COWBOY FROM BROOKLYN (1938)

A pleasant little second-feature comedy, the kind that Warners was churning out in assembly-line fashion in the 30's. The movie opens with a cute scene of Dick Powell and his band (The Three Sharps) riding a boxcar though the Midwest on the way to Hollywood; during an impromptu performance, they get thrown off the train and wind up at a dude ranch in Wyoming. Powell meets cute with Priscilla Lane, the daughter of the owners of the ranch, and the boys get a job singing for the vacationing "dudes" who want an authentic cowboy experience--though the owners (Emma Dunn and Granville Bates) complain about having to fake the expected lingo and mannerisms. A vacationing Broadway producer (Pat O'Brien) discovers Powell and offers him a contract to become an "authentic" cowboy radio singer named Wyoming Steve Gibson, but there are at least two hitches to the plan: 1) a real singing cowboy (Dick Foran) who sings terribly and is turned down by O'Brien threatens to expose Powell as a fake; 2) Powell has a phobia of animals of all kinds, from squirrels to horses. The two problems come together at the end when, in order to combat Foran’s claims, O'Brien signs Powell up to perform at a rodeo at Madison Square Garden, leading to an effective slapstick finale. James Stephenson is a hypnotist hired to cure Powell's phobia; Ann Sheridan has a small and thankless part as O'Brien's sister who threatens briefly to become Lane's rival for Powell's affections; Ronald Reagan is O'Brien's PR man; Warners' stock B-men Jeffrey Lynn and John Ridgely have small roles as reporters. It's not exactly a musical, but there are a few songs, the best of which is "Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride" by Johnny Mercer. The singing cowboy was a real radio fad in the late 30's (see the Countess' boyfriend Buck Winston in THE WOMEN from '39). Fun, depending on your tolerance for Dick Powell. [TCM]