Deux gars du Texas

Warner Brothers answer to Crosby and Hope, Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson, star in Two Guys From Texas as a comedy team traveling through the Lone Star State when their car runs out of gas. A kind pair gives them a lift to Dorothy Malone's dude ranch and the boys are grateful. Of course that abandoned car out of gas later figures in some nefarious schemes.

Carson who enlivened many a Warner Brothers film in the 40s with his comic blowhard character is a man most afraid of anything that walks on four legs. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me, but Carson pulls off the Hope like gag.

And just like Crosby would want to cure his pal, Morgan seeks the help of visiting guest Dr. Fred Clark. All this leads to complications with Malone and another entertainer at the ranch Penny Edwards and the local sheriff Forrest Tucker. Not a good idea to make even a romantic rival of the sheriff.

Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn wrote the unmemorable but serviceable score which yielded no song hits for Morgan. For a man afraid of animals some of Carson's transformation is both miraculous and hysterical.

Like Bing and Bob, Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson both had considerable separate careers of their own. But their teaming yielded more than a few good laughs.

Steve Carroll (Dennis Morgan) and Danny Foster (Jack Carson) are a couple of song and dance men who get stranded in Texas when they run out of gas. They reconnect with their friend Maggie Reed (Penny Edwards). Danny has a debilitating fear of animals. Steve courts Joan Winston (Dorothy Malone).

This apparently is an attempt to copy Crosby and Hope. The guys are no Crosby and Hope. I wasn't going to watch this but I really wanted to see the animated section. The comedy is broad. The animal fear is stupid and not that funny. The songs are not catchy although some are somewhat fun. As for the animated section, Bugs makes a surprise cameo. For that alone, I'm willing to sit through the rest of this movie.

Warner Brothers seem to have made a concerted attempt to groom Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan as their studio's version of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, with Morgan as the Bing-like handsome affable crooner and Carson as the Bob-like egotistical braggart. Although Carson and Morgan display real chemistry together, they simply aren't in Hope and Crosby's league. (Jack Carson's facial moles might be part of the problem.) Typically, Warners musicals lacked the production values of Paramount's splashy 'Road' films -- I can't recall a single truly great Warners musical, except for 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (plus some later Warners adaptations of musicals that originated on Broadway) -- and the scripts and songs of the Carson/Morgan films are usually far inferior to Hope's and Crosby's material.

'Two Guys from Texas' is likely the best of the Carson/Morgan teamings, and it's a delightful musical comedy ... profiting from an elaborate animation sequence that seems inspired by the animation in MGM's 'Anchors Aweigh'. Dennis and Jack play a couple of vaudevillains who are motoring through Texas. Dennis sings a tune about tumbleweeds in front of some bad rear-projection. They run afoul of some hold-up men and land up at a dude ranch where they attract the attention of two young ladies: pretty Dorothy Malone (very sexy in a Dorothy Lamour wig), who fancies handsome Dennis, and the rather less pretty Penny Edwards, who fancies Jack. Apparently unaware of his facial moles, Jack wonders why he isn't as successful with the fair sex as Dennis, and this leads him to consult a local doctor (splendidly played by veteran character actor Fred Clark). The wind-up gag involving Clark's character is hilarious.

Jack Carson's character is lumbered with a ridiculous handicap -- he's afraid of animals: ALL animals -- and some unfortunate dialogue, even telling the doctor that sometimes he wishes he was a girl. Hmm...

The script is largely by I.A.L. Diamond (best known for his Billy Wilder collaborations) and Allen Boretz of 'Room Service' fame. I laughed at one very clever dialogue scene on a cutaway set. Carson and Morgan have checked into the dude ranch and are sharing one room, while the two women are in the room next door over with a partition between. The men are conversing in one room while the women are talking in the other, but the two conversations interleave so that the dialogue takes on an entirely new meaning. Ingenious and hilarious! Less impressive is the torch song "Hankerin'".

The best song here (by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne) is a comic duet for the two men, 'I Wanna Be a Cowboy in the Movies', but the song that gets the most attention is Morgan's romantic ballad 'Ev'ry Day I Love You Just a Little Bit More'. This is reprised in the animation sequence, done in standard Warners toon style by Fritz Freleng of the Termite Terrace gang. We see a cartoon version of Dennis Morgan crooning to some swooning she-sheep in bobby socks and saddle shoes, while a cartoon version of Jack Carson gets some advice on sexual politics from Bugs Bunny before he's chased by a large ugly Red Indian woman. This is a reprise of an unfunny running gag from the live-action scenes, in which Carson is pursued by Lilly Christine as the unattractive Red Indian who speaks Spanish. ('Oye, muy bonita!') For some reason, the cartoon versions of Morgan and Carson in this sequence don't look nearly as good as the cartoon versions of other showbiz figures in 'What's Up, Doc?' and other Warners toons.

'Two Guys from Texas' is deftly directed by David Butler, formerly a handsome silent-screen actor who found his true metier behind the camera, but whose directorial career is woefully underrated. I'll rate this very enjoyable froth 8 out of 10. I wish that the other Carson/Morgan teamings were nearly as good as this one.

Two stumbling tenderfoots get stranded in big state Texas, where they meet up with a sheriff even bigger than they are, and luckily, meet two extra-pretty gals who furnish-- surprise, surprise-- romantic subplots.

Great Technicolor. The producers go out of their way to lavish on the carnival colors. But why can't big studio Warner Bros. do better rear projection, especially with Carson on a bucking bronco. Too bad since the production is otherwise fairly polished. So, how long will it take our two eastern tenderfoots (Morgan & Carson) to learn sprawling Texas ways. Bragging about the state's bigness flies about as fast and furious as Carson's patented mugging. It's all in good humor, of course, even the swipe at a gangster-type plot. But what about those two Texas gals. Wow, I'm heading for Dallas right away. Maybe there're Dorothy Malone and Penny Edwards look-alikes still there. I'm especially impressed with the sparkling Edwards. Looks like she could qualify for A-picture, Betty Hutton-type roles. Then too, the script works in some humorous running gags, one of which really pays off for Carson in the end. It all adds up to a highly entertaining comedy-musical of the sort they unhappily don't make anymore.

This movie is an example of Classical Hollywood Style with the romantic plot and elaborate sets. The two main characters are made for these roles. It has catchy music and a great story line. A good weekend afternoon movie.