The Oklahoma Kid (1939)

I was never sure about either James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart being in westerns but "The Oklahoma Kid" is not too bad. It has a brief running time, a fair measure of action and incident, the music is perfectly tolerable and at least Cagney and Bogart have a proper one on one confrontation at the end. I bought this film on video in the early 1990s and I enjoyed it then. Cagney is a "Robin Hood" type of hero who hides his true identity behind the name "The Oklahoma Kid." Bogart is a killer and dishonest businessman who wants to turn the local town into a place of sin, corruption and degradation. Cagney stated in his memoirs that he added little bits of dialogue in order to relive his boredom! What he included certainly does the film no harm.

James Cagney writes about "The Oklahoma Kid', his first western film, in his fascinating autobiography, Cagney By Cagney. It seems the original picture was the idea of screen writer Edward Paramore ( 1895-1956 ) who conceived the idea of doing a story particularly modelled after Kit Carson. Cagney and Paramore researched it and Cagney came up with some pretty exciting things he wanted to do. Warner's pulled Paramore off the script and without a word to Cagney changed the director. When he got the final script he writes; It had as much to do with actual history as the Katzenjammer Kids. It had become a typical horse opera, just another programmer. But James Cagney manages to make this film entertaining by adding his typical charming and sentimental touches, such as his character Jim Kincaid " feeling the fresh air with his finger tips " and singing his own father's favourite song, " I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard." He even got to do a fancy rope trick. In one scene Cagney is standing on a rock while a bunch of bad guys led by Humphrey Bogart and Ward Bond pound by on their horses, and Cagney's character is supposed to launch a lariat around the neck of Ward Bond's horse. Naturally, such trick roping was done by an expert, but on this occasion Cagney asked the wrangler doing the roping, to show him just how it did it. He showed him the looping and general mechanics of the procedure, and Cagney thought just for the hell of it he'd try the trick himself, never dreaming it would work. As Bogart and Ward came in on the shot riding their horses past the rock, Cagney threw the loop button-bright right over the neck of Ward's horse. He held on to the rope for just a brief second, then let go-otherwise he would have taken Ward Bond right off his perch. Cagney writes; The director, Lloyd Bacon, yelled "Cut!" "Why didn't you hang on?" Lloyd asked me. "What did you want me to do-kill Ward?" Lloyd said merrily, "Why not?" The wrangler was weary of Cagney's claims of never doing any rope tricks in his life. And every time he saw that wrangler thereafter he always said " So you never threw a rope before?" Cagney's reply; "So help me, never did." Although Cagney didn't think much of the picture, it was appreciated by audiences and praised by critics of the time. Anyone who loves James Cagney along with a solid cast of fine actors, Humphrey Bogart, Donald Crisp, Rosemary Lane, Ward Bond, will find watching this film, a lot of fun and very entertaining.

Let me say at first that I am a great fan of Jimmy Cagney and have really liked most of his movies, particularly "White Heat", "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as well as most of those crime movies he made over the years for Warner Brothers. However seeing The Oklahoma Kid again after several years, he somehow does not fit the role of a cowboy. The story is quite okay, and the cast is impressive with people like Donald Crisp and Ward Bond, while Humphrey Bogart was a scream as the baddie, and Rosemary Lane just had to look pretty - which she did. You could see the very many instances of stand-ins doing the stunts and riding. The highlights for me were Jimmy dancing and even singing in-between his killing half the people of Tombstone. It was fairly short which helped a lot!

Everyone goes on so much about how misplaced it was to place Cagney and Bogart in a western, but the characters they play are totally in line with the gangster figures they are more commonly associated with, and present compatible shadings of good and bad and lawlessness and justice that fit equally well into a western as well as a gangster picture. And Bogart and Cagney both inhabit their roles in their own, unique way. Quite frankly it is a huge treat to see them in such a setting, and there should be no need for detrimental sniggers. Some of the supporting characters are interesting in their moral shading too, especially the judge –Donald Crisp in one of his best parts. The film is extremely fast-paced. Sometimes one could wish for more depth to a scene, or a greater exploration of character development, but the narrative has a clear purpose and doesn't allow us this luxury. The film is never boring and far more interesting than its reputation would have us believe. My only complaint is to do with the hat Cagney wears. It is more than a little too big for this short actor, and though it may perhaps be a quirk of the character of the Oklahoma Kid, I think somebody in the costume department should have gently led him to another hat.