Rhythm on the Range

Hollywood in the classic era occasionally made some very, very bizarre casting decisions. Since actors were generally contracted to studios, often they'd stick some of these folks in the darnedest pictures and there wasn't much the actors could do about it. Some great examples of bizarro casting was seeing Katharine Hepburn as a Chinese woman in "Dragon Seed" as well as John Wayne as Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror". Not QUITE this strange, but close, is seeing Bing Crosby playing a cowboy in "Rhythm on the Range". Bing Crosy as a cowboy?! Believe it or not!

When the film begins, Doris (Frances Farmer) is rehearsing for her wedding. She's a spoiled woman and freely admits she's marrying more out of boredom than anything else! Fortunately, when she goes to a rodeo and sees the buff he-man, Jeff Larabee (Crosby) she is smitten...though he seems more smitten with a cow! Strange as it is, this is the film in a nutshell!

While casting Crosby as a cowboy was stupid and udderly ridiculous, this film manages to be a lot of fun. Even with the inclusion of Martha Raye (who is usually too brash and obnoxious), it's still filled with neat songs and characters. Brilliant or sophisticated? No way...but still somehow fun and worth seeing.

By the way, during a song and dance number late in the film, it's Louis Prima singing and playing trumpet. He wasn't yet famous and later would gain eternal fame as King Louie in the cartoon "The Jungle Book".

One of Frances Farmer's earliest movies; at 22, she is absolutely beautiful. Bing Crosby is in great voice, but the songs are not his best. Martha Raye and Bob Burns are interesting, but their comedy, probably great in its time, is really corny today. Roy Rogers also appears- in a singing role. In my view only worth watching if you are a Frances Farmer fan, and possibly a Bing Crosby fan.

The movie keeps shifting plots every 15 minutes. It seems probable that lots of material was cut out, as very little makes much sense.

However, the movie contains so many delightful elements that one hardly cares. Bing Crosby is quite pleasant. He is wonderfully laid back and relaxed, just saying his lines between songs. This allows us to focus mainly on Francis Farmer, who is captivatingly beautiful as a runaway heiress-bride. Bob Burns with an instrument he invented called "the Bazooka" and Leonid Kinskey as the Russian immigrant cowboy "Mischa" provide a few laughs. Cuddles the Bull is also a surprisingly effective animal co-star.

This is 20 year old Martha Raye's screen debut and it is quite unusual. She is doing vaudeville without toning it down one iota for the screen. This makes a sharp contrast to Crosby and Farmer's gentle reserved acting styles. She is frenetic, shouting and jumping all other the sets. There is something disturbing about her man-hungry character, Emma. It is a sex-role reversal with the woman as the obsessed predator who can't control herself and offers herself to any stray man. With so many other out-of-synch elements in the film, she just fits right in.

It is a little ironic that Raye would get top billing two years later in "Give Me A Sailor" which was Bob Hope's first real starring film. So Raye worked with both Crosby and Hope before they worked together on the road pictures.

For about 15 minutes towards the end of the film, there's a nice jamboree which includes the introduction of the classic Johnny Mercer song "I'm an Old Cow Hand". The three or four plot lines are kept in limbo while this is going on. If we had cared about the plot lines, we would have been upset, but since they are so light and flimsy anyway, we can see them as just excuses for this nice vaudeville segment.

It is a shame that the duet between Farmer and Crosby was cut. I hope someone finds it somewhere and releases it on Youtube.

Ultimately, this is an amusing and reasonably clever concoction of fluff and music. It is too slow-paced for today's ADD generation, but for lovers of Old Hollywood, it is fine.

Never mind the story (it rips along anyway), it's the playing (fun and lively from Bob Burns and Martha Raye) apt from Crosby and adequate from Francis Farmer) and the backgrounds, plus at least three good songs beautifully performed by Crosby and others including, briefly, Louis Prima and Roy Rogers! Well worth a visit.

This is one of my absolute favorites of Bing Crosby movies. It not only has an amusing and romantic story line, it features some great songs, like "I'm an Old Cowhand", which went on to be a huge hit. The movie also introduces a very young Roy Rogers (with a spot in the song segment of "I'm an Old Cowhand"), as well as Martha Raye and Bill Burns.

By today's standards, it may be considered outdated or corny. But for those who like decent movies with no violence, language, sexual or suggestive content, it is a great movie and I know they will enjoy it.