Beyond the Purple Hills

Future television Wyatt Earp Hugh O'Brian plays the unruly son of Judge Roy Gordon who is at his wit's end with him. He plans to disinherit him and a couple of unscrupulous characters use that estrangement to shoot and kill Gordon and frame O'Brian for the crime. But before he died Gordon appointed Gene Autry the acting sheriff after these same characters killed sheriff Harry Harvey in a bank robbery.

Gene arrests O'Brian on the circumstantial evidence, but doesn't believe he did it and is working to clear him. But O'Brian also has a case of the green-eyed monster as he sees Autry a rival for Jo-Carroll Dennison.

This Columbia Autry western moves at a nice pace and Gene proves quite the clever detective in this one. We know who has done the deed, the entertainment is watching Gene get these guys to trip themselves up.

The music is kept to minimum here as Gene sings the title song Beyond The Purple Hills and a big current hit Dear Hearts and Gentle People. Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby had the big sellers of that one, but Gene's singing of it is pretty good.

Definitely a good one for Autry fans.