20 best movies like Square Dance Jubilee (1949)

This joyous celebration of frontier life combines tender romance and violent passion in the Oklahoma Territory of the 1900s with a timeless score filled with unforgettable songs. Rodgers and Hammerstein's hit Broadway musical.

In order to help neighboring Indians irrigate their farms, the Hotshots plan to put on a fair for tourists. But first they need $2000 for an advertising campaign, and the only way they can get it is to borrow it from a wealthy local woman, who has made it clear that she won't give them the money until Hezzie marries her.

Joe Lightcloud persuades his Congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, Charlie, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend, Bronc Hoverty, accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother.

With the California Gold Rush beginning, Senator Frost's singing daughter Caroline loves a young army officer; the Senator can't stand him, and has him sent to California. Headstrong Caroline follows him by train, riverboat, and covered wagon, gaining companions en route: a vagrant Russian prince and gambler Johnny Lawlor, who just might take her mind off the army.

A Michigan farmer and a prospector form a partnership in the California gold country. Their adventures include buying and sharing a wife, hijacking a stage, kidnapping six prostitutes, and turning their mining camp into a boom town. Along the way there is plenty of drinking, gambling, and singing. They even find time to do some creative gold mining.

El Malo, notorious Mexican bandit, forces the Mayor of Sierra Blanca, Seth Landport, to open the safe and turn over to him 2,000 pesos, which the bandit gives a promissory note for to the Mayor. Seth rushes to the cantina where Sheriff Rankin is drinking, and the sheriff posts a reward for the capture of El Malo. El Malo informs his men of the reward. The bandit and his sidekick, Pedro, visit the cantina where Pedro resumes a former acquaintance with Dolores, while El Malo has his attention directed to a tango being performed by Carmita. El Malo pushes her dancing partner aside and finishes the dance with Carmita. Since Seth's description of him is not accurate, El May visits the sheriff and promises to deliver the wanted bandit to the cantina the following night. THe following morning, El Malo and Pedro depart, and, halting their horses on a hill, view the stagecoach being held up by a trio of outlaws.

A posse, hunting the assailant of Denton's Partner, captures Steve Carlisle (Charles Starrett), who identifies himself as a mineralogist sent to check the area for quartz for radio parts. Calling at the Denton ranch, Steve hires Cannonball Mullins (Dub Taylor), who has just been fired by Jane Fielding (Vi Athens), Denton's ward. Steve learns that she wants to sell the ranch to the Empire Syndicate. Paul Edwards (Lloyd Bridges), syndicate representative, plans to convert the ranch into a swank hotel-gambling operation. At a party which Jane gives for Edwards, Hiram Denton (William Gould), is murdered and Steve is accused. He and Cannonball escape before the sheriff can take them into custody, and in searching for evidence find that Jane and Edwards are married and have done the killings in order to gain the ranch.

In 1850 Oregon, when a backwoodsman brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that they want to get married too.

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.

At the end of the Civil War, a Confederate team is ordered to rob a Union payroll train but the war ends leaving these men with their Union loot, until the Feds come looking for it.

The setting is a small town in 1870s Pennsylvania. Sally Waterson and her father have stopped in town with their traveling medicine show, but when their wagon catches fire, they find themselves stranded. They're taken in by Mrs. Cortlandt and her grandson, Peter, who is trying to set up a pipeline that will supply oil throughout the state. Sally and Peter soon fall in love and marry. Neither their marriage nor Peter's pipe dreams flow too smoothly.

Despite his unprepossessing screen personality, singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely was starred in a series of Monogram westerns, one of which was West of the Alamo. Wakely and comedy sidekick Lee "Lasses" White play a pair of government agents who work undercover to solve a series of baffling crimes. It comes to no one's surprise that the criminal mastermind is the town's leading citizen, in this case banker Clay Bradford (Jack Ingram). As was typical in the Wakely westerns, West of the Alamo is approximately 25 percent action and 75 percent musical. Among the guest warblers this time out is the Arthur Smith Trio, headed by a gospel singer who'd later emcee a popular religious TV talk show.

