If you don't expect much in the way or originality, you may enjoy this lively inexpensive Western. Roy Rogers and two buddies are discharged from Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders and join the Border Patrol. Intrigues, fist fights, shoot outs, and romance follow. The girl in the case, Mary Hart, is attractive enough but neither here nor there.Roy Rogers gets to sing dumb songs with lyrics like "the stars never fail while I'm ridin' on the trail." But he has a pleasant voice and he actually plays the guitar he's holding, and doesn't just use it as a prop.I always liked these cheap Westerns as a kid -- Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Wild Bill Elliot. The heroes were always so polite, well-dressed, honest, and they never threw a punch or drew their guns without just cause. Rogers, in particular, was a favorite because he was younger than some and, I thought, handsome enough to be envied.When I grew up, I watched his TV program once in a while and he was STILL a nice guy. His chat buddy asked him why he'd had Trigger stuffed. "What was I going' to do?", replied Rogers, still the candid man of yesteryear, "put him in the ground and let the bugs eat him?" The former Leonard Slye came west with an Okie family during the depression, had had a hard youth, and was lucky enough to become a movie star instead of a peach picker. Good for him.

This outing Roy Rogers spends more time in the saddle ridin' and shootin' than singin'. Roy and two of his Rough Rider pals Tommy Ward(Eddie Acuff)and Rusty Coburn(Raymond Hatton)team up riding the range and trying to bring an end to corruption in a mining town. When Tommy is gunned down by a notorious outlaw Arizona Jack (William Prawley), Roy and Rusty end up as patrolmen on the Mexican border trying to capture their partner's killer and a gang of gold smugglers. Joseph Kane produces and directs this better than average western. Other players include: Mary Hart, George Meeker, Glenn Strange, Hank Bell, Dorothy Sebastian and Roy's trusty horse Trigger.

It's 1900, and Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders have returned from Cuba. Roy Rogers and friends Rusty Coburn (Eddie Acuff) and Tommy Ward (Ray Hatton) seek work as border patrol agents, with the personal recommendation of Roosevelt himself. The border patrol captain is willing to take them on, especially since outlaw Arizona Jack is marauding the border passes and seeking refuge in Mexico. Adding drama to the plot is the presence of Dorothy Blair (Mary Hart), as the daughter of the owner of the Amco Mining Company. Rogers has orders to detain her, but when a fight breaks out in the cantina she escapes on a Mexican stagecoach, only to be captured by the bandits.Roy Rogers has the uncanny ability to walk into any situation, no matter how grim, and pick up a guitar to sing a song. This happens twice in Roundup - first in the unfriendly environs of the local cantina, and then again when captured and secured in Arizona Jack's bandit hideout; it's not very believable given the situation.Be attentive for a continuity goof in a chase scene in the second half of the film; as Arizona Jack's gang pursues Roy and Rusty on horseback, the good guys string a rope across their path to knock the first two riders off their horses. But as the bandits get up to dust themselves off, the rope is back in place again."Rough Riders Roundup" moves along at a brisk fifty eight minute pace, and as mentioned, has the obligatory fisticuffs, chase scenes and gunfights expected in a "B" western. One overlooked detail though - Roy appears to ride his trusty palomino Trigger in the film, however Trigger is not top billed as "The Smartest Horse in the Movies" in this flick. I assume he fired his agent before the next picture!

Good oldtime B Western, with the greatest star of that genre in his early prime. Gold smugglers in Mexico, murder, capture, fist fights, gunfights - great Sat matinee at the Bijou stuff. And the reason why is, No Musical Numbers! I loved Roy's movies and TV and Radio shows; he was and is high on my list of Most Admired Men. A good man, and a humanitarian of the highest order. The Pearly Gates were a walkthru for him and Dale. But it woulda been better for everyone if Herbert J. Yates had never seen OKLAHOMA! on Broadway, cause his lamebrain notion to make all of Roy's movies from then on in that format - songs and more songs, then oh by the way, a story - compromised the genre severely, right when and where we didn't need it. Herb, baby, Roy's films were fine as is; don't mess with 'em. That's why this 55 minute gem gets 7 stars, outta 10.