User Reviews

I watched this movie for the first time on what used to be a great channel AMC when I was about 10 years old. At the time, I thought old movies were silly especially black and white ones. I had all the stereotypes down and hated westerns most of all. After seeing this movie I was hooked on old movies, and watched AMC religiously, but never saw this one again until last year when TCM premiered it on their channel.

Is it the greatest storyline ever told? Umm,no. I think a lot of people miss an important line to make it seem more plausible. Mary Smith grew up on a farm with her father and uncle until her father decided to get into politics for whatever reason. She even makes a comment to him early on that she wished they could go back to those days before she even met Stretch. Thus making it more realistic that she wouldn't miss the rich life.

The pantomime scene is the best scene and stuck with me for years. What a man in love will do.

Though slow moving at times, overall "The Cowboy and the Lady" is an entertaining romantic comedy with a twist, a high society lady whose father is about to throw his hat into the ring as a candidate for President falls head over heels in love with a rodeo cowboy. There are two scenes that really pack a comedic wallop. One is aboard the ship from Florida to Galveston, Texas, when 'Stretch' Willoughby (Gary Cooper) compares horses to people while wooing Mary Smith (Merle Oberon) when suddenly a crew member starts singing an outlandish song, "Give a man a horse he can ride." It becomes more outrageous when Stretch joins in and Mary ends the tune with a bass vocal.

The other is when Stretch pretends to be entertaining his beloved wife, Mary, in their new house with only the framework completed. Cooper shows a hidden talent for pantomime that is very good indeed. Before he knows it his partners played by a bow-legged Walter Brennan and Fuzzy Knight along with the carpenters are invited in and play along with Stretch's fantasy. The spell is broken with the appearance of Ma Hawkins who brings everyone back to reality by delivering a dreadful telegram.

There is one telling part near the end when Stretch searching for his wife appears as an unwanted and unwelcome guest at a political dinner. The big-wigs spout several false concepts and prejudices that exist concerning the American cowboy. Their ignorance is further denoted when Oliver Wendell Henderson attempts to show his knowledge of the west by declaring Montana to be the Lone Star State. Stretch carefully corrects Henderson, then proceeds to shoot them all down with his rebuttal.

There were several cooks sirring the broth when it came to writing the sometimes witty script. Amongst the writers were Dorothy Parker, Leo McCarey, Anita Loos, and some say Garson Kanin.

Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and directed by H.C. Potter, with a story by Leo McCarey and Frank Adams, and contributions from several other writers including S.N. Behrman and Sonya Levien, who received the screenplay credits, this average romantic comedy won an Academy Award for its Sound; its title song and Score were Oscar nominated.

According to Goldwyn biographer A. Scott Berg, McCarey told a story off the cuff to a bunch of the producer's writers, one evening, who then had to write the screenplay from what they'd heard.

It stars Merle Oberon as the sheltered wealthy daughter of a man (Henry Kolker) who's seeking his party's nomination for POTUS. Concerned that her actions, like an appearance at a nightclub which was raided while she was with her fun-loving uncle (Harry Davenport), might jeopardize his standing with an influential power broker (Berton Churchill), her father sends her to their vacation home in Palm Beach, Florida. While she's there, she meets a rodeo cowboy, played by Gary Cooper, and the predictable happens.

Oberon plays Mary Smith, daughter of Horace (Kolker) and niece of Hannibal (Davenport). Irving Bacon appears uncredited as Smith's secretary. Bored of being sequestered (e.g. in Florida), she goes with her two servants, Katie (Patsy Kelly) and Elly (Mabel Todd), on a blind date to a rodeo where she awed by the talents of one of the cowboys she later meets, a reluctant 'Stretch' Willoughby (Cooper). Katie's date is another cowboy named Sugar (Walter Brennan) and Elly's is Buzz (Fuzzy Knight). As far as the three cowboys know, the three girls all work for an absent wealthy woman.

Inexperienced in dating, Mary follows the other girls' advice and tells an untrue sob story to Stretch about how she's taken care of her four siblings and aging parent. So, he believes he's finally found what he'd always been looking for in a woman, a "workhorse" in lieu of a "show horse", the type of woman he'd always seemed to find in the past. In fact, he thinks Mary is a younger, prettier version of Ma Hawkins (Emma Dunn), the mother figure who takes care of his Montana ranch. Love struck, he asks for her hand. Though she thinks it's all too soon, he tosses her in the swimming pool which (somehow!) convinces her to follow him to the dock where his rodeo show is packed up and ready to leave for Galveston by boat. She impulsively decides to go along, one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know the two of them are saying "I do" in front of the ship's captain (Frederick Vogeding) ... despite the fact that Mary's yet to tell Stretch that she's a "show horse".

After a brief "fish out of water" sequence in Galveston, where Mary gets her one dress dirty and torn, she receives a call from Katie who informs her that her father and Oliver Wendell Henderson (Churchill) are coming to Palm Beach for a visit. Though Mary tells Katie she's married Stretch, she asks her to keep it a secret. She then tells Stretch that she's got to return home, to tell her employer et al, and promises to meet him in Montana the following week. Stretch then puts Mary on a bus (driven by Eddie Acuff, uncredited) home. Once there, she tells her uncle everything; he is understanding and tries to help. Her father, of course, is furious but accepts her situation if she promises to help with the Henderson dinner, during which he expects to receive the man's endorsement for the Presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Stretch is getting everything ready for Mary's arrival. There are two scenes which must have been funnier when McCarey told them than when they were realized on screen: Stretch's playful (endless) pulling of Ma's apron strings, causing it to fall, and his pantomime "dinner", with the other incredulous cowboys as guests, in his to-be-completed house's framing.

