Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

When ranch foreman Roy learns the new ranch owner Dorothy Bryant and her friends are arriving, he directs them to Gabby's rundown ranch. He figures they will be discouraged and return East. But the plan backfires when Dorothy, thinking her ranch worthless, sells the real ranch at a fraction of it's value.Dale Evans sure cut a hot figure in her 30s. Roy sure was lucky. You'll be a bit unlucky if you sit through this one. Even though its just about an hour in length and sort of watchable, it's not a great film.The plot is thin and has been done countless times before.

Another Roy Rogers movie when Republic Studios had his movies loaded with songs and music which I love.You must get the uncut version of this movie to really appreciate it. Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers sing some very good songs along with Roy. Gabby Hayes has some good lines when fighting with the women who he wishes would leave the west and go back to Chicago. There is an excellent musical stage ending where they all sing the title song and several others. The one scene where Roy, Dale and the Pioneers sing Utah against a backdrop of scenes from that beautiful state is a highlight of this movie. Again watch the uncut version.

It's hard for me to do an accurate appraisal of this film, as the version I downloaded from archive.org was missing 24 minutes--that's about a third of the movie! Why? Because back in the 1950s, some overzealous knuckle-heads decided to cram the Roy Rogers films into a TV time slot--trimming them all down to about 53 minutes. In a few cases, where the original film was about an hour long, the difference between the two versions is minimal but here the film is simply hacked apart. So keep this in mind when you read this. However, I can assume that the film was not all that great based on what I saw.The film begins with Dale Evans being told that her show in Chicago is being shut down, as the financial backers have pulled out of the show. However, she owns a ranch out west and takes her friends with her to inspect and possibly sell it. Now here something VERY uncharacteristic occurs--Roy Rogers decides to lie! Instead of taking them to the beautiful ranch, he pretends that Gabby's rundown place is hers. She naturally is disappointed. However, the joke ends up on both of them when she sells the ranch--not realizing it's much bigger and more valuable. The buyer sure knows and enjoys cheating her. But Roy isn't going to let this be the end of it and he goes about trying to right a wrong.How is the film overall? Well, it suffers not only from having Roy play a bit of a jerk but once again the usual female cliché is present--the leading lady HATES Roy with no provocation and seems grouchy. Now later in the film, Dale's character had lots of reason to hate him but why did the writers almost always do this with Dale and Roy? The only saving grace is Gabby Hayes--who is even grouchier and funnier than usual. This misogynist says such wonderful lines about women as "....next to sheep, they're the dumbest critters on Earth!". Overall, I'd give this film a 3--perhaps more in the extended version. But it does suffer because Roy, who always played a sweet person, is a bit of a jerk in this one--and spends much of the film trying to undo all the harm he caused.By the way, although the film is called "Utah", it sure doesn't look like it! Like other Rogers films, it was made in California.

"Utah" is a light Roy Rogers Western with the whole gang - Dale Evans, Gabby Hayes, and of course Trigger. Except for some nice scenery, it is undistinguished, but it is a good way to pass a pleasant hour.The picture begins with Dale as a member of a singing and dancing troupe in Chicago, whose act might have to disband because of lack of backing. Dale remembers that her grandfather left her a ranch in Utah - she has never seen the ranch, but decides that selling it might be a good way of raising money to keep the show afloat. So she heads west, taking the women in her show along for the ride. It turns out that the Bar-X Ranch is run by Roy and Gabby, who do not want to see it sold, since they know a big land speculator who has been just waiting to grab the Bar-X and replace the cattle with sheep.From there, events get pretty far-fetched, but entertaining. There are of course some cowboy songs, and there is a lot of cornball humor centering on the incongruity of a group of women from the city having to associate with a group of cowboys. Some of the humor is lame and dated, but the good-natured feel of the movie keeps it from becoming too annoying.One less routine aspect of "Utah" is the scenery - there are a lot of good background shots (for example, during the horse chase scenes) that remind us of Utah's rugged grandeur."Utah" is good light entertainment for any fan of old Westerns.