The First Traveling Saleslady

A dull little situation comedy made at the end of RKO's reign, and it looks desperate -- the patently false production values, the cheesy Americana, the mid-century niceness that dates so many '40s and '50s movies. However, and I can say this with authority: It's the only movie you will ever see where Clint Eastwood ends up paired with CAROL CHANNING. The Fifties were strange times, children.

Mild comedy starring Ginger Rogers as a corset shop owner who goes broke and becomes a traveling saleslady in 1897 Texas. But because she owes money she ends up selling barbed wire. Very strange premise but a decent cast and a few good lines here and there save this one.

Rogers' modeling assistant is none other than Carol Channing, in Hollywood after her smash success on Broadway in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And she's not bad at all. Channing does a quickie song called A Corset Can Do a Lot for a Lady and she's hilarious, altering between her trademark Channing voice and some basso sounds that sound like Bea Arthur. Too bad the direction--as usual--cuts away from her to show the man behind the desk. Musicals always did this--cut away from the performer to show the audience.

James Arness is the rancher. Barry Nelson is the car owner. David Brian is the steel man. Clint Eastwood is the cavalry man. Robert F. Simon is a henchman.

What helps sink this is the overall cheap look and bad color. Rogers would star in 2 more films and then appear only sporadically. Channing would not appear in a film for another decade but would win an Oscar nomination for it--Thoroughly Modern Millie. And this is NOT Channing's film debut as is often stated. She had appeared in Paid in Full in 1950. But this was Eastwood's first screen kiss---with Carol Channing!

Back at the turn of the last century Ginger Rogers and Carol Channing strike a blow for women's equality by stepping into a man's profession. They become traveling salesladies.

Now that's not a profession truly open to women. If you remember The Music Man and that famous scene of all the salesmen talking to the rhythm of the train wheels or Elmer Gantry where Burt Lancaster hung out in all kinds of disreputable places before he started selling religion it is clear that this is a male preserve.

But if you sell things like corsets back in the days when women really wore them I guess it could be tolerated. But Rogers and Channing in The First Traveling Saleslady take on a real challenge. They're going to sell barbed wire in Texas. Rancher James Arness is going to stop them selling the wire David Brian's company makes. Both of them would like to make Rogers though. But a funny thing, Barry Nelson in that new horseless carriage contraption keeps showing up just when Rogers and Channing need help.

As for Channing she's got an admirer in newly returned Rough Rider Clint Eastwood in one of his early screen roles. As for Channing she never quite made it on the big screen so this is a rare opportunity to see a unique performer. Pity she never did do one of her noted stage roles for movies.

A pity a lot of talent gets wasted here in The First Traveling Saleslady. It's not a really bad film, but it is a mediocre one.

This was Ginger Rogers last movie for the studio in which she was a star, RKO Radio. In fact, most of the interest in watching this weak attempt at comedy is the cast that was put together for the film. Director Arthur Lubin seems to have been directed by remote control and the screen play Devery Freeman and Stephen Longstreet supplied was not interesting. It's a mystery how this film was made, at all.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't offer much to Ginger Rogers in the way of an colorful role to play. She was a much better actress that deserved better than this Rose Gillray, the corset maker turned barb wire saleslady. Barry Nelson is the man who believes in the future of the automobile and whose path to California keeps meeting Rose in the most unlikely places. Ms. Rogers and Mr. Nelson don't show much chemistry between them, and probably this is where the film fails, something than with another director, could have been solved, but which Mr. Lubin ignored.

The film offers performances by Carol Channing, a Broadway star that never made it big in the movies. She plays Molly, Rose Gillray's assistant. In fact, she has the best lines in the film. A young Clint Eastwood is seen as Lt. Jack Rice, a member of the Rough Riders that Rose and Molly meet at the hotel. James Arness, another television idol, plays the rich landowner Joel Kingdom. Lastly, David Brian, an actor that tended to be seen in heavy roles, makes a good appearance as James Carter, the barb wire manufacturer.

This is a film to be watched as a curiosity.

One of the final RKO radio films produced in the last leap of faith in 1956. THE FIRST TRAVELING SALESLADY is a very enjoyable light comedy. What sets it apart from TV shows like PETTICOAT JUNCTION or films like OKLAHOMA both of which it strongly resembles is the A studio production values which allow the film to take on a lavish western look more akin to CALAMITY JANE. It is a jalopy western set in the horseless carriage days of 1899. Ginger Rogers was 43 and Carol Channing was 35 in production and given the mature age of both and the feminist slant of the story, it makes for a liberating tone for a film of the mid 50s. It is well worth looking at the last 20 films made at the RKO studio in this period by RKO TELERADIO PRODUCTIONS who revived the label after Howard Hughes trashed it. All 1955-58 RKO films are very well made, above the prior years of Hughes. TRAVELING SALESLADY is beautiful to see and has visuals cluttered with style and color. I thought it quite lavish in some scenes with overstuffed furniture and antiques that must have helped see unloved props get a final airing. In widescreen and technicolor it must have resembled GIGI or THE MERRY WIDOW. The most hilarious scenes to really really lap up involve a very young Clint Eastwood (25 years old) kissing Carol Channing! Fantastic! They elope together in the last reel! The railway station Ginger arrives at earlier at is the same as seen in OKLAHOMA, the last big musical distributed by RKO; Their very last film a minor but snazzy musical was THE GIRL MOST LIKELY also beautifully produced. Shame they gave up, but their films of the time, terrific as they were and modern in tone, just did not include respectable profits to continue. All other studios big and small had at least one blockbuster in this period, but alas RKO and Republic did not and folded.