Rodeo Dough

The bull riders of the PBR would be aghast at how easy Sally Payne and Mary Treen make riding a bull look so easy.

In this amusing short subject from MGM Sally and Mary are a pair of not too bright waitresses who would like to leave the west for home which is Kokomo, Indiana. What better than to sneak onto a trailer marked Kokomo. It has to be heading their way.

As it turns out the trailer belongs to Johnny Weissmuller and he owns a champion bucking bull which is headed for the rodeo in Palm Springs. Of course during the trip they and the bull Kokomo get good and acquainted. That helps later on.

Hollywood stars like Gene Autry, Rudy Vallee, Tom Mix, Mickey Rooney, Joe E. Brown and Roy Rogers make an appearance. Not to mention old Tarzan himself Johnny Weissmuller.

Payne and Treen are funny women. You'll enjoy this one.

This short is amusing fluff for the most part, but it's real interest lies in the fact that it shows the Palm Springs California Rodeo, circa 1940, which is no longer an annual event. It was called "the rodeo of the stars" in it's heyday.

The rodeo was staged in the south end of town near the Smoke Tree area, which was near Walt Disneys ranch. Today it is a shopping center.

The film also shows some scenes of the festive parade on Palm Canyon Drive where many stars were seen in cowboy finery.

The El Mirador Hotel is seen in one shot, which was converted into a hospital and is preserved today as part of the Desert Regional Hospital.

Historically, this film is a gem.

Mary and Sally are hitch-hiking home to Kokomo, Indiana. They end up in a rodeo. This is a fun little short. It's light. It has a few passing cameos from a real Rodeo. I don't really know who are Sally Payne and Mary Treen. Treen seems familiar. They have good chemistry. These girls are willing to get muddied for the laughs. That's good enough for me.

Sally Payne and Mary Treen are hitchhiking from Hollywood to Kokomo, only to wind up in a trailer heading to the Palm Springs Rodeo with a bull.

It's one of Louis Lewyn's star-studded shorts, with Johnny Weissmuller, Tom Mix , Roy Rogers, and Joe E. Brown in a handsome beard showing up in the first couple of minutes.

Lewyn had risen to prominence producing and directing Columbia's SCREEN SNAPSHOTS series. Later he was in charge of similar series for Tiffany and then Paramount. By the middle of the 1930s, he was producing star-studded Technicolor shorts for MGM like HOLLYWOOD PARTY. This was among the last of his almost 90 productions. He died in 1969, aged 77.

Sally and Mary (prolific character actresses Sally Payne and Mary Treen), a couple of dames hitching rides from Hollywood to Kokomo, sneak aboard a trailer containing a bull and end up at the star-studded Palm Springs rodeo where they show the cowboys a thing or two. The brief (10-minute) comedy gives the girls a few good lines but is mostly a showcase for the celebrity-studded rodeo. Most of the stars listed in the cast are 'just seen' ("and there's Micky Rooney"... etc.) and are not part of the story (and exception being an amusingly laconic Johnny Weissmuller who stops and gives the gals a lift in his gorgeous car (a real doozy) after Sally flashes a bit of road-side gam (à la Claudette Colbert)). Retro-fun that may leave you trying to figure out why Treen (especially her voice) seems soooo familiar.