The Cowboy Star

Pleasant little matinée western that ought to please front row kids of all ages. The format is different since the main character, Yorke, (Starrett) is both a real and a movie cowboy. I love that opening where Yorke is sneakily revealed as a movie cowboy while using movie tricks to make us think the action is real. But Yorke's tired of the Hollywood fakery and wants to get back to the open range. So he turns down a big new movie contract and relocates to the real West where he meets the winsome Mary Baker (Meredith) and other fine folks. The trouble is that modern day (1936) gangsters (Lawrence) are also hiding out there. This sets up an interesting contrast between a traditional cowboy like Yorke and 1930's desperadoes like Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd. Then too, I like the way Yorke learns a different way of looking at the cowboy hero as a result of clashing with these desperadoes. Overall, it's a nifty little time passer with a cleverly constructed positive message.

Cowboy movie star Charles Starrett tires of of Hollywood phoniness and decides to abandon his career and become a real-life cowpoke. He lands in a remote area where basically nobody knows movie stars and eventually proves his worth with the locals. Naturally, there are bad guys to fight and a pretty girl to woo. This 56 minute B western was the first of a whopping 100 plus "B" westerns Charles Starrett would make from 1936 into the 1950's for Columbia. The story is slight (although it seems to have inspired the 1990's film PURE COUNTRY starring country singer George Strait) but it moves fast (naturally) and Charles Starrett is an above-average actor for "B" westerns and is absolutely the most gorgeous hunk of man who ever had a major career in the genre with dashing looks to rival Tyrone Power or Robert Taylor. You will be hard pressed to decide which is the most appealing Charlie - the dashing cowboy or the dashing sophisticate in black tie and tails (which he also dons in this picture). The cowboy won out and Starrett abandoned mainstream films and his career as a hunky leading man for the likes of Billie Dove, Constance Bennett, and Carole Lombard for further adventures on the prairie with Iris Meredith as his perennial leading lady.

Not that Charles Starrett in the film and real life wasn't making a good living using both, but The Cowboy Star casts Starrett as a movie cowboy who was once a real cowboy before being spotted by a Hollywood producer. As he's about to sign with his picture company again, Starrett refuses telling all that he just wants to get back to being a real cowboy without the celebrity trappings. So he and real sidekick Si Jenks pull out and head for an obscure part of Arizona to buy a ranch. All under assumed aliases.

The future Durango Kid and Jenks get themselves involved with the local manhunt of three public enemies, the baddest of them played by Marc Lawrence. And Starrett gets involved with Iris Meredith who has a hero worshiping little brother Wally Albright who knows Starrett is his cowboy hero and not some nobody.

The Cowboy Star was a nice idea, but it went astray like some maverick. You will not believe how stupid these Most Wanteds are and how a kid pulls the wool over their eyes.

Still I'm sure the Saturday matinée crowd enjoyed this in 1936.