When Dad (Roy Rogers) started starring in movies, the studio tried several things to get him to open his eyes wider.  You can see in the above photo (just received from my friend, Larry Zwisohn) why the studios thought they needed to do that.

Flash cameras just didn’t have a fast enough shutter speed to catch his eyes before they reacted to the light.  But the giant foil-covered reflectors (3 X 5 panels) they used on location were even worse. The makeup people tried eye drops and even tried gluing his upper eyelids open.

He said that the eyedrops gave him headaches but the glue made his upper lids raw and his eyeballs felt burnt by the late morning. I’m surprised that he didn’t have trouble with his eyes later but he had been blessed with incredible vision — that’s one of the reasons why he was such a great athlete.

I think his laughing eyes were his best features!

I sure hope that you are some of the few people who saw what I think was one of Dad’s very best films! It wasn’t out at the movie theaters very long (just a few weeks) as there was a law suit filed. Not about the film itself but between the producers!

Dad, of course, was the title character “Mackintosh.” A man searching to make a new life for himself after losing his wife and son in a car crash. Traveling West, he meets up with a troubled teenager played by Clay O’Brien Cooper. It’s a film without a leading lady, there’s no shooting but there are a few fights (without spurting blood though).

Just the way Dad wanted the film. It’s a really good film about real folks living in the great state of Texas.

The cast is wonderful.  Clay O’Brien Cooper (who became a World Champion team roper). Billy Green Bush, Andrew Robinson, Joan Hackett, James Hampton and Larry Mahan (the picture was made on his Four Sixes Ranch).

The picture is available on DVD but it is hard to find.