Cowboy Canteen

After "Hollywood Canteen" and "Stage Door Canteen" had been released as flag-wavers intended to raise money for the named USO operations, Columbia got into the act with this effort. As with the earlier two, it was an all-star operation, but in this case it was cowboy stars, with a strong emphasis on singing cowboys, an occasional ventriloquist (in the person of Max Terhune) and the ladies in the show drawn from the Columbia shorts department.

It's a lighthearted effort and a considerable pleasure to see so many of the leading cowboy actors of the era in one spot and an excellent chance to play spot the stars. It's also a fine survey of western music at the time -- at this point, western swing was biggest genre of music in terms of sales -- including swing, ballads, traditional (from Tex Ritter) as well as major talents such as Roy Acuff and the Mills Brothers. As a snapshot of the era, as a musical anthology and as a chance to see more vanished stars than there are in heaven, it's a must-see movie for the real movie fan.