Hollywood Cowboy

The story has some unusual twists including Kramer, a white-collar criminal who plots to exploit a feud between cattlehands and cattlemen plus fleece cattlemen of money through a dummy Cattlemen's Protection Association.

George O'Brien plays Geoffrey Carter, a Hollywood cowboy shooting a western film at Lone Pine, CA. He just happens to rescue Joyce, a cattlewoman's daughter from the city gangsters and falls for her. Then he goes to work for her mother as an anonymous cattlehand.

The most interesting plot element is the use of a single-engine, dual wing biplane to frighten cattle and then a subsequent air dual with an aircraft from Hollywood flown by Carter's friend.

Final roundup of the criminals has a nice twist but the ending is standard Hollywood schmaltz. There are some holes in the story never resolved. But nothing out the ordinary for a 1937 RKO Radio Picture.

George O'Brien is adequate but the supporting cast never have opportunities to rise above predictable or pedestrian, which is simply a fault of the script. However, this is a 64 minute, low-budget B-western, so there was little time or reason to worry about character development. This is a rare film and not many prints exist either as Hollywood Cowboy or Wings Over Wyoming. Showcase Media of Studio City California 91604 has one, good, complete 16mm dupe print.

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," 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.

Hollywood COWBOY George O'Brien does battle with carpetbagging gangsters from the city who are trying to set up a protection racket in Wyoming. Can O'Brien beat the gangsters (led by "Ming the Merciless", Charles Middleton) with their airplanes and tommy-guns, with just a six-shooter and a sidekick named Shakespare trying to avoid a divorce subpoena?

OK, the plot here, with the odd combination of the current day and old fashioned western action, is more than passing strange, but it does have the advantage of being something different. George O'Brien (the lead in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise and Michael Curtiz's Noah's Arc) also is several acting leagues above the average western star. As a result, the film is a bit better than average for a B, particularly as O'Brien does not take his role particularly seriously, and always seems about to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. What might be a problem for the B western fan is that there is no pleasant western music (sorry Autey, Rogers and Ritter fans), nor is there a lot of typical western action (sorry Tom Mix fans). Instead, the better parts of the movie are played for laughs, and the action scenes appear to have been lifted from more expensive dramas.

The result is OK, with almost a Wild Wild West feel, but it is a dead end as far as a genre film is concerned. (How can you do a series of films, when the lead characters seem invested in the absurdity of the whole enterprise?) It's probably not surprising that later westerns done by O'Brien for RKO are more serious.

"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.