The Henderson dinner causes Mary to send Stretch her regrets, and promise to come later, but he decides to visit Palm Beach again to find her instead. Naturally, he walks in during the big event, finds out the truth about his wife (e.g. being a "show horse") and, in the film's best scene, ends up giving an everyman speech after being "talked down to" by the upper crusts.

But, never fear. Made to feel guilty by his brother Hannibal, Horace makes things better in the end with a surprise visit to Montana. Stretch then witnesses Mary doing domestic chores under Ma's direction, gets slapped on the back by Hannibal, and the movie fades out with the newlyweds kissing in the kitchen.

A lonely socialite (Merle Oberon) is sent by her presidential hopeful father (Henry Kolker) to Palm Springs to avoid scandal after she's discovered in an illegal gambling joint. The spunky deb convinces her maids (Patsy Kelly and Mabel Todd) to set her up on a blind date with a cowboy (who turns out to be Gary Cooper) from a local rodeo and falls in love with him. But there's all sorts of bumps in this road to love, and it will take some fixin' for it to prevail.

This totally charming comedy is a nice chance to see the usually ladylike Oberon do some pratfalls and she does so nicely without loosing her class. What could be silly is handled with a romantic script that makes the pairing believable. This has one of the great supporting casts, although it is predictable that the less than glamorous comic supporting actresses will end up with the scraggly character actors (Fuzzy Knight and Walter Brennan) while beauty Oberon gets hunky Cooper.

Emma Dunn is adorable as Cooper's surrogate mother, "Ma Hawkins". There's a nice recurring gag between the two that is affectionate and endearing. Harry Davenport is hysterically funny as Oberon's lovable uncle, her biggest supporter who tries desperately to wake his one-sided brother (Kolker) up to Oberon's needs over his own, yet isn't afraid to perform a lively jitterbug. This is one of the rare cases of opposites attracting on screen that really works, even though Oberon's sophistication betrays her supposed job as a ladies' maid. Still, she's very funny in dealing with such poor man's items as a collapsing cot and sticky fly paper.

While most of the film is charming and light-hearted, it does turn into Capra-like corn as Cooper confronts the snobby associates of Oberon's father with a list of what the country really needs. This scene is totally faithful to the plot of the film and gives the story some substance in addition to amusement.

Copyright 30 November 1938 by Samuel Goldwyn. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 24 November 1938 (ran 2 weeks). U.S. release: 17 November 1938. Australian release: 16 February 1939. 9 reels. 91 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Fun-loving heiress strings along a dumb but eager cowpoke who is unaware of her real identity.

NOTES: Academy Award, Thomas Moulton (only) Sound Recording. Also nominated for Best Original Music Score (The Adventures of Robin Hood won); and Best Song (the title ditty) which was defeated by "Thanks For the Memory" from The Big Broadcast of 1938.

Despite the raft of writers (see below) who concocted this disappointing fling, the plot is as predictable as the synopsis suggests, with characters and dialogue so vapid and inconsequential they do nothing but waste the talents of a fine cast.

No amount of glossy window-dressing by director, photographer, art directors and music scorer can disguise the script's basic poverty of invention, its supremely unmemorable plot and dialogue. All it adds up to is an extremely dated romance whose comic overtones must have been judged feeble and uninspired even by the most indulgent 1938 audience.

Writers included Anita Loos and John Emerson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell as well as Frederick Lonsdale, Howard Estabrook, Robert Ardrey, Eddie Moran, Frank Ryan, Gene Fowler, Robert Riskin, and Richard Connell. Yes, they all worked on the script at one time or another.

The film commenced shooting on 15 June 1938 with William Wyler directing. Three days later, he was replaced by Potter because Goldwyn thought Wyler was working too slowly. However, Potter himself left before finishing the movie (he had a prior commitment to direct "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle"), so Stuart Heisler finished up.

All these headaches, plus cast replacements (Henry Kolker for Thomas Mitchell, while roles originally set for David Niven and Benita Hume were eliminated) brought the negative cost up to an incredible $1.8 million. (Thanks to Alvin H. Marill in "Samuel Goldwyn Presents" — A. S. Barnes, 1976 — for these interesting facts.)

If you're a Gary Cooper fan, stick with his more familiar roles portraying Sergeant York, Lou Gehrig or Marshal Will Kane. Cooper seems a bit stiff here, but it was still a few years before those better known and appreciated films. I didn't really feel the chemistry between Stretch (Cooper) and sweetheart Mary (Merle Oberon), and having the relationship seem forced for the purpose of the story is never a good thing.

But he was certainly better looking than Walter Brennan. Think about it, what was Katie (Patsy Kelly) thinking when she willingly traded Stretch for Sugar (Brennan) on the triple date? On balance, there was probably a better looking random trio of cowboys (figuring Fuzzy Knight included) at the rodeo the girls might have hooked up with, even with Coop in the mix.

You know who the unsung hero of this affair was? How about Harry Davenport as Mary's Uncle Hannibal. That jitterbug routine early in the picture was a hoot, and he had a few more gems along the way serving counterpoint to Mary's presidential hopeful father (Henry Kolker). I would have liked to see more of him in the story.

With 'Home on the Range' repeatedly surfacing in the background, "The Cowboy and the Lady" is a mildly entertaining rework of the rich girl/poor boy theme that fans of Cooper and Oberon will be interested in seeing. For the rest, be prepared for some slow filler moments when Mr. Stretch does his pantomime routine and utilizes the apron gimmick on Ma Hawkins (Emma Dunn) an annoying six times. To be fair, there is an instructive moment in which I was happy to learn that work horses are nice people.