Mill Creek’s new four-disc set, The Roy Rogers Happy Trails Collection, gathers up 20 Rogers pictures spanning his entire career, and presents most of them in the same unfortunate condition we’ve seen before. However, the set does have its advantages.
Here are the Rogers movies you get:
Young Bill Hickok (1940)
Sons Of The Pioneers (1941)
Cowboy And The Senorita (1944)
Sunset In El Dorado (1945)
Don’t Fence Me In (1945)
Man From Oklahoma (1945)
Along the Navajo Trail (1945)
Rainbow Over Texas (1946)
Down Dakota Way (1949)
The Golden Stallion (1949)
Susanna Pass (1949)
North Of The Great Divide (1950)
Trigger, Jr. (1950)
Trail Of Robin Hood (1950)
Bells Of Coronado (1950)
Twilight In The Sierras (1950)
Spoilers Of The Plains (1951)
South Of Caliente (1951)
In Old Amarillo (1951)
Pals Of The Golden West (1951)
Many of these are from the later period, when William Witney was packing these things with action — and shooting some in Trucolor. They also had longer running times, which is where we run into trouble. Trail Of Robin Hood (1950), for instance, runs 67 minutes. In this set, it runs just 63 minutes and that includes the Happy Trails Theatre introduction. So it’s fair to say that up to 10 minutes of the film is gone. This pattern continues throughout, with the damage depending on how long or short each movie was originally. Young Bill Hickok runs under an hour, so it might not have too much missing. Cowboy And The Senorita (1944), Roy and Dale’s first film together is the odd man out. It does not have an introduction, and it runs its full 77 minutes. Looks pretty good, too.
There are a few supplemental videos, some of them from the Roy Rogers Museum, which are nice to have — especially since the museum is no more, and it’s about as close to a tour as we’re gonna get anymore.
Some of these films are available elsewhere uncut. (Trigger, Jr. from Kino Lorber is incredible.) Wouldn’t it be great to have them complete with the introductions included as an extra, the way the Gene Autry pictures are done? I’m dying for a full-length Spoilers Of The Plains.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
Good to see this release but if only……we could have these films as intended. I have a bunch of Brit friends who would kill to have these films uncut!
Thankfully I was able to visit the Roy Rogers Museum at Apple Valley in 2000. Roy had died not so long before but Dale was still alive. I really enjoyed our time there. Some fascinating mementos of a hugely popular and successful career.
I believe this is just a reissue of a set from some years back from Timeless.I have a copy and some films are listed as full length or color when they are not.OK to have for the segments from their Happy Trails Theater show of long ago but yes I would prefer them uncut.Maybe someday.
I think you’re right. I gave that Timeless set away, so I can’t double-check it.
It’s such a shame that this Rogers movies are such a mess. At least we’re finding that Paramount has good, complete material on a lot of these — such as Sunset In The West and Trigger, Jr. which Kino Lorber brought out on DVD and Blu-Ray. I highly recommend those.
Does this collection include the trailer for “Spoliers of the Plains”?
Nope, it does not.