Callaway Went Thataway

I knew I was going to like this movie when a 25-year-old Stan Freberg walked onto the screen in an early scene, playing an employee at an ad agency. In fact, I would have given this movie a good rating just on the basis of all the TV icons in the cast: Fred MacMurray, Jesse White, Natalie Schafer, and in tiny cameos John Banner and Hugh Beaumont. And speaking of cameos, how about Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, and Esther Williams? Yes, they're here too.

This comedy is WAY above "B" picture level, with a snappy script by the team of Frank and Panama, who earned their comedy medals writing for Hope/Crosby and Danny Kaye. Howard Keel does a fine job in his dual role, while Fred and Dorothy try to please a cantankerous sponsor and keep their phony cowboy happy at the same time. There are plenty of laughs, and some plot twists to keep you wondering how it's all going to work out in the end. If you watched TV in the 1950s, you'll especially enjoy this gentle satire of the entertainment and advertising industries of the time.

It's the early days of television and much of the programming consists of old western movies. Suddenly, the films of Smoky Callaway (Howard Keel) are discovered by a new generation and he becomes a star once again.

One problem: the real Smoky Callaway is a hopeless drunk who has disappeared somewhere in Mexico. Enter Hollywood agents Frye and Patterson (Fred MacMurray and Dorothy McGuire), who need to find a replacement to make a new series of westerns and cash in on the merchandising possibilities. They discover an actual cowboy, Stretch Barnes (also Keel) who agrees to impersonate Smoky.

There's a Frank Capra feel as simple Stretch turns out in real life to be the white-hatted western hero that Smoky pretended to be onscreen. Things get complicated when the real Smoky returns.

The writing team of Panama and Frank (A Southern Yankee, The Court Jester, White Christmas) delivers another warm, funny movie that pokes fun at Hollywood superficialities and contrasts them with the genuine values of hometown America.

A cowboy hero dressed in white is chasing down a group of dastardly villains. Pull back to reveal that what we are seeing is on television. Now cut to scenes across the country to show children from all walks of life glued to their sets watching wichaway Callaway went. Meanwhile, back in the offices of the creative team behind the TV series, it seems that they've got a problem on their hands. The show has been pieced together from old movies, but it's such a success that now the public is demanding to see the real deal and nobody actually knows where Callaway is. Enter a perfect double, an honest-to-goodness aw-shucks cowboy, and you can guess the rest.

This is a predictable comedy which does little to distinguish itself, but it isn't without its charms. The lead actors are very appealing and occasionally have some snappy dialog to work with. Howard Keel is particularly entertaining in the dual roles of "Stretch" Barnes and "Smoky" Callaway. Anyone who enjoys comedies from this time period should get a kick out of this film.

"Callaway Went Thataway" is a good comedy in a Western setting. With veteran comic actor Fred MacMurray in the lead, and an able assist by Dorothy McGuire, much of the comedy is provided by Howard Keel. He plays the double role of Smokey Callaway and Stretch Barnes.

Keel gets to sing a song and gets into a fist fight with himself in a good job of camera work and staging by MGM. As promoter Mike Frye (MacMurray) tells Stretch as he and Deborah Patterson (McGuire) coach him on replacing the missing Callaway, "Powerful - that's a good word. Use that a lot, and don't forget a hankerin' and a yearnin'...." And Deborah adds, "and fixin;" and Mike continues, "yeah, and fixin' too, and, and mighty." Stretch says, "Mighty what?" and Mike answers, "Well, mighty anything. That's real cowboy talk."

This is the type of comedy that kids and families should enjoy far into the 21st century.

Consider the time this film came out. It is one of the first feature films about the cinema's new rival, television. More specifically it is based on the renaissance of Hopalong Cassidy as an early television star.

This film takes me back to when I was a lad in the early days of television when there was a need for programming. The first films that were shown on early television were grade B product from the studios which were not about to be re-released for the big screen. And of course those B westerns were in plentiful supply. In fact I have a theory that John Wayne's rapid rise to number one at the box office may have been in large part to the showing of his pre-Stagecoach westerns giving him valuable publicity for the A product he was currently working on.

But the guy who had the biggest benefit was William Boyd who made his last Hopalong Cassidy picture in 1948. He had scraped together every bit of cash he could to buy all the rights to the Hopalong Cassidy films and character from producer Harry Sherman and author Clarence Mulford.

So when those Cassidy films became a big hit on early television Boyd's career revived and he became a tycoon with all the Hoppy merchandise. And the craze was big, the film accurately depicts the merchandising bonanza that Hoppy was in real life and Smokey Callaway in this film.

Like the Cassidy films in real life, the old films of B picture western star Smokey Callaway become a big hit on TV. They'd like to make more of them, but where's Smokey. TV programmers Fred MacMurray and Dorothy McGuire would sure like to find him. Smokey's just dropped off the planet. MacMurray and McGuire dispatch former agent Jesse White to locate Callaway who was quite a boozer back in the day and nothing like his screen image.

In the meantime they locate a cowboy from Colorado who is a Callaway doppelganger. Howard Keel plays both parts and plays them well. The two scheming TV programmers hire Keel on to impersonate his lookalike. But they get quite a bit more than they bargain for.

Callaway Went Thataway is an enjoyable film about a forgotten era in our social history. Cowboys don't have quite the image they once did in America and I'm not sure how today's audience relates to a film about early television which we pretty much take for granted. Still it's a piece of nostalgia for me.