It's a rip-roaring opening and close, but the in-between smacks of tame, high-toned city life. Frog and Gene are out to help local ranchers save their land from timber harvesters who've de-nuded the hillsides, causing mudslides that ruin the land. Sounds like a modern environmental message, especially when Gene and co. want the state to take over the forest and turn it into a protected wildlife park. But to do that, they've got to get political heavy- hitters in the city to support them.It's not a typical Autry programmer, tamer than usual. No hard riding or fast shooting. There are a couple of gang fights where lumbermen square off against Gene's men.Then too, the song lineup unfortunately is pretty undistinguished for an Autry film. Nonetheless, Frog gets some amusing bits, especially when his down-home ways mix with city sophisticates. Should say those roaring river effects are real well done nail-biters and worth waiting for. Anyway, if you like to see mainly dress-up, this may be your Autry programmer.A "5", at best, on a matinée scale.

This hasn't happened to me on a Gene Autry flick before. There are no other reviews here, even though I know it's been shown at least a few times on the Encore Western Channel over the past year. Today I got a chance to see it.Well now, a lot of Gene and Roy's pictures had romantic sounding titles like this one, but I'm wondering if something like "Storm Clouds Over Wyoming" might not have been more appropriate for this one. The story had to do with the Wentworth Lumber Company strip logging an entire side of Mount Warner, leaving the mountain prone to mudslides that threatened rancher homes in the valley below. Starting out, the ranchers led by Jim Haines (Monte Blue) intended to take their argument directly to the lumber men, but were roughed up pretty badly by Bull Wilson's (Stanley Blystone) crew, so Gene decided that going the political route might prove to be a better way.The interesting thing about the story is that it didn't take long for Gene to convince the owner of the lumber company (George Cleveland) that a different approach was in order. However since the operation of the company was headed by his granddaughter Billie (Maris Wrixon) and her fiancée Larry Drew (Robert Kent), Gene's challenge was in convincing them to change their minds as well. Putting together an impromptu get together at the Wentworth's, Gene proposed converting Mount Warner into a state park and animal refuge.Most of the humor in the story occurs when Smiley Burnette introduces an assortment of wildlife to convince the legislators that the animals on Mount Warner deserve protection. The deer and water fowl made sense enough, but Smiley got a little too creative with a cow outfitted with moose antlers, an African lion, and a zebra-like striped donkey that he called a 'jasshonkey'. Don't look at me, it was in the picture.Well that whole scheme sort of blew up, but then nature took a hand in turning things around when a major storm washed out the hillside and Gene had to rescue Asa Wentworth from a flash flood that overcame his vehicle. It was at that point that Miss Wentworth realized how her company was affecting the lives of so many people and her better judgment called for a stop to the unrestricted logging.Of course, sprinkled throughout were a fair amount of Autry tunes including a nifty version of 'Casey Jones'. Just as in many of his pictures, Gene closes out the story by serenading the leading lady, but this time it didn't really seem credible since he was on the outs with Miss Wentworth for the entire story. I guess it was a standard feel good ending for Gene and his fans, but for once I didn't think it was all that necessary.