Hoedown

Also in the movie but not mentioned are (The Willis Bros) Guy,Skeeter and Vic along with bass-man Chuck Wright. At that time, in their more than 50 year career, they were known as The Oklahoma Wranglers. The Willis Brothers were a featured part of Eddy Arnold's stage and radio shows. If you look closely they can be seen doing part of their stage show with their routine around Skeeter's trick fiddling, the finale of their stage show. Skeeter mentioned they really enjoyed the shoot em up sequences and they went through a lot of ammo. Also in the band scene they were shown playing instruments other than those they were noted. Not guitar, accordion, fiddle and upright bass. These are stories related to me by my uncles the Willis Brothers. My father started the group in the early 30s when the original members were Joe, Guy and Skeeter.

I had just finished watching Gene Autry in "Rancho Grande" on the Western Channel when I noticed that the Western Channel was going to show "Hoedown" immediately following "Rancho Grande". Starting watching "Hoedown" and nearly fell over when Jock Mahoney, playing a cowboy singing star, started to sing and the voice was that of Gene Autry...Fairly funny and interesting inside Hollywood joke and pretty good tongue in cheek acting by Mahoney, especially when he sings in his own voice. Carolina Cotton and Eddy Arnold are ok also. It's not often that one either sees or hears Gene Autry as a guest star or making an uncredited appearance as he does in this film. Of course since this is a Columbia film and Gene was producing his own films at Columbia and had ties to Jock Mahoney (later the star of Autry's Range Rider series) it all makes sense. Pretty good film if one is inclined toward this genre.

I have seen nearly every Gene Autry film. My friend Angelo knew this and found one of the two Autry films I haven't seen. Well, it technically is an Autry film and is listed when you bring up Autry's filmopgraphy on IMDB...but he only sings one song and you never see Autry in the movie (other than his face in a movie poster at the beginning). So is this a Gene Autry film....not really. Instead, it's a cute take on western cowboy stars along with a bunch of singing by country westerns stars of the day, particularly Eddy Arnold.

Stony (Jock Mahoney) is an untalented cowboy star whose one movie was a bomb. To make it worse, Stony isn't exactly the heroic sort. Sure, he looks rugged and handsome but he also faints at the sight of blood and is afraid to fight! This movie is a cute look at how Stony goes from an unemployed has-been to a guy who wins the girl and a new movie career.

The film is very tongue-in-cheek...and I liked that. My only complaint is that if you don't love old fashioned country music, it'll be mighty painful, pardner!

I am glad to find the name of this movie again. It was such a long time ago when I first saw it, I could only remember J. Mahoney singing to his horse in the voice of Gene Autry as Eddie Arnold was watching a movie. I really went in to see Eddie Arnold. I was not impressed with Jock Mahoney at all thinking he was a bit weak. It was not until much later that I learned that he was doing all the stunt work for the Durango Kid, and was a superb horseman and stuntman, jumping from a roof into the saddle. Ouch!! Later he made very good movies and my favorite was "Slim Carter" where he started out struck on himself after becoming a star, and became quite humble over an orphaned kid. Thanks for letting me share.

This is your chance to hear Jock (later Jack) Mahoney sing like Gene Autry, Frog Millhouse, and Tiny Tim, to see him do comedy, and then to see him perform some of the amazing stunt work for which he is famous. The film also spotlights the singing talents of Eddy Arnold, who in 1950, was at the peak of his career. In "Hoedown" Eddy Arnold plays, well, Eddy Arnold. Eddy, who is still going strong at age 88, became somewhat of a country Pat Boone, but in his younger days when he emphasized his title The Tennessee Plowboy, he was a topnotch country singer and performer. He sang "Anytime" like nobody else, including Eddie Fisher. In "Hoedown" he sings two of his trademark songs, "Just a Little Lovin'" and "Bouquet of Roses." Eddy also gets to call a square dance, hence the title "Hoedown." Eddy's first big hit was the Tex Owens' standard "Cattle Call," a cowboy song. That was released in the heyday of the B western. One wonders why Eddy was never promoted as a singing cowboy in films. Perhaps he preferred concentrating on his recording career instead.

The plot of "Hoedown," if that's what you can call it, deals with a movie cowboy, Stoney Rhodes (Mahoney), who is all show and no substance. In fact, he's really a mamma's boy and a weenie, though he looks tough in his rhinestone cowboy getup. He thinks he's in love with Vera (Jeff Donnell), apparently something of a journalist/promoter. However, one of Eddy's singing companions, Carolina Cotton, is stuck on him. Carolina already has a fellow stuck on her, none other than Potatoes (Big Boy Williams). Enter a trio of bank robbers who try to hold the entire musical troupe including Stoney hostage. They push Stoney around until suddenly (maybe he ate his spinach) he comes alive, takes care of the robbers, and rides off into the sunset with Carolina. This all sounds dopey but it's actually fun to watch.

There is a wild chase at the end involving a getaway car with Carolina being kidnapped by the ringleader of the robbers, Stoney on his horse, with Big boy and Vera in a car coming up the rear. Eddy is back at the ranch taking care of the other two bad guys, having hit them both on the head with one of his Tennessee plow handles. Mahoney gets to show off some fancy riding and trick work. He also uses on of his mentor's, Gene Autry, old tricks of running down a car doing 100 on a horse doing 40 by cutting across via shortcuts and jumping from the horse to the car as if the car were a runaway stagecoach.

"Hoedown" also spotlights the talents of Carolina Cotton one of the golden girls of western swing. She gets to do one song in the film but doesn't really get the opportunity to let go with her amazing ability to yodel like nobody else this side of Roy Rogers. She too was sponsored so to speak by Gene Autry and was also close friends with Frog Millhouse and Eddy Arnold.

"Hoedown" is a difficult film to classify but oodles of fun to watch.