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The Bells of San Angelo was the second Republic Roy Rogers western to be filmed in the "new" Trucolor process (actually the old Magnacolor process). Set in the modern west, the story involves a silver-smuggling racket headed by rotten Rex Gridley (John McGuire). In a novel scripting touch, Roy Rogers doesn't outwit the villains-and in fact is soundly beaten by the bad guys halfway through the film. It's up to heroine Lee Madison (Dale Evans), a writer of fanciful cowboy novels, to save the day! By taking Roy Rogers off his "King of the Cowboys" pedestal, Bells of San Angelo succeeds in humanizing this western icon, and the film is all the better for it.