Best movies like Time Machine: When Cowboys Were King

The old west range war story transported to Georgia, with Autry as the hero.

The Utah Kid was a late entry in Monogram's "Trail Blazers" series. These low-budget westerns usually featured three cowboy stars; this time, however, there are only two, Bob Steele and Hoot Gibson. Though neither star is a spring chicken, Steele is the younger of the two, so he's the "Utah Kid" by default. The plot, involving a gang of crooks who go around fixing rodeo results, was designed to accommodate yards and yards of stock footage.

Gene Autry is back in the saddle again as an undercover detective in this action-packed Western complete with a showdown. Gene poses as a jailbird to wangle the truth from a boy (Dick Jones) suspected of stealing an Army payroll. When the youngster escapes from lockup and rejoins his family's medicine show, intrigue is in the wind as Gene tries to solve the mystery of the missing money and to save the lad from a vicious mob. Pat Buttram co-stars.

A singing postal inspector (Gene Autry) and his partner (Smiley Burnette) save a woman's (Gail Davis) estate from fraud.

Oh, Susanna! is a 1936 American Western musical film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and Frances Grant. Written by Oliver Drake, the film is about a cowboy who is robbed and then thrown from a train by an escaped murderer who then takes on the cowboy's identity.

As the sheriff of a small western town, Autry sings his way into a relationship with Eleanor, a singer from a Chicago nightclub who earlier witnessed a murder.

Poachers are harassing toll road owner Jen Larrabee. They want her land because it holds valuable minerals. Autry and the Cass County Boys, mistaken for Texas Rangers, help out.

A ranch foreman (Gene Autry) helps three youngsters protect their inheritance from foreclosure.

It is the story of Gene's, a Cavalry scout, who manages to quell an Indian uprising.

Rancher Autry takes a job singing on the radio to aid farmers and ranchers whose lands were destroyed by raging floods. Blaming crooked politicians, he goes to Washington and tries to put through a food control bill and finds he has a lot to learn. In this classic release, Gene introduces his immortal theme song, "Back in the Saddle Again," which has gone on to become a piece of American History.

At the Texas Centennial in Dallas Autry confuses two girls by being himself and his own stunt double. When cowboy star Tom Ford disappears, Wilson gets his double Gene Autry to impersonate him. But Ford owes gangster Rico $10,000 and Rico arrives to collect. He fails to get the money but learns that Autry is an impersonator and now blackmails Wilson and his movie studio. Original version runs 71 minutes, edited version runs 59 minutes.

Gene responds to cattle rustling by stringing barbed wire all around his range.

Montana Marshals Gene and Scat are tracking some bank robbers. When the baddies cross into Canada, the Mounties are called upon to help.

Actor Ned Beatty hosts a look at the genre known as "exploitation" films. Interviews with some of the producers and directors of these films are shown, along with scenes from and trailers for some of these films.

This movie is a fun look back into a bygone era of motorcycling. More than the ubiquitous "history of Harley" type documentaries, this move looks at the entire culture of motorcycling from the 60's & 70's and covers road racing, motocross & desert racing, drag racing, trials and more. The viewer gets to see in action the famous racers we had only previously seen in photos and even ride along with Mike "The Bike" Hailwood on a 190 MPH lap of the Isle of Mann. If you liked the requisite motorcycle movie "On Any Sunday," you'll LOVE this one. The soundtrack, with songs by Foreigner and Arlo Guthrie, is nostalgically cool too.

His Arizona hometown of Torpedo invites Gene back to be the honorary sheriff of the Frontier Days Celebration.

Gene Autry is assigned to safely transport supplies to a band of settlers. The villains, headed by Ross McLain, intend to bushwhack Autry, grab the supplies, and sell them at high prices to a local mining camp.

A Texas Ranger tries to bring down counterfeiters selling fake lottery tickets.

With the increasing popularity of Republic's sagebrush crooner Gene Autry, rival company Columbia found it necessary to add a musical element to this Charles Starrett Western released in early 1937. As Starrett himself was no singer, the studio hired Donald Grayson to warble Lonesome River, Out in the Cow Country and Pancho's Widow, all by Ned Washington and Sam H. Stept.

A singing territorial ranger (Gene Autry) spots his younger brother in an outlaw gang.

A Western-genre narrative, loosely woven from old clips from B-Western features.

This documentary traces the history of the B-Western from it's silent movie origins to its demise in the early 1950s. The film contains a large number of scenes from early silents and seldom seen films, as well as old photographs of the stars and one-sheet advertisements for lost films.

Young Joe is paralyzed as he is bucked by a wild horse, a strawberry roan. Angered, his father, Walt, tries to shoot the horse but is stopped by his foreman, Gene Autry. The roan escapes and Autry, told to leave the ranch by Walt, finds and trains the horse, now named Champ, in hopes that by returning it to Joe it will provide him with the will to overcome his disability.

Gene takes care of three tough kids sent west from Chicago after their father died and left them a cattle ranch. They help him catch a bunch of rustlers.

A rodeo singer funds a little girl's operation with a show, on television.

Autry is drawn into the plot when he's given power of attorney in a property settlement involving his old pal and a gang of land swindlers. The pal then goes on an extended vacation, leaving Autry to sort things out.

Like 1940's Melody Ranch, the 1941 Gene Autry vehicle Down Mexico Way was designed as a "special", to be promoted separately from Autry's regular B-western series as an A-picture attraction. The story gets under way when a pair of con artists, Gibson (Sidney Blackmer) and Allen (Joe Sawyer), breeze into the town of Sage City claiming to be movie producers. The two scoundrels promise to film a movie in the little burg on the condition that the townsfolk pony up the necessary production fees.

A movie company making a film about a famous sheriff hires his grandson as a stand-in for the lead.

Ranch owner Sandra, fresh from animal husbandry school, brings a flock of sheep into cattle country. The local ranchers don't like it, and ranch foreman Gene must deal with it.

A singing cowboy (Gene Autry) and his partner (Bill Henry) thwart a foreman who wants their mine.

America's favorite singing cowboy Gene Autry stars in this vintage tale as an up-and-coming rodeo singer caught in the middle of two rival companies, both angling to ride the talented crooner to riches. Featuring several memorable musical performances from Autry, including renditions of "Forgive Me" and "In Old Capistrano," this rousing Western co-stars Smiley Burnette, Virginia Grey and Lucien Littlefield.

Montana ranch owner Cyrus Bigbee sends his foreman, Gene Autry, and Rawhide Buttram to his Canadian timber land to stop the marriage of his daughter Sandy to Todd Markey, whom he dislikes. Sandy wants to turn the property into a dude ranch, with Carolina Cotton and the Cass County Boys (Fred S. Martin, Jerry Scoggins and Bert Dodson) among the entertainers, and runs up against local timbermen who want it for cutting timber. When a Mountie is murdered, with suspicion pointing to Todd, Gene finds the real culprit and brings peace to the area.

Gene Autry heads a cattlemen's association and calls on the inexperienced Jim Agnew to negotiate the sale of five hundred heads of cattle. Jim ends up losing the cattle in a crooked poker game, however, and Gene and his sidekick Frog set out to find the cheating gamblers. It soon becomes clear that the leader of the gamblers is none other than Asa Lock, the dastardly father of Gene's romantic interest Stephanie.

Tex rides to the rescue when badguys led by LaCrosse and Utah Joe kidnap Lettie.

Gene Autry and sidekick Frog Millhouse depart Madison Square Garden and NYC heading west for home in their car and a horse trailer carrying Gene's horse, Champion. They discover that Ronnie Willoughby, a young boy just off the boat from school in England, has hitched a ride, thinking that Gene and Frog were sent by his father to meet him. Ronnie thinks his father is a big rancher in the west and doesn't know that his father, Alfred Willoughby, is serving time in San Quentin prison because of a frame-up by the officials of a packing company. To keep the father from testifying against them, the packing company officials, Carter, Jenkins and Martin, have arranged for the boy to be kidnapped. Along the way a runaway bride, Joyce Halloway, and her young sister Patsy join the troupe.

Gene Autry is back near the saddle, trying to help out a crippled jockey. Gene is certain that the jockey can ride in the Big Race if the lad can regain his self-confidence. Meanwhile, Gene and comical sidekick Sterling Holloway have another problem on their hands: A rogue stallion has "kidnapped" Gene's prize mare. Piloting a plane, Autry seeks out and locates the stallion.

A movie cowboy scrambles to salvage his career after his latest movie turns out to be a flop.

Not quite as memorable as his previous Riders in the Sky, Gene Autry's Sons of New Mexico is still well up to the star's standard. This time, Gene tries to reform Randy Pryor, a would-be juvenile delinquent, played by Autry-protégé Dick Jones (who later starred in the Autry-produced TV series Range Rider and Buffalo Bill Jr). To this end, Pryor is enrolled at the New Mexico Military Institute, where much of this film was lensed. The kid chafes at the school's regimen and escapes, heading back to his criminal mentor Pat Feeney (Robert Armstrong).