An Arizona teacher (Noah Beery Jr.) saves a vaudeville star (Martha O'Driscoll) and her troupe from a bandit (Leo Carrillo).

With the backing of the Mayor, Brady is running a crooked gambling operation. When Sheriff Curt shuts him down, he reopens when the Mayor charters his place as a private club. When Curt decides to run for Mayor, he is made to shut down the popular Warren medicine show. With Curt now out of favor the Warrens decide to run their daughter for Mayor and Brady has a plan to stop her also. - Written by Maurice VanAuken

An obscure entry in the musical Western cycle, Swing, Cowboy, Swing was produced by and starred country & western bandleader Cal Shrum. Shrum and his band, the Rhythm Rangers, are warned away from playing a theater in Big Bend by Cal's brother, Walt Shrum and his Colorado Hillbillies. Ignoring the warning, the Rhythm Rangers arrive at the theater only to be shot at by a masked stranger. With the help of stranded vaudeville performer Max "Alibi" Terhune and his dummy Elmer, Cal manages to catch the mystery shooter who turns out to be Frank Lawson (Frank Ellis). The film apparently did not generate enough interest for a series, but was re-released by Astor Pictures in 1949 under the title Bad Man From Big Bend.

The two nieces of the deceased Charley Bronson arrive to learn that an unknown judge will determine which one of them will inherit his ranch. But Bronson is still alive and posing as the cook. Hilda learns of this and sets out to use this information to win the ranch from her cousin Laurie.

Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.

A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court

Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok fuss, feud and fall in love. At first, Calamity is too busy fighting Indians and cracking a bullwhip to pay attention to such girlie things as dresses and perfume. She soon changes her mind when Katie Brown arrives in town.

The "star" in the title of this low-budget singing Western was Dynamite, a wild stallion captured by cowboy Curt Walker (Ken Curtis) to ride in the Big Rodeo. Unscrupulous John Burton (Robert Stevens) has bet against Curt and does his best to sabotage the event. When lovely Barbara Allen (Adelle Roberts), Curt's new girlfriend, leaves town because of Burton's schemes, Curt loses the first couple of events. The big Bronco Busting contest is coming up, and Pop Walker (Andy Clyde) stalls the proceedings with a series of singing acts while the girl's brothers (the musical group the Hoosier Hot Shots) attempt to locate her. Barbara arrives just in time to spur Curt on to victory.

Johnny Hart (Rod Cameron) is on the run from the law after killing one of the men who shot his partner. He passes through a town and stops at a saloon owned by singer Lorena Dumont (Yvonne de Carlo). The two seem a good, albeit tempestuous match, although Johnny has no plans to marry -- Lorena has other ideas and a shotgun wedding ensues.

Gene goes after the badguys after they kidnap the baby he should have been babysitting.

Left by a con man, Belle De Valle, a dancer, finds him again in gold-rush Alaska running an honest casino/dance hall.

In this tuneful western, two curious actresses head West to find out the name of their secret admirer. Songs include: "Amor," (Sunny Skylar, Gabriel Ruiz), "Hey Mabel" (Fred Stryker), "By the River Sainte Marie" (Edgar Leslie, Harry Warren), "She Broke My Heart in Three Places" (Oliver Drake), "When It's Harvest Time in Peaceful Valley" (Robert Martin, Raymond McKee), and "There'll Be a Jubilee" (Phil Moore).

Opera singer, Marie de Flor, seeks out fugitive brother in the Canadian wilderness. During her trek, she meets a Canadian mountie, Sgt. Bruce, who is also searching for her brother. Romance ensues, resulting in several love duets between the two.

The ramshackle Smoky River Ranch is all that stands in the way of a developer and a big real-estate deal, but the old man who owns the ranch won't sell it, because he has to take care of some down-and-out theater people to honor his dead son's memory. Frustrated, the developer sends in a pretty young girl to try to trick the old man into selling the ranch.

The son and daughter of feuding ranchers defy their fathers in the name of love.

Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.