Topic: Ride ‘Em Cowboy (1942) - Abbott and Costello

[metaldams]

      The fifth starring Abbott and Costello vehicle, RIDE ‘EM COWBOY continues in the tradition of having Bud and Lou perform comedy routines alongside musical numbers, an outside plot and with a romantic couple.  The leading man is once again Dick Foran and the leading lady is cutie extraordinare Anne Gwynne.  The plot itself barely seems worth delving into other to say it’s inoffensive enough with Foran trying to make his public cowboy persona real by proving himself to Gwynne, who has the phoniness figured out through circumstance.  Of course, they fall in love.  In HOLD THAT GHOST we had Evelyn Ankers, the ultimate Universal Horror lady.  Anne Gwynne is her b counterpart, appearing in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and a handful of other non monster horror films of the era (if you want see them together in complimenting roles, WEIRD WOMAN is a must).  A likable screen presence no matter what she’s in, her and Foran do fine in a plot that’s meant to be nothing more than light entertainment.

      Of the music itself, we get a Dick Foran crooning number, a few big production harmony bits and the highlight being Ella Fitzgerald.  Yes, that Ella Fitzgerald.  Again, the latter had the pre rock n roll grit to her voice and is more my style than the rest.

      As for Bud and Lou, this is way more a Lou than Bud film.  There really aren’t too many routines of the burlesque style where Bud plays off Lou.  The closest is the switch off with the dummy and real Indian and Bud not believing Lou the real version is there.  It plays similar to the speak easy/bedroom switch off from HOLD THAT GHOST and is always a joy watching these two perform scenes like this.  Earlier in the film we get Lou pretending he doesn’t know anything about poker like in the past he knew nothing about dice.  Instead of finding new ways to work with Bud and develop the routine, the film cuts to non Bud and Lou business right in the middle of the game and then comes back to everyone losing their clothes to Lou - obviously Lou tricked them all.  It would have been nice to see it all play out.  Bud acts fine with what he has and I never saw the man phone it in on any film, but not much was written for the guy here.

      Still, there are some very funny parts in RIDE ‘EM COWBOY.  The high diving business is classic Lou, just plenty of opportunities for him bouncing around, falling in the water and getting great reactions.  The best stuff is when he’s underwater and he acts like he thought he was supposed to stay down there as well as asking if he saved all the people who in reality went underwater to save him.  The cow milking scene is another fun bit but the ultimate highlight would be the dream sequence.  I just watched SHERLOCK, JR. again the other night, so the obvious Keaton influence of this scene is apparent.  Lou being superimposed outside his body signifies the dream and crazy scenarios take place that would not happen in reality, such as Lou’s palm being read/red and suddenly being caught in the middle of Custer’s Last Stand.  Overall a very entertaining sequence and pretty much what I think about when this film comes to mind.  Speaking of Keaton, we also get some train track gags similar to THE GENERAL in the chase scene and an underwater part like THE NAVIGATOR.  Lord Buster’s influence is felt.

      The final thing I want to say about RIDE ‘EM COWBOY is that for me, it is so nice not to have a service comedy.  No more burden of having to think about World War II and the Hell those men were about to go through.  Here we have a simple cowboy film and these song and dance numbers are being done in a more appropriate environment.  I know not everyone has the same aversion to war as I do, but if you do, being out of the service has got to be a relief and really lighten up the mood of these films going forward.  The aim of these Abbott and Costello films is a light variety show and RIDE ‘EM COWBOY succeeds in what it sets out to do.  Another massive money maker and another wonderful window of what entertained people in the early 40’s.  Want pure Bud and Lou?  That’s what the TV show and later features are for.

[Umbrella Sam]

https://talk-about-cinema.blogspot.com/2018/06/ride-em-cowboy-1942.html

Yeah, not too fond of this film. While Dick Foran is more tolerable here than usual, the story feels like a step back in that the duo rarely feel that important to the plot, and Universal seems to be cramming a lot more acts than usual here (hey, at least Ella Fitzgerald’s in it, even if it’s not for long).

I can definitely see the shift to focusing on Costello here, something that becomes more and more apparent as the years go on, sometimes producing really good films. Here, though, you get the sense that everyone just seems lost without the service angle. It’s no wonder that Arthur Lubin stopped working with them after this film.

Personally, I’d recommend their second western comedy, THE WISTFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP over this one. There’s a few good scenes, but it just seems very underdeveloped to me.

I can definitely see your point on the service comedies, though, metaldams. Certainly not the way we’d be treating war in films these days. These comedies are essentially fantasies in which you have to assume that, though war is bad, in their worlds it’s not as traumatic as in real life.

