Starlight Over Texas (1938)

The first Tex Ritter Western from Monogram Pictures, Starlight Over Texas contained the singing cowboy's trademark mix of furious fist-fight, ornery Charles King, and a slew of musical numbers. Unfortunately, Monogram also inherited Ritter's main weaknesses: idiotic sidekicks (Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard), slipshod direction (by Al Herman), meandering plots, and the aforementioned slew of musical numbers. At least Starlight Over Texas featured an eye-catching fiesta in addition to Ritter's warbling of such tunes as Pickens by A.J. Brier and Starlight Over Texas by Harry Tobias and Al Von Tilzer. Ritter played Tex Newman, a United States Marshal assigned to look into a series of Indian raids on the border to Mexico. As it turns out, the raids are committed by a gang of outlaws only masquerading as Indians. The leader of the gang, Kildare (Karl Hackett), murders a marshal and assumes his identity. Tex. of course, does not fall for the masquerade for long and the inevitable chase across the border ends with the capture of Kildare. Executive producer Edward F. Findley moved his entire "Boots and Saddles" operation from the floundering Grand National to Monogram without missing a beat. Along for the ride, in addition to sidekicks Murphy and Pollard and director Herman, were music director Frank Sanucci, assistant director Bobby Ray, cinematographer Francis Corby and film editor Frederick Bain. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi