Complete credited cast: | |||
Tex Ritter | ... | Tex Malinson | |
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White Flash | ... | Tex's Horse |
Ethelind Terry | ... | Ida McGill | |
Eleanor Stewart | ... | Marge Workman | |
Syd Saylor | ... | Grass Hopper | |
Tommy Bupp | ... | Billy Workman | |
William Faversham | ... | Professor McGill | |
Forrest Taylor | ... | Harry Price | |
'Snub' Pollard | ... | Cookie (as Snub Pollard) | |
Glenn Strange | ... | Henchman Pete (as Glen Strange) | |
Horace Murphy | ... | Sheriff Brown | |
Earl Dwire | ... | Joe Workman | |
Budd Buster | ... | Sheriff Ed Higginbotham (as Bud Buster) | |
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Salty Holmes | ... | Salty Holmes (Harmonica Player) |
Oscar Gahan | ... | Wagon Show Performer |
Tex Malison (Tex Riter), a happy-go-lucky cowboy and his stuttering sidekick "Grass" Hopper (Syd Saylor), join a traveling wagon show on its way to Tombstone, Arizoa. There, Tex has a run-in with the local gang-leader, Harry Pike (Forrest Taylor), whose band of renegades is terrorizing the territory. Sheriff Jake Higginbotham (Bud Buster) gives Tex the assignment of collecting $20,000 in back taxes owed to the county by the Pike faction. Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
A second disappointing follow up to Tex's first film, 'Song of the Gringo' (1936). Tex and his side kick, 'Hopper' (Syd Saylor, as a not so annoying comic relief) join a minstrel show in Arizona. This is the best part of the film, as it shows Tex on stage singing and then dealing with the villain Harry Price (the great badman Forrest Taylor) and his henchmen who enter the theater without paying.
Unfortunately, the only prints I've seen then cut out about the next ten minutes of the film, and suddenly Tex is a tax collector in a showdown with Price to get him to pay his taxes! There isn't much on display here. The prairie flower love interest is a cypher; we are also subjected to a too long ambush shoot out behind rocks. The only other 'high point' is a tense little bit of editing as the evil looking Price waits in the cantina to shoot Tex.
Tex does sing three co-written songs, one of which 'Tombstone, Arizona' has a four bar melody section taken directly from his version of 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain.' But that's okay! He also admitted in later years to how he 'stole' Leadbelly's melody for 'Goodnight Irene' and wrote new words recording it as 'I've Done the Best I Could.' He also borrowed 'Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay' for another of his hits. But all is forgiven Tex, because you did so many great songs, sang 'High Noon,' gave us John Ritter, and made some fairly decent westerns! But 'Arizona Days' is not one of them. I give it a 3.