Just perfect...

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

If I hadn't just seen his double-threat credit moments before this movie started I would have been hard put to identify it as the work of Preston Sturges. Adrift from both his home studio, Paramount, and his repertory company of actors he is indeed a shadow of his former self. True, they gave him the reigning (still just about) Queen of the Fox lot, Betty Grable, and solid support Cesar Romero, but it wasn't really enough and it's not hard to see why this effort did for his Hollywood career. There are touches of the old talent and it's possible that those who claim it a satirical triumph years ahead of its time may just have something of a point but it's equally easy to dismiss this one-trick pony of sharpshooter Grable missing intended target Romero - the boyfriend who done her wrong - and putting a slug in Porte Hall where it will do the most good as a wild turkey.

and Betty Grable had "The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend".While it is extremely difficult to dislike anything Betty Grable ever did, this film really cracks that rule. Every star has an embarrassing moment, and so does every director. In that case, here it is Preston Sturges who spoofs westerns with a crudeness that is sometimes nose-wrinkling as you try to figure out why they even thought this had a chance of being considered entertainment. It is obvious that someone was influenced by the Broadway success of "Annie, Get Your Gun!" (just imagine Grable in that role!), but that at least had good taste, an excellent Irving Berlin score, and stars like Merman and Betty Hutton to help vanish away the corn. What this film ranks is simply insulting.An elderly man is seen teaching a five year old girl how to shoot a gun after one of the weakest opening credits songs, certainly the first here (and followed by such gem title songs as the credits of "The First Traveling Saleslady" and "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet...") . You get the picture. This isn't Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, or Molly Brown. This is an ill-tempered spitfire who grabs a gun first, shoots second, and apologizes third. In three of the cases of her temperament, a hissing judge (Porter Hall) ends up on the receiving end of her sharp-shooting. The first sequence has Hall (as a character named Alfalfa) being chastised by his nagging wife Elvira (Margaret Hamilton) for being caught in a lady's boudoir. After shooting the judge in the derrière (twice), Grable escapes to the middle of nowhere, and like Mae West in "My Little Chickadee", ends up teaching school. She deals with two over-aged class bullies (one played by Sterling Holloway) by shooting ink bottles off their heads in order to keep them in line. Her old lover (Cesar Romero) shows up to find her interested in prominent townsperson Rudy Vallee and of course, another rumpus is forthcoming.Grable only sings very briefly in this comedy misfire which takes satire too far and turns the country folk of this town into idiots who begin shoot-outs of their own when Holloway and his twin are believed to be killed. Such familiar character players as Hugh Herbert (as a near-sighted doctor), Al Bridge and the annoying El Brendel turn up, although something tells me they (like the others) wished they had turned it down. Olga San Juan suffers racial slurs as the half Mexican/half Native American companion of Grable's. The only really funny sequence are some gags during the final shoot-out (straight out of a 60's sitcom) and the brief exchange between Hamilton and Hall at the beginning. Fortunately short, this film is an albatross in the career of one of our most delightful musical comedy stars who probably knew better the next time to read the script before she consented to appear in her next projects.

Well, as far as I can see, there are only three things wrong with this movie, compared with the rest of the director's output:1) It doesn't have Bill Demarest in it.2) It doesn't have Jimmy Conlin in it.3) It isn't funny.

Zany, scattered and at times downright demented, it is perhaps not so terribly surprising this was considered such a disaster when it came out that it instantly vaporized Preston Sturges' Hollywood career. I guess this sort of loose, free wheeling parody (and at times it has a Coen Brothers inspired kookiness about it) just wasn't the sort of thing audiences took to in 1949.That very looseness, that daffy unrehearsed quality can give one the impression that the film is simply not as good as it could've been, but my God it isn't THAT bad. There are sparks of originality throughout and while it may never quite catch fire, this is still Sturges and still superior to a good number of tame, vanilla comedies that came out around this time.It may not have been the case but it certainly looks like many of the actors were having a ball during filming, particularly Cesar Romero. Watch the one scene where he is quizzing some hayseed local about his sweetheart's (Betty Grable) whereabouts. He can barely keep a straight face and happily lets this character actor steal the scene with a funny, one man "who's on first?" routine. I thought Grable did a fine job as well and showed pretty fair comic timing, though I wonder if Sturges really wanted that other Betty (Hutton) for the role and couldn't get her for some reason. Sturges may have allowed those two freaky brothers (one of whom is played by Sterling Holloway) to take things too far; I'm sure audiences at the time watched their crazed antics with stone faces. In fact, they're not even recognizably human which may have been the point. I'm not sure.An odd, not terribly satisfying movie, but watchable, never boring and with spurts of that famous snappy Sturges dialogue.