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Thursday, January 30, 2020

RHYTHM ON THE RANGE (1936)

Bing Crosby may take equal-sized under-the-title credit with co-stars Frances Farmer, Bob Burns & debuting Martha Raye in this ramshackle comedy-with-songs from Paramount. But it’s Bing, and only Bing, who made this one of the year’s top grossing films. A hit-and-miss mess, loaded with forced comic routines as society gal Farmer runs hot & cold for Bing’s ranch hand (and prize heifer) on a train heading West. Halfway in, a remarkably annoying Raye shows up to literally throw herself at Burns’ hayseed sidekick and mug her way thru her big novelty hit ‘Mr. Paganini.’* Other songs, mostly for Bing, are a mediocre lot, till we finally get to the ranch where Johnny Mercer’s ‘I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)’ livens things up considerably. Everybody joins for a line or two; look fast to see young Roy Rogers and jazzer Louis Prima. Even director Norman Taurog rouses himself. Such spontaneous fun! Or so it seems. (Was the music recorded live?) It must have sent Depression Era audiences out with a spring in their step . . . and helped them forget the rest of the pic.

DOUBLE-BILL: Crosby waited thirty years for his next Western, an unnecessary remake of STAGECOACH. He did record many traditional Western songs and had one of biggest hits (with the Andrew Sisters) on that atypical Cole Porter song ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ in 1944.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Martha Raye: unacknowledged love child of Mickey Rooney and Jerry Lewis?

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