Broadway to Cheyenne (1932)

Detective Rex Bell is shot by gangsters in a New York nightclub. Coming home to his father's Wyoming ranch in order to recuperate, he trades his city-slicker outfit for a cowboy hat and jeans. Rex soon finds the gang that shot him, trying to muscle there way into new territory by selling "protection" to the local cattlemen.A fun little cowboys-versus-gangsters picture, this combines two of the nineteen-thirties most endearing B-movie genres into a neat little package. One scene has vengeful gangsters mowing down cattle with a Tommy-gun!The following year, Monogram Pictures and producer Paul Malvern launched a new line of B-westerns under the Lone Star moniker, featuring their new contract star John Wayne. Much in the same vein as the Wayne vehicles, Broadway To Cheyenne has some decent action scenes and appearances by western stars George "Gabby" Hayes and Earl Dwire.

This movie has cars and horses and nightclubs and pool table saloons. Machine guns and cows and big city mobsters who have a beef with the beef ranchers. High steaks, but the only T bone you will see is a trombone just before the lights go out. Really you have to see it. This movie has phone booth violence and wide open spaces chases and gunfights in the Rockies. It actually has a drive by shooting. I won't give away any of the plot but I will tell you Clara Bow had excellent taste. Young Rex Bell here, still in his twenties, does a strip scene which probably got everyone in the theater to buy another ticket to watch again to see if what they saw was for real. At about 17 minutes into the movie watch for Rex to be stripped by a bunch of cowboys. All in good fun, of course. These are manly men who just want to take the young guy's clothes off. Then go watch some football. Not only do they strip him down to his white boxers, but apparently this was before they had learned how to sew the opening of those boxers ( or maybe loose briefs ) closed. No tape was used to conceal anything. Nothing major is showing except maybe that opening might be more clear in the first editions of this movie. I watched a fuzzy image... fuzzy might be the key word. This movie is actually good enough for most people who are able to accept black and white. I think Rex Bell could be a star today if he looked like this and acted like this. He is very charming. When I first moved to Nevada in the early 1960s Rex was the Leutenant Governor and he was very much liked by Nevadans. I recommend this and be sure to watch any Clara Bow movie to see Rex's wife Clara. Look up their story. They had amazing careers plus wild private lives. There is one suicide in this movie and it was realistic for its time.

This unintentionally funny (in parts) film would be classed as satire today but back in 1932, a scriptwriter thought it was probably a novel idea to combine gangsters and cowboys. Giving the West some topical problems New Yorkers were having.Rex Bell is the star. He was married to Clara Bow. Even though he loved the West, he wasn't a great actor and soon left films to become a rancher. He had a very likable screen presence and in this film played "Breezy" Kildare, a detective who is shot in a nightclub, in the middle of a gangland shooting. Gwen Lee is his date.He goes to his father's ranch in Cheyenne to recuperate and gets re-acquainted with Ruth (played by the very lovely Marceline Day), Joe Carter's daughter. At first they are hostile to him as he was instrumental in sending Joe to jail but he also petitioned to have him released (they didn't know about that) - so they soon become friends again. Joe runs the saloon, masquerading as a "soft drinks" counter where only beer and spirits seemed to be served and there is a very visible sign NO MINORS ALLOWED. Joe is in the hands of a bootlegger and fears for his life.The gangsters have already turned up and have started a cowboy and ranchers protection agency. For all the cattlemen who don't come across, the gangsters go riding around the countryside in a touring car, shooting up cowboys, cattle and anything that gets in their way - with a machine gun. It is hilarious. There is a scene - a hillside shoot out where "Breezy" gets the machine gun away from them and turns it on them. After killing "Breezy's" dad, the ringleader is captured but begs to be given a break. Gabby Hayes replies "you'll get a break - a rope and a tree that have never been used before".The end scene shows "Breezy" and Ruth planning to leave the West and go back to New York were life was simpler and good. It was a very enjoyable Western that I would watch again.

Broadway To Cheyenne starts off with a bunch of big city gangsters fighting and killing each other with Detective Breezy Kildare caught in the middle. When Breezy goes out west to the ranch where he grew up he runs into the same bunch of crooks. The gangsters are offering "protection" to the local ranchers. For the rest of the movie it's cowboys and gangsters.Even though there is a story in Broadway To Cheyenne it just looks odd to see a bunch of New York City gangsters riding around the desert in a car fighting cowboys on horses. A gangster shooting a Tommy gun versus a cowboy with a revolver does not look right either.As Breezy, Rex Bell seems out of place as a cowboy. It is easier to think of him as the big city cop because of the build-up in the beginning of the movie. He fights the same people he was fighting in New York. The characters are the same, but the setting has changed. George Hayes does not play a sidekick, just an old cowhand. You can see the seeds of the Windy/Gabby character that he would develop later. He is not cantankerous, just rough and western. During the early 1930's Hayes played a variety of characters, so he could not be expected to be the old codger all the time. His role is minor, but he still has a great presence in Broadway To Cheyenne.Broadway To Cheyenne definitely has the feel of a 1932 movie. If it were strictly a gangster movie or a western it would be perfect for that time. Instead it was a fun idea that someone decided to work with, but it was not a great western.