AllMovie

Released to stony silence in February of 1937, this film was an atrocious musical western starring former silent screen cowboy Bob Custer. Custer played Santa Fe Evans, who -- with the cowboys of the Lazy D. Ranch -- auditions for a country radio show. Santa Fe's herd of cattle had been wiped out in a drought and the rancher plans to refurbish his stock from his prospected radio earnings. When Santa Fe's fiancée, Carol (Eleanor Stewart), learns that her younger brother (David Sharpe) is arrested for cattle theft, she blames Santa Fe. Excited over the rancher's vocal talents, the radio station follows Santa Fe as he sets out to clear Buddy's name. Along with "The Singing Cowboys" (Lloyd Perryman, Curley Hoag, and Rudy Sooter), Santa Fe warbles "Radio Gang Song" and "Travellin' Along", but takes time out to clear Buddy's name and catch the real rustler, Carver (Roger Williams). Hardly in a league with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers et al., Custer never made it as a singing cowboy; in fact, Santa Fe Rides was his final film. Ballyhooed as containing "bronzed sons of the West in a series of pulse-quickening adventures," this little horse opera was released by poverty row company Reliable Pictures Corp. The film was so bad that director Harry S. Webb felt forced to hide behind the pseudonym "Raymond Samuels."