[NoahYoung]

For now, I'll comment mainly on the music, as requested by metaldams for A&C films in general.
I will say that thankfully, this is the last of what I call "The Dick Foran Trilogy". When I was a kid, I thought he was William Shatner! 

Only 2 songs are worth commenting on -- "I'll Remember April" and "A-Tisket, A-Tasket".

Ella Fitzgerald, perhaps the greatest female jazz singer of all-time (I still can't decide between her and Billie Holiday), sings her signature song,  "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", that supposedly she eventually grew tired of, since just about every convert she gave, until the 90s, she had to sing it as a request. It's a novelty song, but with strong jazz elements, and is lots of fun. Ella co-wrote it, but it is based on a children's rhyming game. That whole business with the people in the bus asking her "Was it red", etc, was part of the original recording. But no one asks her "Was it cerise?" -- that was strictly Lou's line.

Ella was the star singer of Chick Webb's band, for which she recorded the record on 78rpm shellac in 1938. Modern viewers might know Chick Webb from the poster Charlie Sheen had on his wall in TWO AND HALF MEN, which can be seen in just about every episode. Tragically, Webb suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, caused by a fall down the stairs as an infant. He was very short and had a hunched back because of it. Yet he is still considered to be one of the all-time great jazz drummers. When he died at 34 in 1939, Ella took over leadership of the band.

The fact that "I'll Remember April" was specifically written for this film is a minor miracle. It was/is considered to be a jazz standard. It has mostly been done as an instrumental, including by Miles Davis, but Sinatra sang a fantastic version of it for his last Capitol album, POINT OF NO RETURN.

IMHO,  Foran butchers it.

[metaldams]

Thanks for the info.  I would venture a guess - and correct me if I’m wrong, that the more top tier performers and material were in the earlier Universals and perhaps things got more in house as the series went on.  Even a Black Sabbath nut like me knows who Ella Fitzgerald and The Andrew Sisters are, for example.

I’ve got one foot in the big band era only, and ironically it’s by far my most popular video.  This is about five years old.

[NoahYoung]

Well, other than Ella, the Andrews Sisters, and The Ink Spots (PARDON MY SARONG), I can't think of any other top tier, or even recognizable, music talent in their films. The closest might be Nan Wynn (who I've always, to this day, had a major crush on, though I've only see her in this film), who I discovered fairly recently was a Big Band singer. The recordings of her I have heard were with jazz pianist Teddy Wilson (a major name in jazz), but in a small group setting.

Ted Lewis (HOLD THAT GHOST) was supposedly a big star at the time (for reasons I will never understand), but you would be hard-pressed to find any aficionados of him today.

Nice video, metaldams.  I do have all of Glenn Miller's studio recordings in one form or another (civilian band), and most of his Army Air Force band. (His plane went missing during WWII, and til this day has never been found.) It would have been nice to have him in an A&C film, since he didn't join the Army until late 1942. Miller is one of the only "sweet" bands from that era that I listen too, the other being Tommy Dorsey.

Some like it hot, and so do I. I'm a HUGE Ellington, Basie, Armstrong, Holiday, and Fitzgerald fan. Most people, I'm assuming, associate the era with Glenn Miller-type music, but believe you me, that's pretty tame. Ellington back in the 20s has some great stuff. At least Armstrong appeared in THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR in an episode hosted by A&C. I have it on DVD, but haven't watched it in over 10 years. When listening to the best of early jazz, you don't get the feeling that this is "old" music. (Fidelity aside.) And once they moved to recording on tape circa 1950, the music is as immediate as something recorded today.

BTW, Billie Holiday is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted because she is considered an early influence.

And, regarding the different types of rock and roll -- everybody's talking 'bout the new sound funny, but it's still rock and roll to me.
(Hope people get  the reference.)

[metaldams]

I covered “In the Mood” because it was my grandmother’s favorite song (not the grandmother who met Sinatra, the other one).  “In the Mood” came out when she was in high school and her father was a professional oboe player and classical purist.  He though the big band era was garbage the same way lots of parents view their kid’s rock or rap music in more modern times as garbage.

Funny you mention “sweet” music.  My grandmother loved Glenn Miller, but she was far from a deep music lover like you are.  Not a surprise she’d be into the pop music of her day.

[NoahYoung]

"Boy the way Glenn Miller played."

Bottom line: the point I want to drive home is that the music we hear in films like those of A&C and earlier, IMHO, nowhere near represent anything close to the best music produced in that era. I was surprised myself when I really got into it about a quarter of a century ago, although I had always been a Sinatra fan via my parents' LP collection. I just think the general public gets the wrong impression of that music being "old" or "square". Granted, it is old, but "old" doesn't necessarily mean "bad".