Hollywood Cowboy

This is not a great movie but it is a hoot. I mean where else can you see gangsters coming from the big city using aircraft to bomb their prey and disrupt a cattle drive. The accuracy of those ex-World War I pilots was uncanny and the secret ability of a hand grenade to blow up a dam should be exploited for modern day ordnance specialists who can only dream of such power in a small package. And all these gangsters wanted was a penny a pound to "protect" cattle from threat of non-delivery – very reasonable I would think.

Silent film star George O'Brien is effective as the hero and enjoyable to watch in his role. His biography is most interesting and worthy of your time. Charles Middleton is excellent as the heavy but I still prefer him as Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials. Maude Eburne turns in another great character actor performance.

The film quality of the version "Wings Over Wyoming" that I just saw on TCM was a bit grainy but the joy at watching such a unique B movie more than compensated. Some of the aviation sequences were likely lifted from other filming but what the heck, who cares. Better than most B Westerns and worth watching because it is so different.

George O'Brien and writer Joe Caits are vacationing in Wyoming between pictures. O'Brien spots Cecilia Parker, and decides to hire on at the ranch of her aunt, Maude Eburne. Meanwhile Charles Middleton is setting up a protection racket for cattle.

O'Brien is funny in a smug way as Miss Parker's would-be lover, Frank Milan, tries to high-hat the confident O'Brien to no avail. It's the third of four movies that O'Brien starred in for producer George Hirliman in an effort to get away from simple-minded oaters, and pretty good; even when the plot starts up, there are lots of airplanes flying around to let you know this isn't one of those.

An odd oater, with little hard riding and no fast shooting or flying fists. Instead combat takes place between two old airplanes, plus well-aimed lassoes. Hollywood cowboy Buck (O'Brien) shows his grit off-screen by helping ornery old rancher Violet Butler resist a shakedown by conniving city slicker Kramer (Middleton). Most of the storyline, however, is taken up with talk, maybe too much. But there is some good footage of the fabled Alabama Hills and scenic eastern Sierras. Also, some good bird's-eye footage of the maneuvering airplanes interspersed with process footage of the pilots against a backscreen. O'Brien's cowboy is more affable than tough, a rarity for matinée heroes, while Parker makes a comely blonde sweetie who'd make any guy stick around. Too bad the deliciously evil Middleton doesn't get more screen time, even though he's more subdued than usual. Anyway, it's definitely not a formula western, but has enough appealing novelties to satisfy an old matinée fan like me.

A "6" on the Matinée Scale

"Hollywood Cowboy" is also listed at YouTube as "Wings over Wyoming," and you can find it under either or both titles. But if you look, I'm afraid you won't find a very good print.

Which is a shame. I might have given it a 10 if I could have seen it in one piece, without the dark picture, without the breaks and pops and jumps, and without the hiss on the sound track.

It has a crackerjack cast, starring the very good-looking and extremely capable George O'Brien, with the beautiful and also talented Cecilia Parker.

Hers was another Hollywood story of a beautiful talent who apparently crossed the studio bosses, because she obviously had the looks and ability to have become a star.

"Wings over Wyoming" is as good a title as "Hollywood Cowboy" because all those words figure in the story, well co-written by Dan Jarrett and director Ewing Scott, who was helped in the directing by the great George Sherman, who helmed many a Western movie.

It is a slightly involved story, with bunches of characters including city-slicker gangsters trying to transfer their skulduggery to the ranges of, yes, Wyoming.

There have been other efforts with a similar premise, but none better than this one.

I highly recommend this, for cast, scenery (actually California), and good story. I just hope you find a better print.

"Hollywood Cowboy," as this film is now known, has a special charm about it because it stands on a fairly unusual platform for being, which is that the characters are assembled here owing to western movie making, of all things. This is a contemporary western, that is to say the wild west comes alive in the year of roughly 1937, and plenty of cars and even airplanes are on hand. As with many George O'Brien B-westerns, there is a more gentle air about this movie than many of its brethren, with the gun play and horse-mounted action hovering at a fair minimum. George O'Brien does a good job of portraying his part with subtle humor throughout, and it is a pleasure to have a fairly well-known actress of the era (Cecilia Parker) play the leading lady. In general, however, the acting in the film is only standard and there is little evidence of sets or cinematography beyond the ordinary. The final defining scene was surprising for B-westerns, it must be granted, but not really impressively staged beyond expectations. So all in all, if you have time to take a look at a fairly good B-western built on an unusual foundation and containing a different kind of final roundup, go ahead and take a look.