Knight Of The Plains

At the end of his long association with Hal Roach, comedian Stan Laurel produced three singing Westerns featuring operatic baritone Fred Scott. The second of the three, Knight of the Plains featured such songs as "Paradise Valley" (the film's working title), by Lew Porter and Harry Tobias, and "When We Heard the Music Play Home Sweet Home," by Porter and L. Wolfe Gilbert, as well as the expected comedy routines of the redoubtable Al St. John. In between the songs and comedy, Scott portrayed rancher Fred "Melody" Brent, whose neighbors, the Rands, are in trouble with a gang of land grabbers out to acquire an old Spanish grant. After the usual sagebrush derring-do and a bit of romance with lovely Gale Rand (Marion Weldon, Scott and his sidekick Fuzzy (St. John) can deliver the bad Guys to Sheriff Steve Clark, happy with the knowledge that they have prevented a range war. Scott was to make thirteen singing Westerns for various low-budget producers, all of them released by Spectrum Pictures.