"Twilight in the Sierras" is a Roy Rogers film made in TruColor, a cheap two-color process that was much less expensive than Technicolor. This meant that this film (and many other B-westerns) is in color...but a very limited range of colors. It's a bit muddy for a color film...but compared to many other TruColor films I've seen, it looks pretty good. Additionally, the film is complete...something that isn't true for many of Roy's movies which were trimmed for television time slots of the 1950s.
When the film begins, Roy is a parole officer out west. He and the Judge work together hiring ex-cons. One day, one of these parolees, Ricardo, is kidnapped by Matt Brunner (George Meeker...who always seems to play baddies in these films) and his men. Why? Because they want to force Ricardo to help them with some counterfeit gold certificates....and if he doesn't cooperate, they promise to hurt his sister, Oddly, Brunner is convinced he needs to kill Rogers....and when his plan doesn't work, he blames Rogers for the death of one of his men and insist Roger be arrested. Can Roy figure out what's really going on here?
The part of the film about Roy being arrested doesn't make any sense, as the dead man was clearly mauled by a mountain lion, Roy's gun had been tampered with and he easily could have shown everyone this AND then Roy runs away....which makes no sense for a respected parole officer! Certainly not the most logical of Roy Rogers films....and it also seemed odd when the sheriff uses tear gas...something you really shouldn't see in such a setting. Overall, watchable but not especially logical.....which seems to be more likely true with his later films. And, oddly, a strange film that really seems to HATE Mountain Lions...as folks seem bent on killing them....and vice-versa.
By the way, I noticed that one reviewer says the film features the Sons of the Pioneers (a musical group created by Rogers in the 1930s). However, the group in the film is the Riders of the Purple Sage....a similar sounding group but not the Sons of the Pioneers.
