It was a hot summer shooting schedule in Guthrie, Texas. An entire month from mid-July to mid-August in 1975. This production would be the last ride for Western screen legend Roy Rogers … he had been making movies for 40-years and this was to be the end of the trail.
MVD Entertainment Group announced this past week that they would be joining forces with Verdugo Entertainment on Nov. 23 for the double-disc Blu-ray “Rewind Collection” double-feature release of director Marvin J. Chomsky’s Mackintosh & T.J., representing the end of Roy Rogers film career, plus Under Western Stars, showing his first starring role in 1938.
Mackintosh & T.J. is a new 4K film restoration from the original 35mm camera negative. UCLA Film and Television Archive was the source for the Under Western Stars restoration ... first time on Blu-ray.
Beginning in 1935, Roy Rogers began appearing in films, but you wouldn’t know it. He was background, part of Sons of the Pioneers or some random guitar player. If he got a credit at all, it would be Len Slye or Dick Weston … his film career was going nowhere.
And then the big break came in the fall of 1937 when Republic Pictures film star, Gene Autry, went “on strike.” Roy Rogers had just done two films (as a singer) for Republic, Wild Horse Rodeo and The Old Barn Dance (starring Gene Autry), so the studio knew he could handle the singing part in Under Western Stars (the song “Dust” was nominated for an Oscar), but they were more than pleasantly surprised when they discovered that he could really act as well!!
Skip ahead to 1975 and Mackintosh & T.J. … and the last theatrical release for Roy Rogers, who had become a recording artist, the star of radio, film and television (his own series, The Roy Rogers Show from 1951 to 1957).
Bonus features included with this “Rewind Collection” Blu-ray release from MVD Entertainment Group are commentary from actors Clay O’Brien (as T.J.) and Andrew Robinson (as Coley), with moderation by author C. Courtney Joyner, the featurette titled “Lone Pine Cast Reunion,” on-set footage from Mackintosh & T.J. and a video session with actor Billy Green Bush.
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