For Roy Rogers second starring feature Republic Pictures had him play Billy The Kid in Billy The Kid Returns. He also plays a nice chap named Roy Rogers who wants to become a deputy sheriff to Pat Garrett.When the film opens we see Roy as Billy breaking out of that famous shootout at McSween's store and later shot down by Pat Garrett played here by Wade Boteler. But Roy as Roy arrives from Texas and is mistaken for the notorious outlaw. As he's a good guy Garrett keeps up the deception as Billy continues his Robin Hood ways of helping the homesteaders and robbing the cattle barons to do it All this is winked at by Boteler because he's under pressure to protect the new settlers.In the end through the aid of Smiley Burnette on loan from Gene Autry films and playing his Frog Millhouse character Garrett and Rogers find a way to get the cattlemen good and nailed for their crimes. In the meantime Roy finds a bit of romance with Lynne Roberts the storekeeper's daughter. Roberts would be Roy's leading lady in most of his early films.A couple of nice western ballads are included for Roy in this second film which proved that his success in Under Western Stars was not a flash in the pan.

Sheriff Pat Garrett corners and kills Billy the kid. The next day, lookalike Roy Rodgers rides into town and is immediately mistaken for the outlaw, who's death has yet to be reported. Roy's then pressed into service by Garrett, who wants him to take the place of Billy in a range war pitting ruthless ranchers against the homesteaders that the late kid had intervened on behalf of.This second starring vehicle for Rodgers is decent enough, with lots of great songs from Roy and sidekick Smiley Burnette. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of the acting profession, with a less sure Rodgers delivering his lines in a slightly different tone of voice!This was the first of three times that Roy played a dual role in his films, the second being 1941's Jesse James At Bay and the third being 1942's Sunset On The Desert.

Bad guy Billy the kid is cornered and killed by Pat Garret. Not long after singing cowboy Roy Rogers shows up and is mistaken for the dead villain. He has to prove himself as a lawman in order to convince people that he's not the deceased bad guy. Okay Republic Pictures programmer is well made and has a certain flair for the dramatic. The problem is that its is one of a series of films where Rogers essentially plays himself, granted in period, so any sense that anything can happen is lost. Rogers was a stalwart hero and its easy to understand why he became a star with him shining in a variation of a plot he'd done before and run into again. The problem is that like much of the Republic production at the time, the film is too by the numbers. There was a point when Republic became so good at what they did that there films became essentially off the shelf machine with the various parts switched in and out in an off the shelf formulaic manner. The serials and many of the westerns they cranked out all looked the same because they just switched parts that worked around. This doesn't mean its bad, its not its just that the film looks and acts like the rest of the republic western product. Worth a look if you've not seen a great number of republic westerns recently.

Western film fans will recognize the characters and locale of "Billy The Kid Returns", though not the spin off tale that forms the basis of this story. Roy Rogers performs double duty as both the legendary badman and his good guy counterpart, a character sharing Rogers' own name. When Billy is gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett, ensuing scenes depict Roy Rogers and pal Trigger riding into Lincoln County, New Mexico. Those who know Billy give a wide berth to Rogers, respecting the reputation of a gunman who had twenty one kills to his credit by the young age of twenty.I'd never seen it before, but here it was more than obvious. In the shootout scene at the opening, whenever Roy as Billy fired his guns he would close his eyes. This happened four times during the confrontation, and once more when a man challenged Billy for stealing his horse. Perhaps it was a convention used for this particular movie, and wasn't noticed when Rogers became the character Rogers in the rest of the film.The movie offers more than the usual share of musical numbers for a Roy Rogers effort. Roy himself performs four songs, and with the first, it looks like Trigger is keeping time with 'Born in the Saddle'. Beyond that, Smiley Burnette and his boys turn in three additional tunes to keep things merry. In the story, Burnette's character is Frog Millhouse, utilizing that throaty voice every once in a while during his songs. I find it interesting that the fictional character Frog Millhouse played by Smiley was also used in movies starring other cowboy performers, primarily Gene Autry, but at least once with Sunset Carson in "Call of the Rockies".Roy Rogers' late 1930's movies usually found Lynne Roberts as the female lead, her character here is Ellen Moore, daughter of a general store owner. You'll see her listed in the film credits as Mary Hart, and she worked with Roy in eight films.The story itself has a plot used time and again throughout Western movie history, the conflict between homesteaders and range land cattle men. Rogers teams with Pat Garrett (Wade Boteler) to thwart a band of villain ranchers who intimidate homesteaders by stealing their horses and provoking general mayhem. The good guys prevail of course, as Roy and Miss Ellen close the film in a smooch with Smiley literally falling off the wagon.Roy Rogers wound up portraying a number of historical men of the West in his movies. If you liked this film, you might want to catch him as "Young Bill Hickok", "Jesse James at Bay", and "Young Buffalo Bill", all from 1940/41.