When the screenwriter got ahold of the book of the smash hit 1930 Broadway musical, they didn't just take scissors to it. They demolished it with a weed whacker. Gone other than the basic story of a city slicker deemed as "girl crazy" who is sent out to find manhood in the wild, wild west is the bulk of George and Ira Gershwin's unforgettable score. What remains is a mixed bag of typical old vaudeville gags as evidenced by the casting of Wheeler and Woolsey in the top-billed roles.
Wheeler is a rather dim-witted Chicago cab driver hired by Woolsey to drive him to Arizona (!) so he can work the crap tables and his wife (Kitty Kelly) can sing at the dude ranch club opened by their city slicker pal (Eddie Quillan). Wheeler is convinced to run for sheriff, but grizzled Stanley Fields threatens to shoot anybody who gets into the sheriff's office other than him. Romance follows for Quillan who takes up with a postal delivery girl (Arline Judge), and Wheeler finds romance with pretty Dorothy Lee. But with Fields out to shoot Wheeler and Judge being romance by a lecherous New Yorker (Brooks Benedict), their chances of getting together seem unlikely.
Kelly, no relation to the infamous author of some tell-all autobiographies of Sinatra, Taylor, the Reagans and the Bushes, gets to sing Ethel Merman's star-making song, "I Got Rhythm", and does a decent job with it. The musical number is highlighted by some comical effects, including dancing cactus, a moosehead on the wall which sways, and a bartender (silent comic Monte Collins) whose hair skids back and forth to the rhythm. "Bidin' My Time" sets up the story of all the previously slain sheriffs by showing the local graveyard and a new tombstone being put in. "Never made it to office", the stone says, making you wonder which sap will be next. "But Not For Me" is embarrassingly performed by Mitzi Green (as Wheeler's pesky sister who won't stop demanding that somebody listen to her imitations), Quillan and Judge, and reprised by Green doing mimics of Crosby, stutterer Roscoe Ates, monocled George Arliss, and most hysterically, nose twitching Edna May Oliver. A little bit of that goes a very long way.
This seems almost like an after thought, rushed together to capitalize on the show's success and to give Wheeler and Woolsey a vehicle exploiting their talents. It seems lame when compared with the Mickey/Judy MGM version filmed a decade later. That is why Leo the Lion roars at the beginning before the Radio tower begins to beep. On its own, it is acceptable entertainment, with a very funny chase scene between Wheeler and cop Nat Pendleton who is mistaken for a dummy earlier accidentally attached to the back of the cab. The scenes with Wheeler and Woolsey hiding out from Fields are retreads of what they already did in "Rio Rita" and "The Cuckoos", although Woolsey's attempts at hypnotizing Fields are amusing. One of the Mexican senoritas who flirts with the boys is future ingénue Rochelle Hudson. Even though the film is ultimately a mixed bag, it ends on a very funny pre-code note that is the icing on the cake. It's just too bad that the cake is mostly stale.
Wheeler is a rather dim-witted Chicago cab driver hired by Woolsey to drive him to Arizona (!) so he can work the crap tables and his wife (Kitty Kelly) can sing at the dude ranch club opened by their city slicker pal (Eddie Quillan). Wheeler is convinced to run for sheriff, but grizzled Stanley Fields threatens to shoot anybody who gets into the sheriff's office other than him. Romance follows for Quillan who takes up with a postal delivery girl (Arline Judge), and Wheeler finds romance with pretty Dorothy Lee. But with Fields out to shoot Wheeler and Judge being romance by a lecherous New Yorker (Brooks Benedict), their chances of getting together seem unlikely.
Kelly, no relation to the infamous author of some tell-all autobiographies of Sinatra, Taylor, the Reagans and the Bushes, gets to sing Ethel Merman's star-making song, "I Got Rhythm", and does a decent job with it. The musical number is highlighted by some comical effects, including dancing cactus, a moosehead on the wall which sways, and a bartender (silent comic Monte Collins) whose hair skids back and forth to the rhythm. "Bidin' My Time" sets up the story of all the previously slain sheriffs by showing the local graveyard and a new tombstone being put in. "Never made it to office", the stone says, making you wonder which sap will be next. "But Not For Me" is embarrassingly performed by Mitzi Green (as Wheeler's pesky sister who won't stop demanding that somebody listen to her imitations), Quillan and Judge, and reprised by Green doing mimics of Crosby, stutterer Roscoe Ates, monocled George Arliss, and most hysterically, nose twitching Edna May Oliver. A little bit of that goes a very long way.
This seems almost like an after thought, rushed together to capitalize on the show's success and to give Wheeler and Woolsey a vehicle exploiting their talents. It seems lame when compared with the Mickey/Judy MGM version filmed a decade later. That is why Leo the Lion roars at the beginning before the Radio tower begins to beep. On its own, it is acceptable entertainment, with a very funny chase scene between Wheeler and cop Nat Pendleton who is mistaken for a dummy earlier accidentally attached to the back of the cab. The scenes with Wheeler and Woolsey hiding out from Fields are retreads of what they already did in "Rio Rita" and "The Cuckoos", although Woolsey's attempts at hypnotizing Fields are amusing. One of the Mexican senoritas who flirts with the boys is future ingénue Rochelle Hudson. Even though the film is ultimately a mixed bag, it ends on a very funny pre-code note that is the icing on the cake. It's just too bad that the cake is mostly stale.