Shadow Valley (1947)

Director: Ray Taylor

Writer: Arthur Sherman

Composer: Walter Greene

Starring: Eddie Dean, White Cloud, Roscoe Ates, Jennifer Holt, George Chesebro, Eddie Parker, Lee Morgan, Lane Bradford, Carl Mathews, Budd Buster, Andy Parker, The Plainsmen

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Song-Filled... Action-Thrilled With Eddie and His Horse White Cloud On The Trail Of NEW ADVENTURES!

Plot: Eddie and sidekick Soapy get involved in Gunnison's attempt to acquire the Jarvis ranch. Gunnison knows there is gold there and having already killed Mary Ann's father and uncle, he now tries to persuade her to leave. But Eddie gets her to stay and then starts his search for the killer.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Eddie Dean was a latecomer into the singing cowboy movie scene.  He's got a great voice and he's a wonderful singer but his screen presence is pretty low.  When he smiles, he's fun to watch but otherwise he's often as bland as they come.  He's got three songs in this picture, my favorite being, "Cornbread Country" only because I loves me some good Southern cooked cornbread made from scratch.  Mmmmm mmm!  Roscoe Ates plays Eddie's goofy sidekick, Soapy Jones. I'm really not a fan of these overly silly characters.  I spent a few days visiting my pop and we watched A LOT of Western movies and 50s/60s Western TV shows.  It was great fun getting to see a lot of classic shows I hadn't seen since I was a kid forty years ago.  This was right smack in the middle of the three day horse opera fest and I'd about had my fill of idiotic, stupid, incompetent, comic relief sidekick characters. The rest of the picture is pretty straight forward, a story used a gazillion times by 1947.  Eddie pissing off Mary Ann (Jennifer Holt) royally by simply not telling her that there's gold on her property.  I'm sure she would have kept it a secret.  The result is Eddie being a complete dick to her when he repeatedly says he'll tell her everything when the time comes.  He's a douche.  Make that a bland douche. Alright, a bland douche with a lovely singing voice.  The picture isn't much better than OK at best with at least one redeeming quality and that's having a running time of only 59 minutes.