Arizona Days (1937)

Director: George Stevens. Screenplay: Joel Sayre, John Twist. Story: Joseph A. Anthony, Ewart Adamson. Photography: J. Roy Hunt, Harold Wenstrom. Film editor: Jack Hively. Art directors: Van Nest Polglase and Perry Ferguson. Music director: Alberto Colombo. Sound recording: P.J. Faulkner, John L. Cass. Associate producer: Cliff Reid. (Available on a superb Warner-Turner DVD).Copyright 15 November 1935 by RKO-Radio Pictures. U.S. release: 28 November 1935. 91 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A backwoods sharpshooter enters a contest against the world's best. She would have beaten him too, except that...COMMENT: This admirably glossy straight version of the Annie Oakley-Frank Butler story has both its admirers and detractors. As for me, I like it. True, it bears even less relationship to the real story than Annie Get Your Gun. Nonetheless, as pure entertainment this Annie is a winner. Aside from Melvyn Douglas who is forced to struggle valiantly as the other man, this version assembles a great cast, although, would you believe, in my opinion it's Chief Thunder Bird who actually walks away with the movie's top acting honors?

Per his M.O., one of the reviewers of this film fills the site with yet more of his incorrect, at best, assumptions and mis-statements. This one starts with his usual assertions that Grand National Pictures signed Tex Ritter to a contract to make a series of films produced by Grand National. Other than about four films (including two James Cagney films), Grand National was primarily a distribution company for the films of about a half-dozen independent producers. He also incorrectly states that...."they (Grand National) signed Tex Ritter from The Grand Old Opry (sic) as their singing cowboy. No, Bucky, Tex Ritter had never appeared on The Grand Ole Opry until after his singing-cowboy career was over. Tex Ritter, then working, on a radio station in New York City, was SIGNED to a film contract by producer Edward Finney, who, in turn, then signed a contract, with Grand National Pictures, to produce a series of westerns for Grand National distribution---GN did not produce any of the westerns that were distributed under the GN logo. And, by the way, quoting Booda-do---"As a studio Grand National Pictures only lasted for a couple of years..."; the last time I looked, a couple meant two...and the last time I looked, Grand National distributed films made by independent producers (in addition to actually producing two Cagney films)for over five years...which is a couple doubled plus one.The reviewer who included the clap-trap misinformation in his review has been contacted by private message(s), over the past couple of years, regarding his error-statements,(on six of the ten reviews this contributor has read by this reviewing assumer) in which it was suggested that he might care to edit his review(s) and delete the highly-fabricated statements he made, but he seems to resent, rather than appreciate someone trying to help him not look foolish. Other than his opinion of the film(s) he writes about, his knowledge of vintage films seems to be somewhat, at best, lacking.

Tex Ritter and sidekick Grass Hopper (!) take a job at a vaudeville show In the town of Tombstone, Arizona; some bad men react to being forced to pay for admission by destroying the show. Tex then becomes a county tax collector in order to make the men pay, or so I've heard as the print I watched appears to be missing a reel!This is better than it should be thanks to the boundless charisma and talents of Tex Ritter, though this is clearly not one of Tex's best.However, this is the first and only Saturday matinée western I've ever seen where the villains murder a young boy on screen! Then we're treated to a happy ending where the kid appears to have been forgotten amongst the singing and laughing and marital bliss!Some years later, bad guy Glenn Strange was cast as the last of Universal's Frankenstein monsters.

A second disappointing follow up to Tex's first film, 'Song of the Gringo' (1936). Tex and his side kick, 'Hopper' (Syd Saylor, as a not so annoying comic relief) join a minstrel show in Arizona. This is the best part of the film, as it shows Tex on stage singing and then dealing with the villain Harry Price (the great badman Forrest Taylor) and his henchmen who enter the theater without paying.Unfortunately, the only prints I've seen then cut out about the next ten minutes of the film, and suddenly Tex is a tax collector in a showdown with Price to get him to pay his taxes! There isn't much on display here. The prairie flower love interest is a cypher; we are also subjected to a too long ambush shoot out behind rocks. The only other 'high point' is a tense little bit of editing as the evil looking Price waits in the cantina to shoot Tex.Tex does sing three co-written songs, one of which 'Tombstone, Arizona' has a four bar melody section taken directly from his version of 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain.' But that's okay! He also admitted in later years to how he 'stole' Leadbelly's melody for 'Goodnight Irene' and wrote new words recording it as 'I've Done the Best I Could.' He also borrowed 'Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay' for another of his hits. But all is forgiven Tex, because you did so many great songs, sang 'High Noon,' gave us John Ritter, and made some fairly decent westerns! But 'Arizona Days' is not one of them. I give it a 3.