Overlooked Movies -- Song of Old Wyoming

There's no trailer available for this available, but you can watch the whole movie on YouTube if you want to.  That's what I did.  Why?  Well, if you look at the bottom left of the poster, you'll see the reason.  The actor is billed as Al LaRue, and you might be familiar with the outfit.  He plays The Cheyenne Kid, and while the nominal star is Eddie Dean, who sings the songs and gets the girl, it's LaRue who steals the picture with that black outfit and his bullwhip.  This was the first of three movies LaRue made with Dean He wears the outfit in two, but uses the whip again in only one.  After that he graduated to his own series, where he was, of course, known as Lash LaRue.

The plot of Song of Old Wyoming won't win any prizes for originality.  The crooked town banker wants the ranch belonging to Ma Conway, who's not going to give it up.  She believes that if Wyoming can just become a state, all her troubles will be over.  Eddie Dean rides for her, and he doesn't wear guns.  He's in love with her adopted daughter, Vicky.  The banker hires The Cheyenne Kid to get help get hold of the property, and he goes to work for Ma.  Vicky engages in some serious flirting with the Kid, and Dean doesn't like it a bit, even though the Kid saves his life when one of the baddies draws on him.  Dean and the Kid have a pretty good fist fight before it's all over.  The Kid is easily rustling all of Ma's cattle, but at the end he (of course) comes to his senses.  Dean straps on his pistols, with which (surprise!) he's darn good, and the final gunfight is on, with the Kid on the side of the ranch.   Would you believe that Ma had a son who disappeared when he was young?  And would you believe that . . . well, far be it from me to spoil any surprises.

There's not a lot of singing in the movie, and the print I saw wasn't a good one, but it's fun to see Dean and LaRue in the same film, especially knowing what it's going to mean for LaRue's career.  If you like the B-westerns of the '40s, check it out.