacle course race that the riders of Danvers black team competed in against the white team led by Roy.

This is another Rogers Western that would have benefited from a color format, especially in that final song and dance routine between the Texas cowgirls and Mexican senoritas. Very lively, and the musical number reinforced the meaning of the picture's title pretty well. Only thing, there was that goofy segue with the Wiere Brothers as violin pluckers, followed by an appearance in drag. Why they made the cut is a mystery to me, the film wouldn't have missed them at all. For fans of Roy's future television show, Pat Brady makes an appearance as a bass player for Bob Nolan's group, and offers a funny comedic turn when he gets knocked off his horse during the obstacle race.

A Fine World War Two Musical--Just What Was Needed in 1944

[bozey45 · 7/10 · 30 July 2012]

Sure this was lacking on plot but during World War Two and especially in 1944 at the height of the conflict people needed an escape from the war news for an hour. This is filled with 1940's music, more so than other Rogers films. This reviewer saw the MCA-TV edited version and a lousy quality copy at that so missed some of the cut musical numbers removed so stations could run their several minutes of commercials back in the 1950's and 1960's. The location photography at the Alabama Hills in Lone Pine California even looked good on the lousy quality copy I saw and I'm sure looks great in a newly restored version. The story was the race for the Army horse contract seen in numerous other westerns and sort of a "how Roy got Trigger" plot also--but a lot of loose ends were never explained; Guinn Big Boy Williams could have been used more in this; but who cared back in 1944--They wanted to hear the music and I'm sure were pleased.

Beware--like so many Roy Rogers films, this one has been cut to pieces!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 5 October 2013]

Like so many of the Roy Rogers films, this one was trimmed to fit television time slots in the 1950s. Most of these films had about 8-10 minutes shaved off. However, "Hands Across the Border" was more heavily edited--with 20 minutes deleted. It also has a lousy print--very dark in some parts, very faded in others. My review is for this expurgated version. It's very possible the full-length version is better...or not.

Roy seems to have the magical ability to read people and animals in this outing. When he meets up with Guinn Williams' character, he's on the run from the law and threatens to shoot Roy--but Roy knows he's not a bad guy and comes to his aid. The same with Trigger. This horse reportedly killed its owner--but Roy just seems to magically know the horse is a winner and sets out to prove it to everyone.

In addition to the plot involving a competition in which Roy and Trigger compete, there is STILL a lot of singing and dancing in this one. I assume the full version had more...which is hard to believe! For instance, the last 12 minutes all is taken up by a singing, dancing pageant--and the plot itself is resolved only 40 minutes into the film! This makes for a very, very slow final portion of the movie. All in all, this film was so heavily hacked to pieces, it's hard to love.

I Love Hands Across the Border

[timbertrail4444 · 10/10 · 1 January 2014]

One of my all time favorite Roy Rogers movies. I love the music and catchy tunes in this movie. Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers add to the music and plot. I have the full length version and just love the musical ending. Republic Pictures loaded Roy's movies with musical numbers from 1943-1945 after the head of the studio saw Oklahoma on Broadway and I am glad he did. Everyone looks great and the scenery is wonderful.

I compare this movie with several others Roy made around that time including Song of Nevada (1944), San Fernando Valley (1944) and Utah (1945) which had a lot of music and songs and are wonderful to watch. Try and get the complete versions and not the 54 minute edited for TV versions.

Roy and Trigger Rise Above A Messy Plot

[dougdoepke · 23 July 2023]

The oater's an incredible mish-mash except for Roy and Trigger discovering one another in roughhouse fashion. It's only a cowboy flick in a really extended sense. There's some good eastern Sierra scenery and plenty of hard-riding, but no flying-fists, fast-guns, bad-guy showdowns, or other cowboy trademarks. Instead, there's plenty of stagey singing and dancing, and a story-line with all the film editing coherence of broken glass. For me, the best feature was the leggy chorus girls in the last part. But that's just my old-guy hormones kicking in. Anyway, the flick's no favor to Roy, except for pairing him up with the Wonder Horse Trigger, a pairing that would last a lifetime. Together, they would go on to a memorable career as a team, one that happily leaves this mess in the dust.

Nostalgic look back at Roy Rogers.

[TxMike · 2 September 2022]

I was a boy back in the 1950s and went into town often to watch Roy Rogers movies. I found a DVD at my public library with five old, B&W Roy Rogers movies, this is the first one I watched, running under an hour.

As an aside, I recently found out his horse Trigger started out as a rental horse called Golden Cloud and appeared in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" in 1938, ridden by Olivia de Havilland. Then in 1938 he was bought and became Roy's Trigger.

This movie is set in the 1800s and is about horses and competition for a military contract. As the movie starts Roy is in the brush and approached by a man intending to rob him. Roy smiles at the man, doesn't cooperate, basically says "You're not going to shoot me" and together they end up at a shindig where Roy sings.

In fact in many respects the movie is a musical with several production numbers, all light-hearted fun. The sound is excellent for a 1944 movie, the B&W picture is fine but not very sharp.

I enjoyed the viewing, as a nostalgic look back to my childhood activities.