La reine du rodéo

A typical rodeo film. fistfights, bronc riding. ten gallon hats. Stars mamie Van Doren and Jeff Richards. Van Doren has a VERY interesting bio on imdb, if you have a couple minutes... makes for a fun read. pretty x-rated. Richards had a much quieter life; had started as a baseball player, but moved into acting after getting an injury. Some songs sung in the nightclubs. maybe some of them were actually sung by VanDoren. Arthur Hunnicutt is the sidekick. Hunnicutt was oscar nominated for Big Sky... always played the western character, and usually with the big beard. When Kelly (Richards) meets interloper Liz (Carol Ohmart), things get tense. Will that put an end to Jackie? (VanDoren) This Warner Brothers film has many similarities to UA's The Misfits (Gable, Monroe), but Reckless was first! Misfits would come a couple years later, with bigger stars, but the stories are almost the same. Reckless written by Richard Landau... had started out by writing short documentaries; worked up to films and then television series. little bits and pieces of various shows. Directed by Howard Koch; had some pretty big achievments in his life: was president of the Academy, was head of production at Paramount Studios, and was VP of Sinatra Enterprises. not a bad life!

Mamie Van Doren often played bad girls in 1950s films such as "High School Confidential" and "Guns Girls and Gangsters". However, in a strange twist, here she plays a nice girl....something that just seemed weird!

When the story begins, Jackie (Van Doren) is being sexually assaulted by a jerk following a rodeo. Rodeo star Kelly Cobb (Jeff Richards) sees what's occurring and belts the guy...and soon a giant fight breaks out. Kelly, Jackie and Kelly's partner, Cool Man (Arthur Hunnicutt) make their escape and soon the trio are friends and they travel together to other rodeos. However, over time, Jackie is frustrated as she's a nice (and sexy) girl and Kelly chases after a different lady. What's next?

The acting and dialog are pretty silly in this one. My daughter hated it, but I felt it was a watchable time-passer....though seeing Van Doren in such a role seemed silly as did her many (too many) musical numbers. For Van Doren fans mostly.

Born Reckless has 50s sex kitten Mamie Van Doren filling out those tight rodeo cowgirl outfits with the bulges in all the right places. She sings and does some trick riding and she's an itinerant performer who makes the acquaintance of Jeff Richards and Arthur Hunnicutt.

These folks are small circuit performers who do it for the love of it. The money is nice though when you win and it hurts just as bad when a bull bucks you off at Cheyenne Frontier Rodeo or at one of these small town events.

Richards enters many events but he can somehow never put together enough money at once so he can buy a piece of land and settle down. And he's not getting any younger. Van Doren has some competition from rich rodeo groupie Carol Ohmart as well.

Some familiar western faces and some forgettable country songs are in this film enough to qualify it as a musical. Not sure if Van Doren's numbers were dubbed or not.

Born Reckless is not up there with really good rodeo films like Junior Bonner or The Lusty Men. But it's still good entertainment cheaply made.

Born Reckless (1958)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rodeo star Kelly Cobb (Jeff Richards) and singer Jackie Adams (Mamie Van Doren) team up to head across the country getting into various rodeo contests to win money. Usually Cobb takes a beating by not only the bulls but the various men who are constantly trying to get their hands on the sexy Adams. If you're looking for high art then BORN RECKLESS certainly isn't going to be for you but if you're looking for some fun, cheap "B" movie stuff then there's quite a bit here to enjoy. The screenplay really doesn't have too many brains working for it because we've basically got a ten-minute movie that just keeps repeating itself over and over and over again. In fact, we basically have the same thing happen meaning that Cobb and Adams arrive in a new town, he tries to win money, she gets hit on and he has to fight the guy hitting on her. This here is basically the entire movie and it's funny that the screenplay didn't try anything but instead just kept this format going throughout the picture. I really didn't mind the repeat business because it was rather funny seeing all of these guys putting their hands all over Van Doren who would then try to get away only to have to be rescued. I'm sure some might see this as rather sexist entertainment but it's at least got some campy charm to it. Richards and Van Doren don't offer excellent performances but they're good enough for a film like this. The two of them share some nice chemistry together, which helps keep the film moving. Arthur Hunnicutt nearly steals the picture as the sidekick who always has something funny to say. The soundtrack includes a decent song from Tex Williams and Van Doren also gets to do about four different numbers but none of them are memorable. BORN RECKLESS isn't a classic but I think fans of the actors should enjoy it even with all the silly stock footage.

I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining Born Reckless was. The on screen chemistry between lead actor Jeff Richards and Mamie Van Doren was obvious. The film reminded me a bit of the earlier 1956 film Bus Stop which also starred three main characters being the sex symbol Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, and the veteran actor Arthur O'Connell. In Born Reckless the resemblance of the three main stars being Jeff Richards, Mamie Van Doren and veteran actor Arthur Hunnicutt to the earlier successful film Bus Stop was no mere coincidence.

Mamie Van Doren was not only nice eye candy to watch but she could really sing and she showed us how good her singing lungs actually were by singing several entertaining numbers throughout this romantic musical. There certainly was a lot of teasing going on between Jeff Richards and Mamie Van Doren but we can all relate to our significant others appearing jealous from time to time now can't we?

Jeff Richards is a rodeo star named Kelly Cobb trying to make just enough stake money to settle down and purchase his own ranch and raise cattle but Mamie Van Doren who plays Jackie Adams one of Kelly's love interests is worried that Kelly will stay in the rodeo game too long and end up a cripple as other rodeo stars had not known when enough was enough.

This is a fun movie that is well acted, with some entertaining tunes, and of course with Mamie Van Doren being the one belting out the hit songs, who wouldn't enjoy this film? I give it a 7 out of 10 IMDB rating. I will be looking to watch it again on TCM sometime soon too!