Melody of the Plains (movie, 1937)

The fourth of 12 singing Westerns starring the "Silvery-Voiced Baritone," Fred Scott, Melody of the Plains begins peacefully enough with Scott, as cowboy Steve Condon, warbling Don Swander and June Hershey's "Albuquerque." The story quickly takes a rather grim turn when one of Steve's colleagues, Bud (David Sharpe), is shot and killed after selling out to a gang of rustlers. Mistakenly believing he fired the deadly shot, a dejected Steve, along with sidekick Fuzzy (Al St. John), goes to work for Bud's father (Lafe McKee), a rancher nearly forced into bankruptcy by a crooked land developer (Hal Price).