Boys Town, Ranch Style

Audie Murphy, at the beginning of his career, made a movie reminiscent of Boys Town, but set at a Texas ranch, that I wasn't certain whether I had blogged about before. So when TCM put Boys' Ranch on the schedule some months back, I recorded it so that I could do a review on it. It turns out that the Audie Murphy movie I was thinking about was called Bad Boy, and that I had blogged about it over a decade ago. In any case, I hadn't seen Boys' Ranch, so I can now finally do a post on this one, too.

Dan Walker (James Craig) is a minor-league baseball player in one of those old ball parks where there's not much in the way of outfield seating and kids could theoretically watch for free by looking in over the fence. But those aren't good seats, so Dan helps out a couple of kids by hitting balls over the fence in batting practice where they can "return" the balls in exchange for getting let in for free as a courtesy by Dan. Hank (Darryl Hickman) is well-meaning, while Skippy (Skip Homeier) is a bit more of a problem, already engaging in petty crime. It turns out that his mom is already dead, while Dad is in prison.

Dan is getting up there in years in terms of his baseball career, so when he gets benched one day, he decides he's going to retire forthwith since he's been thinking of getting into ranching in Texas and has even been working a ranch in the off season. The two boys go to see Dan, and even have a gift for him, although a policeman who's guarding the players' entrance to the stadium recognizes Skippy and Hank and tries to arrest the two of them; it transpires as well that the "gift" the kids got Dan is in fact stolen. Dan, however, vouches for the two kids, and gives them train fare to his ranch. Skippy wants to blow, but Hank seems a bit more willing to give it a try; after all, it's this or reform school.

Unfortunately for them, it's roundup time, and neither of them has experience working a ranch, so until they can be taught they're worse than useless. It's hit the road again, but Skippy gets appendicitis. Hank falls in with some other kids who are in situations just as bad as Hank's, to the point that they steal food for their next meal. It's this that finally gets Dan to convince the other ranchers in the area that a workin ranch that the boys could run more or less themselves would be a good idea.

It's not too hard to figure out where the movie is going to go from here. Hank, given a second chance, takes it, and starts working hard at reforming. Skippy, on the other hand, remains a cynical operator, to the point that it puts a strain on their friendship and Skippy is constantly trying to escape or otherwise get ahead. Skippy's actions threaten to scupper the whole idea for a Boys' Ranch.

Boys' Ranch was made at MGM, which had made Boys Town several years earlier. It's the sort of sentimental material that MGM was excellent at making, although with the changing values just after World War II I don't know how much material like this still had with audiences. MGM also tried to inject some humor into this by casting Butch Jenkins as the littlest kid of them all. It doesn't always work, however.

Boys' Ranch isn't exactly a bad movie, but it's also not much more than a pedestrian second movie for a double bill.