Ride Him Cowboy

Buy This Item Ride Him Cowboy by MGM (Warner)  Available from Amazon  $19.98  on 8-27-2008     John Wayne's road to stardom needed some giddyup in the early 1930s; after a leading-man turn in <I>The Big Trail</i>, he quickly fell into B-movie obscurity. While waiting to vault to first-tier status in 1939's <I>Stagecoach</i>, he honed his talent with a set of six B-Westerns at Warner Brothers, shot in 1932-33. The series allowed Warners to recycle footage (and plots) from a string of silent Westerns made with Ken Maynard, with the young Mr. Wayne stepping into Maynard's saddle. <I>Ride Him, Cowboy</i> is the best of these snappy little films (under an hour each), a very entertaining number in which Wayne is introduced to a feisty horse named, of all things, Duke. Duke would feature in the later films, as would Wayne's harmonica playing. The movie has some wild stunt riding and some very amusing dialogue (someone urges a pokey storyteller, "Skip that part and get down to bedrock"). And for a cheap B-movie, there's some exceptionally inventive camerawork by Ted McCord, who would go on to shoot <I>The Treasure of the Sierra Madre</i> and <I>East of Eden</i>.<p> Wayne, 25 years old, plays the same naively heroic hero in each of the six films. He's lean and handsome and not yet grown into his talent. But you can see how much the camera likes him--as his future director Howard Hawks might have put it--and how much that famous stride is already coming into step. <I>--Robert Horton</i> Reader Reviews It'd be hard to argue that this is a western equal to THE SEARCHERS or STAGECOACH, but as a B-western, it's one of the best I've seen. Compared to Wayne's Lone Star films, RIDE HIM, COWBOY is a great picture. This is largely due to the photography and camerawork. There are a couple of really outstanding dolly shots (especially the first shots of the outdoor trial and the meeting of the men after the trial). The photography in the desert is also very nicely done. Whereas some of Wayne's early films have a very low-budget, backlot feel, RIDE HIM, COWBOY makes good use of location photography (which was at least in part recycled from an earlier silent film) to maximize the naturalism of the setting, if not the story. The story, however, could stand improvement. You really have to suspend disbelief even more than usual for a B-western. Still, most of these early westerns aren't made to withstand logical scrutiny. And this film has decent acting (again, for a B-western). Otis Harlan as Judge Necktie Jones delivers a particularly entertaining performance. Wayne projects confidence when delivering his lines as well. I don't know if this is the same print that appears on the Triple Feature DVD of RIDE HIM, COWBOY, HAUNTED GOLD, and THE BIG STAMPEDE. If so, it makes more sense to buy the Triple Feature and get 2 more films for a couple of dollars more. But the Triple Feature DVDs are double-sided, and from the looks of the product image, this disc is one-sided. So if you have an aversion to double-sided discs, then avoid the Triple Feature DVDs.

Ride Him Cowboy Available from Amazon Price: $19.98 Updated on 8-27-2008.

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