JohnHowardReid Home in Oklahoma (available on a good Mill Creek DVD), is one of those murder mysteries you have when you're not having a murder mystery. It takes the average audience thirty seconds to tumble to the killers, but dumb, slow-brained, small-town newspaper editor Roy Rogers has to be prodded by breezily pugnacious Dale Evans. As you might expect from those opening sentences, there are not many spills or thrills in this one, even though it's directed by action specialist William Witney. Unfortunately, in stark contrast to the excellent work DVD companies have done for Gene Autry and Bill Boyd, Roy Rogers has been treated rather shabbily. Many of the titles on sale offer blurry, faded, out-of-focus pictures with garbled and/or muffled sound tracks. Even worse, the few Trucolor entries are presented in various shades of gray.

MartinHafer By 1946, the Roy Rogers films had evolved into a very familiar pattern. Most co-starred Dale Evans (usuallly playing headstrong women) and Gabby Hayes and most had a cute kid (usually a boy) as an important member of the cast. The Songs of the Pioneers were also on hand to sing a few tunes. Additionally, Rogers had become a bit of a caricature of himself. In other words, although supposedly a western, the films had Rogers playing a version of himself--a version carefully manicured to project him as an all-around swell guy and friend to children, old coots and the ladies. "Home in Oklahoma" has all of this.The film begins with Gabby working at a ranch when the owner dies unexpectedly. Soon it's expected that his niece will assume control of the ranch. However, two things unexpectedly occur--the will does NOT leave the property to the niece AND it looks like the man's death was NOT an accident! However, Dale (who plays a spunky yet stupid reporter) doesn't heed Roy's suggestion that she waits to report this and soon she's in deep water with the Sheriff. She wrote in her paper that the man was murdered AND makes some pointed comments about who might be involved--which are WAY premature. Can Roy solve it and save Dale's fanny? Although Roy always comes off as sweet, kind and swell, Dale often played annoying women. It must have been very thankless for her when she played women who hated Roy with little provocation or ladies who inadvertently help the bad guys because she won't listen to anyone. In this film, she hits Roy over the head with a chair when he's being attacked by a baddie (ooooops!) and gets thrown into jail for publishing crazy theories as facts. But I have seen her in these thankless roles too many times--so when I saw she was in the film, I was prepared for this! So, in light of all this predictability, is the movie any good? Well, it's certainly not great--but I was impressed that the ringleader of the evil doings was a bit of a surprise. In this sense, they did not follow the usual formula--a major plus in the film. Still, it's a rather trifle of a film--worth seeing if you love Rogers films but about as realistic as a Monty Python film in conveying historical events! My feeling is that THE big problem in the film is Dale. Had she been less unlikable and dopey, the film would have played a heck of a lot better.By the way, like most of Roy's films, this one has been trimmed down to fit TV time slots during the 1950s--lopping almost 20 minutes off the picture. I saw the version that clocked in at under an hour--and there easily could be a longer version out there--as so many films come in multiple versions. So, perhaps the longer version is better...or worse. In most cases, one of the big differences between the two is the number of songs--in trimmed versions, most of the music has been removed.

classicsoncall "Home in Oklahoma" finds Roy and Dale as rival newspaper reporters, he of the local Hereford Heaven Star, and Dale as Connie Edwards from the big city St. Louis Chronicle. I had a little trouble wrapping my head around the name of Roy's home town, could it really have been called Hereford Heaven? So I do a quick Google search and I'll be darned. There's a town in southern Oklahoma called Ada where they have an annual three day auction in the heart of Hereford heaven. The world record price for a prize bull this year was fifty one thousand dollars, only twenty one thousand more than the one in the picture. Not much inflation in prize bulls if you think about it considering the picture was made sixty four years ago.For a newspaper guy, Roy's considered the best scooper in the county, but I had to wonder if that depended on which end of the Hereford he was looking at. The bull in this picture is provided by the name challenged niece of the The Flying T Ranch, alternately called Jane, Jan and Jen throughout the story, at least to my ears. She's portrayed by Carol Hughes, looking an awful lot like Dale Evans, except Dale was blonde. By the time it's over, Jane comes close to capturing the title of most evil female villain in B Westerns, admitting to the murder of her uncle Sam Talbot, shooting undertaker Judnick in the back, and closing out the film by gunning down her partner Steve. But the worst of it was when she tried to kill the twelve year old orphan boy Duke (Lanny Rees) who inherited the ranch. That was one bad mama.Of course, Gabby Hayes is on hand as the ranch foreman hoping to keep his job following the death of Talbot. He has some fun at Dale's expense during the breakfast club initiation. Roy's regulars, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers are also around, handling a number of well placed songs including the title tune bookending the picture. Roy shares a duet with Dale in a lively little number called 'Miguelito'.What always gives me pause in these old Westerns is the way a lot of them approach the finale. The ending for this one is just a little insane if you stop and think about it. Jane's ranch hands are all gathered together in battle formation, and open fire as soon as Roy and his town crew come riding into view. I know it all made for good matinée viewing, but gee, were cowboys really settling their differences that way in the twentieth century? A couple of Roy's guys were mowed down in the charge and it seemed like just another day on the ranch.One last observation. Trigger usually got top billing with Roy in all their pictures, but this one made me curious. Sam Talbot's horse Major had more screen time here and helped out with solving the murder of his master. In effect, he had a bigger role in the story. Where was Trigger's agent on that one?

bkoganbing If Home In Oklahoma was located in the blue state east instead of the red state middle America, we might be talking about Tracy and Hepburn in the leads here.One of the things that always runs through Roy Rogers and Dale Evans's films is the battle of the sexes banter. In this film they are rival reporters, he for his local Oklahoma town paper and she for a big newspaper in St. Louis. They're both hot for a scoop involving the death of a local millionaire rancher. Of course this being a Roy Rogers western, he's also a cowboy. Hey, if Tracy and Hepburn could be rival lawyers in Adam's Rib, why can't Roy and Dale be rival reporters? Now don't expect the dialog to be on the level of Garson Kanin, but it ain't actually too bad.Home in Oklahoma boasts a very nice title song that Roy recorded and did well in the country/western market. Too bad Rodgers&Hammerstein already wrote a nice Oklahoma song or this one might be the state song for the Sooner State.