Silver Spurs (1943) Roy Rogers, Trigger, Smiley Burnette, John Carradine, Phyllis Brooks Movie Review

Silver Spurs (1943)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Roy Rogers in Silver Spurs (1943)

Marriage, Murder & Mary

Jerry Johnson (Jerome Cowan) have inherited a 55,000 acre spread is an extremely eligible bachelor and being a bachelor means he can't sell the land. That is an issue for Lucky Miller (John Carradine) who wants Johnson's land but knows that Johnson's widow would be able to sell it so has sent one of his henchmen to bribe a woman to marry Jerry so that he can then make her a widow and buy the land from her. But with Roy Rogers working as Johnson's rancher things get messy especially when the murder weapon is switched with Roy's gun and he finds himself in jail.

As old westerns go "Silver Spurs" has quite a nice idea for a storyline from Jerry's father knowing his was not sensible enough to have complete control of the family ranch to the dodgy plans to marry and then murder him to then make the land available for a cheap sale. There is a genuinely intriguing nature to the storyline with some characters capable of some dark deeds. Although it has to be said that when Roy ends up accused of murder due to a switched gun it becomes a cliche because how many good guys ended up accused of a crime in this sort of western.

The thing is that whilst the storyline to "Silver Spurs" has some twists and turns the rest of the movie is less than spectacular. Roy gets to sing a couple of songs, John Carradine gets to act like a snake and Trigger gets to pull back on a rope. It is a case that like so many westerns of the era this one took a half decent storyline and turned it into something remarkably ordinary.

What this all boils down to is that "Silver Spurs" sadly takes a pretty decent idea for a western but turns it into a routine Roy Rogers escapade with many of the things you expect from one of his 1940s westerns.


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