The best Champion’s drama movies

When asked about the Ghost Riders song he sings, Gene Autry tells this legend: Gene is about to resign as an investigator for the county attorney and go into the cattle business with his pal Chuckawalla Jones but decides instead to help Anne Lawson clear her father, rancher Ralph Lawson, of a false murder charge. He looks for the three witnesses who can testify that Lawson shot only in self defense in killing a gambler, but the witnesses are terrorized by another gambler, town boss Rock McCleary, who shoots witness Pop Roberts Morgan. Fatally wounded, Pop gives Gene the information needed to clear Lawson, then dies crying the "Ghost Riders" are coming for him. Gene then heads for a showdown with McCleary.

Gene Autry and sidekick Frog Millhouse depart Madison Square Garden and NYC heading west for home in their car and a horse trailer carrying Gene's horse, Champion. They discover that Ronnie Willoughby, a young boy just off the boat from school in England, has hitched a ride, thinking that Gene and Frog were sent by his father to meet him. Ronnie thinks his father is a big rancher in the west and doesn't know that his father, Alfred Willoughby, is serving time in San Quentin prison because of a frame-up by the officials of a packing company. To keep the father from testifying against them, the packing company officials, Carter, Jenkins and Martin, have arranged for the boy to be kidnapped. Along the way a runaway bride, Joyce Halloway, and her young sister Patsy join the troupe.

Young Englishman inherits ranch which he wants to sell, but Gene's gonna turn him into a real westerner instead. When new owner Spud arrives from England, Autry convinces him not to sell the ranch but to raise horses for the Army. When both Autry's and Neale's bids are the same, the Colonel calls for a race to decide the winner. But that night Neale has Autry's stable burned.

While trailing Forest Ranger Charles Carter, who is suspected of permitting lumber man Henry Mitchell to cut restricted timber, Gene fires at a dangerous mountain lion and apparently kills Carter. Actually, Bill Wright, Mitchell's associate, killed Carter because the ranger had discovered tussock moth infestation in the forest, and if the infestation was not reported, the trees would die and have to be cut, thereby profiting Mitchell and Wright. In order to compensate the best he can, Gene sells his sportsman's camp and gives the money to Carter's daughter Helen . En route to Texas, Gene discovers the infestation and is assigned by the Forest Department to supervise the program of spraying the area with DDT from the air. After the first day of spraying, the DDT is blamed by furious stock men for the many animals found dead of poisoning.

At the Texas Centennial in Dallas Autry confuses two girls by being himself and his own stunt double. When cowboy star Tom Ford disappears, Wilson gets his double Gene Autry to impersonate him. But Ford owes gangster Rico $10,000 and Rico arrives to collect. He fails to get the money but learns that Autry is an impersonator and now blackmails Wilson and his movie studio. Original version runs 71 minutes, edited version runs 59 minutes.