The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Preston Sturges

Writers:

Earl Felton (screenplay)
Earl Felton (story)

Release Date:

27 May 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Western

Tagline:

She had the biggest Six-Shooters in the West!

Plot:

Saloon-bar singer Freddie gets very angry whenever boyfriend Blackie seems to be playing around. She always packs a six-shooter...

Plot Keywords:

Judge | Singing | Hit On The Head | Hanging | Courtroom Scene

Cast

Betty Grable	...	Winifred Jones
Cesar Romero	...	Blackie Jobero
Rudy Vallee	...	Charles Hingleman
Olga San Juan	...	Conchita
Porter Hall	...	Judge Alfalfa J. O'Toole
Hugh Herbert	...	Doctor
Al Bridge	...	Sheriff Ambrose (as Alan Bridge)
El Brendel	...	Mr. Jorgensen
Sterling Holloway	...	Basserman Boy
Dan Jackson	...	Basserman Boy (as Danny Jackson)
Emory Parnell	...	Mr. Julius Hingleman
Pati Behrs	...	Roulette

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Goofs:

Continuity: Despite being a Technicolor film, this picture contains process and insert shots which are in black-and-white. In particular, though Charles and Winifred are photographed in color on their buggy ride to the church, the background and the church exterior itself are in black-and-white.

Quotes:

Winifred Jones: Do tell. You must show me your gold mine someday.
Charles Hingleman: If you don't mind going down in a bucket.
Winifred Jones: How is that again?
Charles Hingleman: Well, you see, a gold mine having no stairs, you have to be lowered in a bucket.
Winifred Jones: Like the girl from Nantucket. Excuse me.
Charles Hingleman: How is that?
Winifred Jones: Oh, oh... just a poem.

Soundtrack:

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

lacklustre musical western

When you hear the name Preston Sturges you expect great things, but this isn't one of his best efforts. Yes, for the gentlemen viewer it has Betty Grable in a range of corsets playing a pseudo Annie Oakley, and for the ladies it has Rudy Vallee (admittedly rather past his prime). For comedy value it has the peerless Sterling Holloway, but this isn't his finest hour.

Plotwise there isn't much here. Grable has an on-off relationship with Cesar Romero which sometimes causes her to go off toting a gun. Twice in a row Porter Hall's judge is in the way, and off she goes on the run with her Mexican friend to impersonate a schoolteacher. And that's it.

There's a couple of songs, but Grable and Vallee's musical talents are wasted and the only real pull of this film is the fact it is in Technicolor. Given the number of second-rate features which were at the time this was made, that's no draw. And even Grable misses her target here.