Cowboy Canteen - 1944

“Cowboy Canteen” (1944) is Columbia’s answer to the Warner’s Bros. wartime all-star revues “Hollywood Canteen” and “Stage Door Canteen”. We can have a look at the latter two at another time, as “Cowboy Canteen” really doesn’t compare much.

It’s a short, fun look at cowboy swing in an era when it was just beginning to take off in popular music, but the plot of this movie is paper thin. Charles Starrett, who played in about a zillion B-movies, mostly Westerns, and mostly as guys named “Steve”, is the boss of a ranch. However, he and his sidekick played by Guinn “Big Boy” Williams are off to give Hitler what-for, so they need people to step in and run the ranch for them while they’re in the Army.

A troupe of entertainers takes up the job, including Jane Frazee, Max Terhune as the ventriloquist of the bunch, and Vera Vague (in real life, Barbara Jo Allen), the stock man-chasing comedienne. Look for Dub Taylor as “Cannonball”, a comedy relief character he also played in a zillion B-movies.

Starrett and “Big Boy” are assigned by the C.O. to organize a camp show, so there we are. One funny bit, so brief you miss it if you blink, is when Vera, struggling with her purse and a heavy suitcase, hands a big galoot her luggage. He grabs her purse instead, tucking it under his arm and walking away.

What makes this B-movie fun are a few of the featured acts, including the great Tex Ritter, he of the mournful ballads of A-Westerns, like “High Noon” (1951) and “Trooper Hook” (1957), reviewed here.

The Mills Brothers make an appearance, but they seem a little too polished and classy for this crowd, with “Up a Lazy River” and “Paper Doll”, which were huge hits for them.

I really get a kick out of Roy Acuff, “The King of Country Music”, performing “Wait for the Light to Shine” and “Night Train to Memphis”. The Smoky Mountain Boys and Girls accompany him. Their sound is special, completely genuine, raw and spirited music, free of any Hollywood gloss. Their rollicking hillbilly hymn is a joyous reminder that war or no war, people were still having fun somewhere.

On the Old Spanish Trail (1947)

“On the Old Spanish Trail” (1947) is one of those B-westerns that takes its title and premise from a song. The action is fast-paced, probably because it is not slowed down by much of plot. But it has Roy Rogers, who came to be known as King of the Cowboys, and his horse Trigger, who was actually billed as “The Smartest Horse in the Movies.”

Trigger clearly had an excellent agent.

They are assisted by bumbling, raspy-voiced Andy Devine, by pert pouting blonde Jane Frazee as the girl who needs saving from the bad guys, by Tito Guizar as a lovable rogue called The Gypsy, and by a passel of The Sons of the Pioneers.

This tale of the Old West is actually set in present day (1947), and so we have a riot of converging images of horses and sedans, six-shooters and modern music. The Sons of the Pioneers are in debt and Roy must catch a bad guy for the reward and pay the bill. There are songs at every turn, and a female lead so gussied up in country western attire she looks like she belongs on a box of snack cakes. One cannot help but wonder why Roy is wearing his guns around town when this is not actually the old west. The pair of six-shooters makes him appear more overdressed than a lady wearing a fur coat at a barbecue.

Roy Rogers had a long career, appeared in dozens of films, mostly as himself, or rather as this character of Roy Rogers that he had created. Nobody is born King of the Cowboys, it’s not that kind of monarchy, so Roy had to transform himself into this hero of B-westerns. Gene Autry and Tex Ritter did much the same thing, starring as the real-life people they molded themselves into. Interesting that Ann Sothern played a string of “Maisie” films but never got around to calling herself Maisie. This is a phenomenon of the B-western. Reality was probably never more so successfully blended with make-believe, even for a film industry whose hallmark was the blurring of reality. It was done so simply and so well.

With the main patrons of these films being children, perhaps achieving this make-believe was easy. And profitable, especially when the Baby Boomer kids came along on a giant wave of television, marketing, and their parents’ disposable income.

The ca-shink sound of Roy’s spurs on a wood floor makes the whole movie for me. Maybe it was augmented by the sound guy, but I like to think that, at least, was genuine.