Cowboy Serenade (1942)

• 66%
• 1942
• Western
• William Morgan
• Gene Autry
• Smiley Burnette
• Fay McKenzie

Rancher Gene Autry (Gene Autry) heads a Cattleman's Association that appoints young, naive Jimmy Agnew (Rand Brooks) to take the collective shipment to the meat-packing plant and handle the sale of the beef. En route by train, Jimmy is fleeced by professional card-sharps and is forced to pay off with cattle-shipment money. Ashamed, he goes into hiding. It's up to Gene to make good, and accompanied by Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette), they get a job on the ranch owned by Asa Lock (Addison Richards) who operates the trunk-line on the railroad on which the crooked gamblers ply their trade. Lock's daughter, Stephanie (Fay McKenzie), ignorant of her father's involvement, assists Gene trying to prove her father innocent. Lock pretends to play along with Gene in seeking the crooks. Gene locates Jimmy and persuades him to give himself up and make a clean breast of the affair so Gene will have a basis for prosecution. Learning this, and knowing he will be exposed as the gang leader, gives orders for Jimmy's elimination in a staged car-wreck but, discovering that Stephanie is also in the car, races to stop his henchmen.