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This is a movie about two people who are the least likely to couple. Our girl Molly(Jean Arthur) is taking a cross the country bus tour to clear her head of men. Seems she has three of them! They just aren't her type though.

Bring in John Wayne as Duke Hudkins. A good looking rodeo rider that runs into our Molly and thinks she would be a great one night stand. That's what he thinks. She does like him alot. He is after all, a REAL man who is unlike the other men she has met in New York. Seems rodeo men are kind of scarce there. The Duke likes women, ALOT, and has no thought of settling down. That's what he thinks. Now Molly wants him bad. How to hog tie this cowboy is the question.

This movie is cute though with an quite impossible plot, but hey it's Hollywood. Not a classic like "Devil and Miss Jones", "Easy Living" or "More the Merrier", but a good film just the same.

Jean Arthur meets cowboy John Wayne in the 1943 comedy, "A Lady Takes a Chance." Arthur is Molly, a woman with plenty of suitors, though none is a prize, who takes a cross-country bus tour - conducted by Phil Silvers. While watching a rodeo, one of the riders falls on top of her. Turns out it's a fella named Duke (John Wayne). You can just see those pathetic guys at home flash before her eyes as she pulls Wayne toward her for a closer look. She misses her bus.

Given the current talk and late-night comic jokes about "Brokeback Mountain," this movie is extra fun. Wayne has no intention of marrying, though he loves to play the field, and accuses his rodeo partner Waco (Charles Winninger) of acting like "a wife." When Waco advises Molly to go back where she came from and forget about Duke, he sounds like a wife trying to get rid of a mistress, though he really wants to keep her from being hurt. But though Duke does a lot of flirting, Molly learns during a night in the desert that her big competition is Sammy, Duke's horse.

Jean Arthur is slightly miscast as Molly, though she was too wonderful an actress to ever come off as totally miscast. Someone like Betty Grable would have been more of a natural for the role than 40+ Arthur, but then, Arthur's talent helps her make the part her own and interesting besides. Her best scene is in the bar when she drinks cactus milk - hilarious. 27 years after his death, John Wayne is still considered one of the top 10 most popular stars, and with good reason. Tall, handsome, and rugged with a boyish smile, you can see why he'd make Arthur's heart go aflutter. He's usually not listed among favorite matinée idols because he made so many westerns, but make no mistake, Wayne was a hunk in his heyday.

This isn't your 21st century cowboy movie, but it makes for entertaining viewing just the same.

I thought I was going to see a John Wayne shoot-em-up western, but instead I got a fun black and white comedy. The only western action is in watching the rodeo scenes. John Wayne plays a total cowboy-- he is stuck in his cowboy ways and loves his horse more than anything else. Although John Wayne's character is prominent in the story, he is obviously not the lead. His character was there for Jean Arthur to play against. I will go as far as saying that the part of Duke Hudkins could have been played by another actor. Even without the John Wayne touch, the movie would have been just as good because of Jean Arthur as Molly Truesdale. It was a good role for Jean Arthur, and she made it the best it could be. This was her movie, and she got top billing.

I love her voice!

A Lady Takes A Chance is a pleasant easygoing comedy about a young working class woman who saves and splurges for a bus tour out west. Jean Arthur as the vacationer gets a whole lot more than she bargains for in the form of rodeo cowboy John Wayne.

The Duke literally sweeps her off her feet after literally landing in her lap. Wayne gets introduced to Arthur when he gets tossed off a bucking bronco right into the front row section where she's seated. It's an interesting courtship because the Duke has a retinue of two others who are above her in his personal pecking order. Sidekick Charles Winninger and his horse Sammy.

In fact Sammy almost breaks the two of them up. Arthur takes a horse blanket meant for him to keep herself warm during a cold prarie night while they're camped out. Wayne has to teach her a bit about western etiquette.

A Lady Takes A Chance though it came out in 1943 had to be backdated to 1938. There were severe restrictions on travel at that time, the movie going public simply would not have bought a story that was current.

In a recent biography of Jean Arthur, Arthur was quoted as saying that she liked the movie and got along with John Wayne. She also says she wouldn't have had she known of his political views. Come to think of it, a whole bunch of Arthur's leading men, Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and James Stewart also didn't have views that would have meshed with hers.

Charles Winninger in his one and only appearance with Wayne does well in the sidekick role. Phil Silvers has a small role as a most obnoxious tour guide. I can't imagine going cross country listening to Phil Silvers shtick for a couple of weeks straight.

Jean, good thing you met up with Duke or you should have got your money back. But for the movie going public, A Lady Takes A Chance was well worth the price of admission.

This is by no means one of the top films of Jean Arthur or John Wayne, but it is perfectly pleasing entertainment and shows what these two actors were able to achieve on the basis of a relatively poor script.