Preston Sturges lit up most of the 40's with some of the best movies of the decade, such as "Sullivan's Travels", "The Lady Eve" and my own favourite "Hail The Conquering Hero", to name but three, but he's clearly showing signs of burn-out here.
This madcap comedy stars Betty Grable as a sharpshooting gal in the old Wild West, who when she sees her suave, handsome boyfriend snuggling up next to a new senorita when she's singing to her barroom audience, swaps her mic for a gun, only to end up (twice) shooting the local judge in his derriere. This leads to her escaping to a neighbouring town with a $1000 bounty on her head, which unsurprisingly leads to pretty much all her old townsfolk pursuing her to her new locale where she's trying to start again as a schoolteacher under a new name. Her old boyfriend, Cesar Romero, as interested in the reward as in rekindling his spark with Grable drops in too, but when he apparently shoots and kills the two idiot grown-up sons of the local bad guy, it's all set up for a big shoot-'em-up finale, where lightning strikes thrice when even the old judge comes to town to pass judgement on Grable's Fredi character.
I don't mind the plot being so thin, indeed it's what you expect of a farce, but despite being shot in bright colour and troopers like Grable, Porter Hall as the target-practice judge and Margaret Hamilton as his crotchety wife in a too-small part, trying hard, the film never takes off. I counted three times Grable lost her dress, obviously to show off her $1,000,000 legs, typical of the cheap laughs Sturges chases, you just want to throttle the kooky brothers who follow Grable around, while the massed gunfight at the end between the townspeople and the rogue cowboys goes on forever with at least three sight gags which are painfully unfunny to watch as they're set up and then weakly foisted on the viewer. Indeed, the only time I smiled was over a possibly accidental in-joke reference addressed to an unconscious Romero, when he's ordered to be put into a closet.
It's a short film but it seems longer as you wait and wait for just a touch of the old Sturges wit or magic to lift proceedings but it's a wait in vain. The best I can do here is refer viewers to almost of any his earlier features where I can almost guarantee customer satisfaction. This here is a pale shadow of what he was capable of and is in truth for Sturges completists only.
This madcap comedy stars Betty Grable as a sharpshooting gal in the old Wild West, who when she sees her suave, handsome boyfriend snuggling up next to a new senorita when she's singing to her barroom audience, swaps her mic for a gun, only to end up (twice) shooting the local judge in his derriere. This leads to her escaping to a neighbouring town with a $1000 bounty on her head, which unsurprisingly leads to pretty much all her old townsfolk pursuing her to her new locale where she's trying to start again as a schoolteacher under a new name. Her old boyfriend, Cesar Romero, as interested in the reward as in rekindling his spark with Grable drops in too, but when he apparently shoots and kills the two idiot grown-up sons of the local bad guy, it's all set up for a big shoot-'em-up finale, where lightning strikes thrice when even the old judge comes to town to pass judgement on Grable's Fredi character.
I don't mind the plot being so thin, indeed it's what you expect of a farce, but despite being shot in bright colour and troopers like Grable, Porter Hall as the target-practice judge and Margaret Hamilton as his crotchety wife in a too-small part, trying hard, the film never takes off. I counted three times Grable lost her dress, obviously to show off her $1,000,000 legs, typical of the cheap laughs Sturges chases, you just want to throttle the kooky brothers who follow Grable around, while the massed gunfight at the end between the townspeople and the rogue cowboys goes on forever with at least three sight gags which are painfully unfunny to watch as they're set up and then weakly foisted on the viewer. Indeed, the only time I smiled was over a possibly accidental in-joke reference addressed to an unconscious Romero, when he's ordered to be put into a closet.
It's a short film but it seems longer as you wait and wait for just a touch of the old Sturges wit or magic to lift proceedings but it's a wait in vain. The best I can do here is refer viewers to almost of any his earlier features where I can almost guarantee customer satisfaction. This here is a pale shadow of what he was capable of and is in truth for Sturges completists only.