Gene Autry Collection: Tumbling Tumbleweeds is the first Western done for Republic Pictures by Gene Autry. Autry plays a crooning cowboy, turned away from his father's home, who joins a traveling medicine show. Gene returns to his former home to find his father murdered and his best friend Harry (Cornelius Keefe) accused of the crime. Not wanting to believe his friend guilty of such a thing, Gene sets out to prove his innocence and discover his father's real killer. Accompanied by his steady companion Smiley (Smiley Burnette), Autry ferrets out the truth of the tale while singing his way through various scenes. With a broad cast including George Hayes, Eugene Jackson, Smiley Burnette, Cornelius Keefe, and Frankie Marvin, Tumbling Tumbleweeds is a hit and the first in the "singing cowboy" era. The film was very popular, especially in rural America, and one of the highest earning films of its time.moreless