Watch Man from Music Mountain For Free

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

If you see enough Gene Autry films, eventually you'll catch the same themes recycled from one picture to another. I don't know if the ghost town gold swindle was utilized in one of Gene's earlier films, but the idea was played out again in 1941's "Under Fiesta Stars" (using a silver mine), and then again in 1942's "Stardust on the Sage". No matter who the leading cowboy was, virtually all of these early oaters were written strictly to formula, and the fans loved it because they kept coming back for more.This time out, villains Scanlon (Ivan Miller) and Brady (Ed Cassidy) look to make a quick buck by enticing investors in Gold River property with the promise of electricity and water provided by the recently built Boulder Dam. To help the hoodwinked land buyers, Gene and Smiley conspire to trick the baddies into believing that there's newly discovered gold in the once tapped out Betsy Lee mine nearby so that they'll offer to buy the land shares back. In a reversal of fortune, the mine really DOES have an undiscovered vein running through it, and it's a down to the wire race against time for Gene to make the save for the locals.I have to say, I got a kick out of a cool move that I haven't seen done in a Western before. When a couple of Scanlon's henchmen light out after Gene, he makes his way up into a tree branch and lassos them both off their horses with a single rope! The odds against that have to be astronomical, but Gene's a pretty remarkable guy and he makes it look easy.There's another interesting visual treat later on in the story when Smiley's sweetheart Patsy (Sally Payne) shows off a new electric powered washing machine. Right there in bold letters is the name of the manufacturer - Maytag! At this stage of the game, I don't think there was a repair man yet.As usual, there's a nice helping of musical offerings throughout the story, including a real catchy rendition of the title tune to open the picture. Then there's Smiley having some fun with a novelty song called 'She Works Third Tub at the Laundry'. However the one thing that caused me to rewind the film had to do with a line Gene delivered when Smiley questioned him about hydraulics. Smiley not knowing what the term could possibly mean, Gene offers this sage description - 'a shahoo with a hanalon bo-dan'. I couldn't have said it better myself.

This Gene Autry western, Man From Music Mountain uses the opening of Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam as the springboard for the story of this B film. The dam will now provide electric power for the residents of three states and some sharp operators are going to take advantage.As this film is set in the modern west, it's a 20th century plot we're dealing with. Ivan Miller is the chief villain and he's selling real estate, lots in a ghost town to be precise. But the scam he's working is that with Boulder Dam in operation there will be power lines coming soon and there is a gold mine nearby. Oh, Miller's selling shares in that as well.As Gene and Smiley Burnette have dealt with Miller before, they smell a rat. But in trying to outsmart him, they nearly outsmart themselves. You'll have to see Man From Music Mountain to know what I mean.The feminine leads are Carol Hughes and Sally Payne who have traveled west and bought those lots to open a beauty salon. It was nice that Republic Pictures thought of giving Smiley Burnette a girl as well for a change.The title song is the only new song in the film that was not written by Gene Autry, but it's the best number in the film. It's not a bad B western with a topical event to center the plot around.

Not to be confused with the later Roy Rogers film (THE Man from Music Mountain), this is very much a Poverty Row assembly-line oater, yet it's also better than most by far. For one thing, Autrey's foe isn't so much a villainous individual as a corporate usurper trying to suck the lifeblood by duplicitous means from an already-impoverished mining town that might or might not have a still-unmined gold reservoir. FDR would approve! For another, the musical sequences are frequent and often humorously eccentric. (I loved the number partially played on sleigh bells.) The whole thing is pretty tongue-in-cheek, with more singin' and yappin' than ridin' and shootin' until the last reel. I saw fhis on a cheap DVD collection (50 Gunslinger Classics) and it looked fine. I need to fill ten lines, right? Kerfuffle. Kablooey.

Gene sings a song called "Man from Music Mountain" near the beginning of the movie when Frog tells him that he needs to pep things up. The song is about as close as the story gets to the title of this action-filled shoot-'em-up. It seems that an eastern pair of shysters is getting rich selling shares in a worthless gold mine located near a ghost town. The crooks are also selling realty in the deserted mining town telling the buyers that the government is going to reopen the area by pumping water and electricity their way as a result of Boulder Dam. The only problem is the government is by-passing the area so the land is virtually worthless. In rides Gene and his cowhands to try to thwart the efforts of the bad guys. Gene even grub stacks the new arrivals until he figures out a way to get their money back and run the swindlers out of the country.The film opens with a homage to President Roosevelt's New Deal, showing the magnificent "Eighth Wonder of the World," Boulder Dam. Hollywood continually championed the New Deal during the 1930's, helping Roosevelt in his attempt to strangle Ol' Man Depression. It's doubtful if any other American President has been so favored by the mass media as Roosevelt throughout his twelve years in the White House. There's more than the usual amount of music in this Gene Autry outing. Most of it written by Gene, Frog (Smiley Burnette), and an up and comer Fred Rose, who would later discover Hank Williams, Sr, and help found the huge conglomerate, the Roy Acuff, Fred Rose Publishing Company in Nashville. Rose and Smiley were two of the best song writers around so expect some fine tunes. Smiley was a consummate musician, much better in that category than in the humor department, although in "Music Mountain" he does have some funny parts. One standout routine is "She Works Third Tub At The Laundry" with really raunchy lyrics for 1938 with a few sexual innuendos thrown in for good measure. Toward the end of the film Gene, who began his singing career imitating the great country blues singer Jimmie Rodgers, does a song that is a reworking of Jimmie's old "Gambler's Blues," giving the viewer a feel of how Gene sounded in the beginning before he attempted to become a popular crooner. There's also a cute ditty called "Burning Love" that involves a fairly humorous scene between the men and the ladies played by the vivacious Carol Hughes and the cut-up Sally Payne.Between the songs there's plenty of action culminating with a wild chase from the mine where an explosion opens a new vein of gold to the town to try to stop the crooks from horning in on the new riches. The chase involves Gene doing some fancy riding and roping. In most of Gene's movies there's a mixture of the Old West and the new west. So expect some modern inventions such as motor vehicles and electric gadgets. In fact, Frog wants to open an electric shop in town if electricity ever gets there.A good one for Gene Autry fans. Not bad for those who like Saturday matinée cowboy shows.