What I watched: The sixteenth episode of The Gene Autry Show, a kid-friendly Western starring the titular singing cowboy and his sidekick Pat Buttram. "The Break-Up" was directed by George Archainbaud and written by Sherman L. Lowe, with guest stars Lynne Roberts, Alan Hale Jr. and Rand Brooks. The episode originally aired at 7:30 PM on Sunday, November 5, 1950 on CBS, and is available on Shout Factory TV.
Starring: Lynne Roberts pbegan acting as a teenager in the 1930s, with studios pretending she was three years older than she was, and at this point has already starred in a Lone Ranger film serial as well as dozens of other Westerns. These included three previous Gene Autry films. She was also on the second of what would eventually be four marriages.
What happened: After singing a jaunty tune, Gene witnesses a stagecoach driver being shot. He tells Pat to look after the man while Gene chases the runaway horses and their wagon. The shot man tells them to take him to Susan at the Circle D ranch. The man, Darrington, is apparently the father of Susan (Roberts), and is in a feud with her con artist husband Jeff (Brooks).
Jeff returns home to see Susan and his cute, inserts-shot baby. She wants them to leave town to escape the tension with her father, but he refuses. A saloon conversation reveals the real villains to us: Mort Craig (Hale) and his friends, who want Darrington’s land while Jeff and Susan are still out of the will. However, they’re alarmed to see that their target is still alive.
Gene and Pat search the scene of the crime, finding some blood on the rocks and a corncob pipe. No button noses are to be found. They tell Susan that her father is injured. She tells them that she was preparing to leave Jeff because of the conflict. Some how Pat and Gene end up taking care of the insert-shot baby. Pat doesn’t “like the idea of taking on a woman’s work”, but quickly becomes enraptured by his toys. Hijinx ensue.
Gene manages to calm the crying baby with the help of a music box and his dulcet voice. Meanwhile, Susan objects to the sheriff that Jeff couldn’t shoot anyone. Mort and his gang join the posse to go out and get Jeff. Gene determines that Jeff doesn’t smoke, and so believes in his innocence, and also gives him a lecture about his stubbornness.
The sheriff and the posse arrive, and Gene determines that Mort is carrying pipe tobacco on him. When Gene refuses to give up Jeff’s whereabouts, he’s placed under arrest. Craig is aware that Gene is onto him. When the other members of the posse refuse to help Gene break out, he punches them out and take his guns. In the most shocking moment of the episode, Susan picks up the baby and is in the same shot as him.
Craig confronts Gene, and basically says” Hello, murderer here.” The two other men are witnesses to this statement, and a gunfight ensues. Craig and his men escape, but Gene gives chase on Champion. Gene lassos one of the men and punches him out, then uses the rope to clothesline the other two. Well, at least that’s novel. In the final minute, we find out that Derrington will make a full recovery, that he’s learned to love his son-in-law for some reason, and that Pat has gifted the baby a jack-in-the box.
What I thought: This is another Gene Autry Show with more of a focus on family relationships and social interactions. The mystery story is somewhat perfunctory here, as the real focus is on making sure that the young couple at the centre don’t break up and that they reconcile with the wife’s father. Much of the run time of the episode is taken up with the hijinx of Gene and Pat looking after a baby, being drafted into a substitute family unit. This lets Autry show his “softer” side as well as his ability to punch dudes out.
Of course, just because this episode is more in Gene Autry’s wheelhouse than some other plots, doesn’t neccessarily mean it’s successful. The relationship between Jeff and Susan feels very thinly sketched out, and it never feels believable that she will leave. Derrington making up with Jeff off-screen, even though he hasn’t really done anything to prove himself, also feels very unearned. (The actor who played Derrington, Boyd Stockman, is uncredited, so maybe there was a reason he couldn’t be on-screen after the opening.) At least the fight scene at the end was a little more inventive than usual.
Coming up next: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie welcome cartoonist Milton Caniff to the show.