Idioteex

Posts Tagged ‘Hear’

By all accounts, the late movie cowboy Gene Autry was a fine fellow and a savvy businessman, having owned a record label, a production company, and a baseball team. He was as widely known for his westerns as he was for making a hit song out of “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.” He made a ton of “B” westerns in the 40s, and had a TV show in the 50s, all aimed at the kid audience.

Those kids probably didn’t care that Gene wasn’t the greatest actor, and that he seemed to have only two facial expressions, concerned and smiling. He never knew what to do with his hands, so when he wasn’t playing the guitar or punching a bad guy, he hooked his thumbs over his gunbelt. Gene’s acting chops matched his voice, which was less than resonant, kind of nasal and twangy. He could carry a tune as long as it wasn’t very heavy.

Sometimes Gene played his guitar as he sang for an audience visible within the movie, and that made sense in both the real and reel worlds. But sometimes we’d see Gene and his sidekick, Smiley Burnett, riding their horses along some desolate trail west of nowhere, just the two of them, when Gene would abruptly burst into song. Not only did Smiley see nothing odd about this behavior, he didn’t even react to the full (and fully invisible) orchestral accompaniment that Gene seemed to carry around with him. In fact, Smiley even sang along.

Then after the song was over, the two good guys would run into some baddies. A rousing chase and fistfight would follow, with exciting music accompanying the action.  Read more...