Jimmy Rogers

Singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely stars in Monogram's Silver Trails. It all begins when Jimmy and his comical sidekick Dub "Cannonball" Taylor ride into a small California engineering community. Villain Jackson (George Meeker) is busy orchestrating a land-grab scheme, using the members of an outlaw gang as his flunkies. Jackson hopes to split the miners down the middle by sparking a feud. Jimmy does his best to keep the peace, resorting to gunplay only when all else fails. Future Monogram star Whip Wilson essays a secondary role. In fact, Silver Trails was partially designed as a "pilot" for a potential Whip Wilson series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though it's not readily obvious from the title, Lumberjack is the 52nd entry in the long-running "Hopalong Cassidy" series. In this one, Hoppy (William Boyd) and his pals California (Andy Clyde) and Jimmy (Jimmy Rogers) come to the rescue of recently widowed Julie (Ellen Hall). It so happens that Julie has fallen heir to a valuable spread of timber property, meaning that any one of her business rivals could have been the murderer of her husband. Not only does Hoppy reveal the killer's identity, but he also moves heaven and earth to make sure that Julie's mortgage-lifting lumber shipment arrives at its destination on time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the long-running western series, Hoppy is running for sheriff and is beaten by the yellow-belly who had garnered the support of the local outlaws. Hoppy stands by for a while and watches as the once law-abiding town becomes a veritable den of inequity. Finally, unable to stand it anymore, Hoppy impeaches the spineless lawman, takes over, and then faces down the forty gunmen the outlaw ringleader sends out to stop him. The clever, and fast shooting Hopalong gets them all and saves the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though the 45-minute Calaboose was the second of three Hal Roach "streamliners" teaming Jimmy Rogers (son of Will) and Noah Beery Jr., it was the third to be released. Rogers and Beery play a couple of laid-back itinerant cowobys who wander into a small western town. Here they meet sheriff's daughter Doris Lane (Mary Brian), a staunch believer in the rehabilitation of criminals. Smitten by Doris, the boys contrive to get themselves arrested by her dad (William B. Davidson), who, in accordance with Doris' wishes, runs his jail like a luxury hotel. The plot thickens when desperate gangster Sluggsy Baker (Marc Lawrence) shows up in town-and Sluggsy just can't see things Doris' way so far as reforming is concerned. For its 1980s TV release, Calaboose was coupled with another 45-minute Roach streamliner, Dudes are Pretty People. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two newcomers, Robert Mitchum and Richard Crane, take center stage in this lavishly budgeted entry in the long-running Hopalong Cassidy series. The latter plays Tim Mason, a young hothead about to be inducted into the Texas Rangers on the behest of his good friend, Hoppy (William Boyd). Unfortunately, Tim has been persuaded into gambling away funds meant to save his floundering ranch by nasty Gunner Madigan (Anthony Warde). The lender, unscrupulous banker Simon Crandall (William Halligan), is in reality the leader of a gang of gun-runners and blackmails Tim into turning a blind eye to the gang's illegal activities on the border. Tim, however, refuses to play along, and is arrested when a driver implicates him in the crimes. Promising Tim's sister, Sue (Frances Woodward), that her brother will never go on trial, Hoppy is falsely accused of complicity when Tim is shot attempting to escape. In reality, the whole thing is a set-up, Tim having been murdered in cold blood by crooked Deputy Martin (Hugh Prosser), who is on Crandall's payroll. Pretending to leave the rangers in disgrace, Hoppy, to the disgust of sidekicks California Carlson (Andy Clyde) and Jimmy Rogers, instead joins the outlaws. It is all a ruse, of course, and Hoppy manages to get the goods on Gunner, his chief henchman, Drago (Mitchum), and the wiry Crandall, the latter two biting the dust in a climactic shootout in the bank. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

It is said that every actor wants to play Shakespeare. Will Rogers would seem a likely exception to that rule, but here he is in this silent, taking a stab (albeit comic) at Romeo. Slim (Rogers), of course, begins as a cowpuncher but his boss switches from cattle to sheep, throwing him out of work. In addition his sweetheart, Lulu (Sylvia Breamer), says he should learn to be a real lover, like Douglas Fairbanks. So Slim decides to go work in motion pictures to discover how film folk make love. After he doubles for villains and heroes alike, Lulu changes her mind -- now she thinks Romeo and Juliet is the yardstick by which all lovers should be measured. So Slim obligingly gets his hands on a copy of the play and tries to read it. Naturally he falls asleep, but he dreams the story with himself and his girl in the title roles. When he awakes, however, he throws all technique out the window, grabs Lulu away from his rival (Raymond Hatton) and drags her off to the preache r. His show of force is what she wanted after all and the film ends happily. This was the final picture of Rogers' contract with the Goldwyn Studios. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide