Rogers was a big enough star at this point not to be threatened by the inclusion of his South of the Border counterpart in the cast. Tito Guizar was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and as a boy trained as a singer over his father's objections. In 1929 he went to New York to make a recording of the hit songs of the famous Mexican composer Agustin Lara, and stayed on to study opera. By the mid-1930s, he was appearing at Carnegie Hall and made his film debut in Under the Pampas Moon (1935), a musical Western romance starring Warner Baxter of "Cisco Kid" fame. The following year he returned to Mexico and launched the Singing Cowboy movie trend in his native country, alternating between there and the U.S. over the next decade. In his later years, he continued working primarily in the Mexican film and television industry through 1998. Guizar died in 1999 at the age of 91.
In On the Old Spanish Trail, Guizar plays a Zorro-type character known as The Gypsy, a fugitive pursued by Roy Rogers seeking reward money to pay off a $10,000 loan he co-signed for the Sons of the Pioneers. But after capturing the alleged bandit, Roy realizes he's innocent and lets him go, catching up with the true criminals in time.
As well known as he was, Guizar did not get second billing in On the Old Spanish Trail. That honor went, as it usually did, to Rogers's famous horse, billed as Trigger, the Smartest Horse in the West. Missing from the cast was another frequent Rogers co-star, Dale Evans, who first appeared with him in 1945 and married Roy in 1947, a year after the death of his second-wife. The romantic interest in this movie is supplied instead by Jane Frazee in the second of five films she made with the cowboy. Tito Guizar also gets his own leading lady, a jealous "spitfire" named Lolita, played by Cuban-born Estelita Rodriguez, who appeared in eight other Rogers pictures between 1945 and 1951.
Another familiar face you won't see in On the Old Spanish Trail is George "Gabby" Hayes, Roy's comic sidekick in dozens of movies from 1939 to 1946. That job is taken in this film by Andy Devine, his third with Rogers. The villain is played by Charles McGraw, best known for his starring role in the film noir classic The Narrow Margin (1952).
On the Old Spanish Trail was released in theaters in Republic Pictures' Tru-Color process, but most of the prints seen on TV are from an edited black-and-white master.
The art director on this movie, Frank Hotaling, labored in B Westerns (including a number of Roy Rogers movies) for many years before moving up to John Ford productions, including The Searchers (1956) and The Quiet Man (1952), for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
Director: William Witney
Producer: Edward J. White
Screenplay: Sloan Nibley, story by Gerald Geraghty
Cinematography: Jack Marta
Editing: Tony Martinelli
Art Direction: Frank Hotaling
Cast: Roy Rogers (Roy Rogers), Trigger (Trigger), Tito Guizar (Rico/The Gypsy), Jane Frazee (Candy Martin), Andy Devine (Bullfincher), Estelita Rodriguez (Lolita), Charles McGraw (Harry Blaisdell).
BW-75m.
by Rob Nixon
