Harold Goodwin and his gang have been rustling horses. Everyone thinks it's the wild stallion, The Strawberry Roan, who's been breaking them out. They rope him and bring him down to William Desmond's ranch. He offers his spread to the man who can ride her. Ken Maynard, who's courting Ruth Hall, waits his turn.
Universal certainly knew how to spend their money cannily on their westerns. Although the copy I saw looked like it was cobbled together from an assortment of clips, there's some lovely shots by cinematographer Ted McCord, Nate Gatzert's script works well, and Alan James' direction emphasizes the rough good humor and sense of fair play of the cowboys, rather than the standard backing story. The long riding sequences, instead of going on forever, allow the pacing to cool down; the musical interludes amuse because Ken Maynard can't carry a tune; and the big ending isn't a gallop to chase the bad guys and a shootout, but a herd of wild horses wrecking the ranch, and Ken's attempt to ride the title beast. It's a delightful change of pace from the standard B western.
Strawberry Roan
1933
Action / Western
Strawberry Roan
1933
Action / Western
6.7Keywords: stallion
Plot summary
Ken Masters and his two musical pals, Shanty and Curley, are idiling around when ranch owner Big Jim Edwards, his daughter Alice, and his foreman Bart Hawkins, come to town with the news that the Strawberry Roan, a wild stallion, is on the rampage again and luring Big Jim's mares to join his wild herd. He offers any cowboy a job who will help him round-up the wild herd and Ken, Shanty and Curley sign up. Cattleman Colonel Brownlee also offers his prize ranch to the man who is good enough to ride the Strawberry Roan and Ken resolves to try for the prize.(The Colonel either had more ranches than he knew what to do with or was counting on the horse not being caught or not being rode when and if caught.Anyway it moved the plot along). After being chased all over by Ken and his horse Tarzan, Alice is the one who ropes the horse. Well, so much for being uncatchable. They bring him to the corral, where Bart warns Ken to stay away from Alice. The riding contest the next day is a complete victory for the Roan who throws all comers and is about to kill Curley before Tarzan leaps into the corral and fights off the savage stallion. Bart and his henchmen plan to steal the ranch herd, and wear down the Roan with torture so that Bart can ride him, and win the ranch.But Ken interferes and the Roan gets away, only to return and lead the herd in a destructive raid on the ranch.Colonel Brownlee, possibly in an attempt to hedge his bet, and Edwards decide that the Roan must be captured and killed. Ken thinks otherwise. The Realart reissue through Film Classics has a couple of cast errors in the re-done credit frames.But one of them is not listing Leon Schlesinger as a producer of the film, which some vastly uninformed source says he was. Mercy, where do they come up with such misinformation, and why do they put it in print?
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Not Your Standard Cowboy B
A enjoyable Ken Maynard film
Made in 1933 while cowboy star Ken Maynard was under contract at Universal, this film has better production values than some of his other sound films. For those curious about Maynard and his famous horse Tarzan, this is really a great, enjoyable and unusual Western. This is not really a shot 'em up Western. There is plenty of action, however, in this story of how a Wild Strawberry Roan comes to be tamed.
If you know the famous song, you know the plot of this film. In fact, part of the plot involves a fictionalized account of how the catchy song came to be. Ken displays his limited but real cowboy-like singing abilities. Maynard is sometimes credited as the first singing cowboy in the movies, although Gary Cooper sang a tune in the 1929 Virginian.
Tarzan also shows why he became the famous horse he once was, and has some
memorable and exciting scenes. Tarzan does not play the Strawberry Roan as he is Ken's horse and the Roan is a Wild Horse.