Ride 'Em Cowboy (DVD)

...films.

Ride ‘Em Cowboy sees Abbott and Costello playing two hotdog and peanut sellers at a rodeo show in New York. Duke (Bud) and Willoughby (Lou) are their normal incompetent selves and soon find themselves trying to get away from their boss.
In doing so they soon find themselves on a dude ranch employed as cowboys, something they are really not good at. Mixed into the plot is the famous singer ‘Bronco’ Bill (Dick Foran) and the ...
...on.

Ride ‘Em Cowboy is an early A&C film, released in 1942, and hence it has more of a variety feel to it. There are a number of songs in the movie and a couple of song and dance routines as well. There are even two songs from the incredible voice of Ella Fitzgerald, who makes a couple of short appearances.
All this does make the film a little disjointed, fitting in comedy (the A&C classic ‘herd of cows’) with dance routines and ... more

Abbott & Costello were not only amongst the biggest grossing stars of the 40’s but also had successful careers on Radio and TV all the way through to the end of the 50’s. Even after that they still had enough popularity to have an animated series in the 60’s.
Bud Abbott was the Ernie Wise/Oliver Hardy of the duo. The straight man who was the brains behind every stupid situation eh talked Costello into.
Lou Costello was the funny man, the stupid imbecile who was short fat and loveable. He walked into every trap that was laid for him and never learnt.
Together they made the perfect double act and after building their name in the music halls the move to the movies was almost a foregone conclusion.
They will always be remembered for their little wordplay sketches, especially ‘Who’s On First’ and a movie career spanning decades and more than 25 films.

Ride ‘Em Cowboy sees Abbott and Costello playing two hotdog and peanut sellers at a rodeo show in New York. Duke (Bud) and Willoughby (Lou) are their normal incompetent selves and soon find themselves trying to get away from their boss.
In doing so they soon find themselves on a dude ranch employed as cowboys, something they are really not good at. Mixed into the plot is the famous singer ‘Bronco’ Bill (Dick Foran) and the girl he falls for, who is also the daughter of the owner of the ranch.
She thinks he is a fraud because he has built himself a reputation as a rooting tooting cowboy, when it is all made up so he has a great stage persona. Bill’s only chance to win her over is to help the ranch out.
Throw in a bunch of crooks and some Indians after Willoughby because he inadvertently proposed to a squaw and you have all sorts of chaos going on.

Ride ‘Em Cowboy is an early A&C film, released in 1942, and hence it has more of a variety feel to it. There are a number of songs in the movie and a couple of song and dance routines as well. There are even two songs from the incredible voice of Ella Fitzgerald, who makes a couple of short appearances.
All this does make the film a little disjointed, fitting in comedy (the A&C classic ‘herd of cows’) with dance routines and a whole bunch of songs and making a decent storyline out of it is not easy to do. The writers do just about succeed and I think that a lot of the enjoyment you get from Ride ‘Em Cowboy is down to the fact that there is not too much of a reliance on the comedy duo to keep the viewer entertained for the whole 80 minutes. Their short comedy routines are amongst the best and seeing them performed in a movie has its own distinct pleasure.

While not on par with the best of their output (Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Buck Privates) it is far better than a lot of their later stuff (Go To Mars, Foreign Legion). It is a whole film genre in itself being neither comedy, musical or drama but is instead a concoction of the lot, making it a decidedly different experience.

Although I said it feels disjointed in a variety and entertainment way Ride is a lot of fun. The direction is perfunctory, nothing bad about it but most of the time it is just a case of putting a camera in front of the performers and letting them do what they are best known for… be it comedy, dancing or singing!

The nature of the movie means that its music hall and novelty feel has a double edged sword to it. It makes it something very unusual when compared to movies made today (which certainly is a good thing) but it also means that, unlike other A&C movies, it really is very dated and not something that 99% of modern viewers will not enjoy. The mixture of story and acts was a big thing in the early days of cinema, a way of getting people away from the theatres, music halls and their radios at home by doing the same thing on the big screen, just with a story wrapped around it as well.

Abbott & Costello are not really acknowledged as much as they should be. Their position as box office megastars was well deserved and they should be up there with the greats of comedy, rather than being more or less ignored these days.


 

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