La Fille et son cow-boy

I love Jean Arthur. That voice! Distinct... kinda nasal but not annoying... and intelligent yet unarrogant. And she's cute despite not being a traditional forgettable beauty.

John Wayne is relatively young here, still attractive and ungrizzled, and so he still makes for a good prince in this cowboy-meets-city girl fairytale. And the movie does start off that way - very charming and romantic - but of course it doesn't last, since what kind of a movie would it be if the boy and girl lived happily ever after after 15 minutes.

So it's too bad then that it goes downhill from there, when the couple starts encountering forced obstacle after forced obstacle and lame joke after lame joke. It's only by the grace of its charming stars that this movie rises a notch above mediocrity.

Another reviewer noted that the setting for this 1943 movie was 1938, a few years before the U.S. got into World War II. Life went on in time of war in the U.S., and Hollywood made many comedies to help relieve the home front stress and worry about the war. But the country also had rationing, reduced use of gas, and other product restrictions. So, it's not too likely that there were many bus tours around the country, as in this film. And, if there were some, the movie industry wouldn't want to be put on the spot encouraging Americans to splurge in a time of shortage. So, the time of the film taking place was just set back a few years.

"A Lady Takes a Chance" is a fun comedy romance that paired a couple of unlikely stars. Jean Arthur was one of the top female movie comics of the time, and John Wayne was known then for his long string of mostly Westerns. Wayne had ventured into comedy once before, in "His Private Secretary" (1933), and I think he did quite well. This movie showed that he could do comedy well – especially as a straight man against a comic partner.

The Arthur-Wayne pairing works very well in this movie. The Western and war film fans of John Wayne should enjoy this comedy-romance as well.

This is a movie about two people who are the least likely to couple. Our girl Molly(Jean Arthur) is taking a cross the country bus tour to clear her head of men. Seems she has three of them! They just aren't her type though.

Bring in John Wayne as Duke Hudkins. A good looking rodeo rider that runs into our Molly and thinks she would be a great one night stand. That's what he thinks. She does like him alot. He is after all, a REAL man who is unlike the other men she has met in New York. Seems rodeo men are kind of scarce there. The Duke likes women, ALOT, and has no thought of settling down. That's what he thinks. Now Molly wants him bad. How to hog tie this cowboy is the question.

This movie is cute though with an quite impossible plot, but hey it's Hollywood. Not a classic like "Devil and Miss Jones", "Easy Living" or "More the Merrier", but a good film just the same.

This is by no means one of the top films of Jean Arthur or John Wayne, but it is perfectly pleasing entertainment and shows what these two actors were able to achieve on the basis of a relatively poor script.

A lady who attracts suitors like flies meets a man who has women circling around him like bees to honey. Molly Truesdale, a young woman from Manhattan, takes a 14-day bus tour of the American West, where a rodeo cowboy is flipped from his horse and lands on her. Talk about meeting cute, and talk about offbeat casting. Pert and pretty comedienne, Jean Arthur, is the lady swatting away unwelcome men, while tall and tough John Wayne is Duke Hudkins, who wants to remain unattached and play the field. Actually, the two unlikely co-stars work quite well together, and Wayne's charm and Arthur's delightful voice and personality hold "A Lady Takes a Chance" together.

Burdened with a generic title that does not relate to the story, the film also suffers from Robert Ardrey's predictable screenplay, adapted from a Jo Swerling story. Despite a relatively short running time, the plot droops from time to time, and needless repetition in a hitchhiking sequence, reminiscent of "It Happened One Night," feels like padding. A few detours into a night sleeping outdoors on the prairie, the diagnosis and treatment of a sick horse, and a home-made dinner in a motel fall flat; howling coyotes are stale, horse pneumonia is boring, and the qualities of lamb chops irrelevant. However, Phil Silvers as Smiley Lambert, an overly enthusiastic tour guide on the bus, is a bright spot, although he has only two brief sequences. Silvers is much missed when off screen, and his presence would have enlivened the film immensely. Charles Winniger as Waco, Duke's sidekick, is diverting, as is Mary Field, a gossipy fellow tourist on the bus. Molly's trio of suitors, Grady Sutton, Hans Conried, and Grant Withers, illustrate why the unfortunate lady needs a long trip away from New York.

"A Lady Takes a Chance" depends too heavily on the chemistry and talents of the two unlikely co-stars. While the film is fitfully amusing, audience interest will depend on their desire to see John Wayne or Jean Arthur or the two together; fans of either or both will not be disappointed, but others who are looking for a hilarious screwball comedy may be disappointed.