Valley of the Sun (1942)

RKO obviously made this 78 minute film as the extra attraction for double features. This Western is better made than a lot of RKO's second B pictures.James Craig and Lucy have some spark as a couple. The plot makes sense. There is even some humor. The script writers do pretty well.There are some action moments between the humor and the romance. This is worth watching just because it is Lucy doing something different. This is still quite a few years before Lucy and Desi would buy the RKO studios in the 1950's and make it into a television juggernaut. Lucy gets to stretch her comic acting here, long before her blossuming into a full fledged comedian. There are some silent folks like Billy Gilbert who appear in this one. This is 3 years prior to Lucy and Buster Keaton giving her comedy lessons at MGM in 1945. Still, you see the basis of her talent in this one.

Am still wondering why this 1942 film got the name that it did. It was idiotic to say the least and diminishes the brutal way the Indians were treated in the 1880s and before.With Lucille Ball in it, you would know that the film would turn to comedy which was probably the best part of this inane film.Part of the picture is the attempts by James Craig, who tried to help 3 Indians accused of stealing what was really theirs and winds up with a prison sentence, along with Cedric Hardwicke to break up the impending marriage between the Ball character and Dean Jagger. Some of the antics used to do this were funny especially throwing those itchy aunts down on Jagger at the wedding scene.It doesn't take Ball long to realize that she is making a mistake and that her true love has become the Craig character.This is one hour and nineteen minutes of sheer nonsense.

Valley Of The Sun is an offbeat comic western that stars Lucille Ball in a role you would normally see Dale Evans do over at Republic with Roy Rogers. But Lucy and the rest of the cast acquit themselves well under the handling of director George Marshall.Lucy runs the Busy Bee Cafe in Yuma where she's all set to marry Indian agent Dean Jagger who makes a nice living cheating the Indians. That was a great racket in the old west and who's to complain as they don't have the right to vote as yet. Army scout James Craig cares however, but he's had to bust jail after helping a couple of falsely accused Apaches escape.In making his escape Craig runs into both Lucy and Jagger and then has a dual mission to stop that wedding and get some justice for the Indians. Do you doubt he will succeed?This western moves at a really nice clip with the comedy some of the rough house kind like Jagger having a stagecoach run over some cactus to dislodge Craig who is riding by hanging on to the boot. Nevermind though Craig pays him back good in stopping that wedding and I won't reveal how. George Marshall was one of the great comic directors from the last century and never gets the due that he should. This minor picture for RKO shows him at his best.I remember back in the day in New York City when I was a kid, Valley Of The Sun was run frequently on WOR TV as they owned the entire RKO Library. It seems to have fallen out of favor in the past several years though for reasons I can't explain. This is a really fine film.

This thoroughly enjoyable RKO comedic Western from 1942 used to be shown regularly on TV in the '50s and '60s, but seems to have faded into obscurity and deserves a TCM revival. A swift 79-minute running time packs in plenty of action, rambunctious humor, and sparkling romantic chemistry between leads James Craig (why he didn't become a major star remains a mystery) and luscious Lucille Ball (exuding the volcanic combo of dazzling beauty and an innate flair for slapstick that would come to full fruition a decade later in "I Love Lucy" on the home-screen). Dismissed by most critics as a forgettable low-grade oater, "Valley of the Sun" was a high-budget class-A RKO production, and shows in the caliber of the witty screenplay, eye-catching production design, and shimmering black-and-white photography. Excellent entertainment, and still a thorough delight from start to finish.