&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/8204?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Roy+Rogers+rides+again+at+the+BFI+London+film+festival%3AArticle%3A1647739&amp;ch=Film&amp;c3=GU.co.uk&amp;c4=London+film+festival+2011%2CLondon+film+festival%2CFilm%2CCulture&amp;c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful&amp;c6=Geoffrey+Macnab&amp;c7=11-Oct-14&amp;c8=1647739&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=&amp;c11=Film&amp;c13=&amp;c25=Film+blog&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FFilm%2FLondon+film+festival+2011&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;He&#039;s been all but forgotten, but the LFF&#039;s restrospective should spur new interest in the singing cowboy and his palomino, Trigger&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#039;s as if &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001678/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Roy Rogers&lt;/a&gt; never existed. The &quot;singing cowboy&quot; has almost entirely disappeared from our screens. The only time you&#039;re likely to catch a glimpse of him is when Bob Hope movie &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkg2C_EIea0&quot;&gt;Son of Paleface&lt;/a&gt; turns up on television &ndash; it features Rogers gently sending himself up, as well as his beautiful palomino Trigger, surely the most good-looking horse in the history of westerns, performing a dance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rogers (whose real name was Leonard Slye) made more than 80 films. Early in his career, he was one of the original Sons of the Pioneers, the cowboy singing group whose songs included &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQc5gDXQGIs&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Tumbling Tumbleweeds&lt;/a&gt; (featured in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/77069/big.lebowski&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Big Lebowski&lt;/a&gt;) and Cool Water. He had his own radio show, his own TV show and there was even a restaurant chain bearing his name. Kids who grew up in Britain in the 1970s will remember Roy Rogers movies as a regular staple of after-school TV, and Roy Rogers annuals as familiar Christmas presents. He was a marketeer and businessman extraordinaire. Nonetheless, since his death in 1998, the Roy Rogers trail has run cold. Not even Quentin Tarantino&#039;s enthusiasm for one or two of his films (&quot;I find myself moved by his common decency,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/15/movies/whoa-trigger-auteur-alert.html?pagewanted=all&amp;src=pm&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Tarantino told The New York Times&lt;/a&gt;) helped prise Rogers back out into view. Today, kids don&#039;t have any idea who he is.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last summer&#039;s successful auction of 344 lots from the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum Collection showed that the &quot;singing cowboy&quot; at least retains his nostalgia value. Trigger, who died in 1965 and was promptly stuffed, sold for more than $250,000 to a Nebraska cable TV network, RFD-TV. USA Today reported the network&#039;s chief financial officer Steve Campione as saying: &quot;Rogers reflects the company&#039;s values.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What values are those? Rogers was nothing if not wholesome. Whereas other cowboys might look grimy and weatherbeaten, Rogers was always squeaky clean. His very natty shirts were always perfectly pressed and his hat sat tidily on his head, however fast he galloped. Watch the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-r6A7TzvUI&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;opening of his TV show&lt;/a&gt; and you&#039;ll understand some of his appeal. Roy is shown galloping very fast, but with perfect poise while shooting off his gun. His partner (and third wife) Dale Evans is riding in his wake, an inane grin on her face. The comical sidekick Pat Brady is third in line and then comes the wonder dog, Bullet, keeping up the rear. Roy Rogers offered a combination of action and suburban folksiness; cowboys are often loners but Rogers liked an entourage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This year is the centenary of Rogers&#039;s birth and to mark the occasion, the BFI London film festival is screening two of his films in versions specially restored by the UCLA archive. One, Under Western Stars (1938), is his first starring role. This was the one he made when his fellow &quot;singing cowboy&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/16/gene-autry-first-singing-cowboy&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Gene Autry&lt;/a&gt; failed to turn up to work; Republic Pictures, which had put Rogers under contract and changed his name, drafted him in instead. Rogers was instantly popular in a Capra-esque tale about a cowboy taking on a big, bad businessman. When Autry went off to war in the early 40s, Rogers became undisputed &quot;king of the cowboys&quot;. Not that the rivalry between Autry and Rogers was ever vicious; &quot;There&#039;s plenty of room on the prairie,&quot; Rogers said of the star whose lustre he stole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The festival&#039;s other film is Rainbow Over Texas from 1946, by which time he was successful enough to play himself &ndash; and gets to&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW472Wp4dEY&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt; sing a duet with Dale&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I find Rogers more interesting (than Autry) because he turned his hand to a lot more roles than just straightforward,  Boy Scout B-westerns,&quot; says Clyde Jeavons, archive consultant at the LFF. &quot;Autry had a 10 commandments for the cowboy and was very moralistic in the parts he played. Rogers was slightly more dangerous. He was a very flash dresser and he had a very pretty horse.&quot; Jeavons admits he felt a certain trepidation when he approached LFF artistic director Sandra Hebron about staging a Roy Rogers tribute. &quot;But she jumped at it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the 1940s, Rogers was among the biggest stars in Hollywood. He plotted his career with great guile and had a relentless work ethic. However he couldn&#039;t claim all the credit for his success. As Jeavons says, a certain palomino played a crucial role in his ride to the top. &quot;Trigger was known as the smartest horse in the movies &hellip; a heavily bridled horse and a very pretty coloured horse, almost a blonde horse, really. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jeavons says that Rogers is one among many once popular B-movie stars who&#039;ve vanished from the public&#039;s sight. &quot;They&#039;ve disappeared into the background. Who has ever heard of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.b-westerns.com/hgibson.htm&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Hoot Gibson&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.b-westerns.com/mccoy.htm&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Tim McCoy&lt;/a&gt; or Ken Maynard or people like that? Rogers and Autry were top of that heap, but still are only vaguely remembered. Maybe it&#039;s time to have a little revival. What do you think?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&bull; Rainbow Over Texas and Under Western Stars are showing on Saturday 15 October 2011 at noon, NFT1. The programme is presented by UCLA&#039;s Robert Gitt. For tickets go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;www.bfi.org.uk&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/london-film-festival-2011&quot;&gt;London film festival 2011&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/londonfilmfestival&quot;&gt;London film festival&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/geoffreymacnab&quot;&gt;Geoffrey Macnab&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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