Deputies Gene Autry and Frog go up against modern cattle rustlers. These rustlers use technology such as, airplanes, radios and refrigerated trucks to steal the cows, butcher them in the field and ship them out before getting caught. This causes the town to bring in a modern NYC detective to catch the crooks, but will Autry and Frog be permanently out of a job?

Cavanaugh and McCauley are after the ranchers land. When the Government announces the land will be put up for auction, the ranchers pool their money only to have it stolen by Cavanaugh's men. They then plan to sell their cattle but Cavanaugh announces a fake gold strike and the cowhands all leave. But Gene's hobo friend the Judge says he will get the cattle to market and he sends out a signal to his hobo friends.

When asked about the Ghost Riders song he sings, Gene Autry tells this legend: Gene is about to resign as an investigator for the county attorney and go into the cattle business with his pal Chuckawalla Jones but decides instead to help Anne Lawson clear her father, rancher Ralph Lawson, of a false murder charge. He looks for the three witnesses who can testify that Lawson shot only in self defense in killing a gambler, but the witnesses are terrorized by another gambler, town boss Rock McCleary, who shoots witness Pop Roberts Morgan. Fatally wounded, Pop gives Gene the information needed to clear Lawson, then dies crying the "Ghost Riders" are coming for him. Gene then heads for a showdown with McCleary.

Ex-Pony Express rider Autry ties to protect his US mail franchise as the Pony Express gives way to stage coach mail and the telegraph. Gene's last film appearance as a singing cowboy.

Gene Autry hunts bank robbers Al Bartlett and Trot Lucas with his old friend Mike. Bartlett, to throw off his pursuers, kills Trot and his own brother. When Kitty Bartlett comes to town claiming to be the slain Bartlett's widow, Gene has to save her from the irate townspeople who are not aware that her name isn't Bartlett but she really is the daughter of a law officer slain by Al Bartlett. Ben Luder, a local hood, tricks Bartlett back into town by saying he has to fixed to have Doc Larry Taylor do plastic surgery on him. En route they meet Doc and his assistant Helen Ellis and Ben's ruse is exposed. Bartlett kills Ben and forces Doc to drive him to the railroad. Gene, in a fight atop a runaway train, captures Bartlett.

Jimmy's uncle gives him 30 days probation on Kirk's ranch to control his temper or lose his inheritance. There he gets tangled up with a gang of robbers whose boss is his rival for Kirk's daughter. With one day left in his probation, they goad him into a fight.

Columbia's final release for 1950 was the Gene Autry western Indian Territory. Set during the Reconstruction Era, the story finds Autry working as an undercover agent for the U.S. cavalry. His mission: to neutralize a former Austrian army officer named Curt Raidler (Phil Van Zandt), who is leading a group of renegade Indians on a series of destructive raids.

A cowboy rides by night to catch the man who killed his brother.

Radio star Gene Autry returns to his home town of Gold Ridge at the request of his old friend Pop Harrison, who wants Gene to straighten out his wayward son, Tex Harrison, whose gambling and drinking threaten to bankrupt the rodeo organization which he heads. News photographer Clementine "Clem" Benson and reporter Hack Hackett are ordered to follow Gene. The group finds quarters at the "Bar Nothing" dude ranch, winter quarters for Tex's rodeo group, and Tex soon tangles with Hackett in a quarrel.

A cowboy on the run from a posse finds the clothes and ID of a preacher on the trail. He assumes the man's identity, but when he arrives at the nearest town, he rides into the middle of a hanging--and the man who is being hanged knows his real identity.

Before changing his name to Richard Powers, cowboy hero Tom Keene spent the waning days of his stardom at Monogram, churning out westerns like Riding the Sunset Trail. When ingenue Betty Dawson (Betty Miles) and her kid sister Sugar (Sugar Dawn) are cheated out of their cattle ranch, Tom Sterling (Keene) and his sidekick Mendoza (Frank Yaconelli) vow to get the ranch back for the girls. This requires Sterling to cross six-guns with Pecos Dean (Gene Alcase), a former friend who'd turned bad.

Buck Bonner, posing as the recently deceased Morning Glory Kid, is sent to round up the Mort Ringer gang. Buck finds Ringer and joins up with his gang. But he is in trouble when Slim and Bud who buried the Kid arrive and expose him as a Marshal.