Renfrew of the Royal Mounted

When Nelson Eddy sang Rudolf Friml songs to win the heart of Jeanette MacDonald in Rose Marie he forever got his signature role as the singing Mountie. In his nightclub act toward the end of his life Eddy would come out in tuxedo and Mountie hat.

Grand National Pictures decided a singing Mountie series was apparently what they needed and they hired James Newill, a good operatic baritone, but a guy whose acting skills made Nelson look like Spencer Tracy. But he looked good in a Mountie uniform and sat the saddle well.

In the first film of the series Renfrew Of The Royal Mounted, there are certain elements similar to Rose Marie. There's an American counterfeiting outfit operating in the Canadian woods and they have a really ingenious way of smuggling their bogus currency into the USA. Won't reveal it, but the title gives some clues.

Anyway a Mountie is murdered and that makes it personal for the RCMP and Renfrew. Also an American engraver just released from prison is forced to work with the gang under threats of killing his daughter who is played by Carol Hughes.

Newill and Hughes aren't exactly MacDonald and Eddy mainly because she sings not a note. And the songs Newill sings aren't top drawer material like the score from Rose Marie.

But the series was shot on location at Big Bear Lake so that makes it a cut above most B studio series of the time. And the story isn't a bad one.

James Newell spent much of his career as a singing cowboy. Here's he's a Mountie, famous for his meat sauce and traveling about with a chorus of Mounties singing "Boots and Saddles." His primary competition in the meat sauce racket is William Royle, who suggest Luis Alberni trying to do a Quebecois accent. He's also kidnapped Carol Hughes' father to make fake money.

It's one of those movies which is so inept that it winds up being amusing. Eking out the cast is Lightning, another of those German Shepherd Wonder Dogs, and Dwight Frye as a desk clerk. The area around Big Bear Lake stands in for the forests of Canada.

Renfrew Of The Royal Mounted sure is a curious movie. I mean I'm not too sure who greenlighted the adventures of a singing Mountie, but here it is, and while it's entertaining, it sure makes some highly amusing factual errors. James Newill stars as Renfrew, the dashing figure in red, while not singing songs about Barbecue sauce (!!) he helps out a woman who gets inadvertently caught as bait while going to see her father, who unbeknownst to her, is being forced to work as a counterfeiter for them bad Amerikans. Got all that? Good. Actually, the plot is not too hard to follow, and builds up some suspense along the way, I wasn't really convinced with Renfrew as a gruff hero though.

Watch for Renfrew casually littering in his home country at the end. lol