Riding High marked the end Dick Powell's association with Paramount Pictures. He never went back on the Paramount lot after finishing Riding High.
Seeing it now, Riding High has the look of a Bob Hope film and I have a feeling that's who the original male lead was supposed to be. My guess is that Rapid Robert was entertaining the troops on some far distant shore and Powell was shoved into this film to appear opposite Dorothy Lamour. Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer wrote some forgettable songs for this film.
Funny thing is that Paramount seemed to spend a pretty penny on Riding High. It was shot on location in Arizona, not on the studio back lot and it did actually get an Academy Award nomination for sound.
Poor Dick Powell just walked through this film and supporting players like Cass Daley and Victor Moore and Gil Lamb stole the film right out from under him. Powell plays a salesman who has sold mining stock to Dorothy Lamour's father George Carleton who has no operating capital though and relies on Powell to get some.
In trying to raise the capital Powell gets himself involved with Victor Moore, a mild mannered counterfeiter who's carrying a nice wad of the bogus cabbage. Moore passes it when he has to, but he's evolved his own system based on the old Mark Twain story that was later made into a Gregory Peck film, Man With A Million. The premise is that if people know you are well heeled, doors of credit automatically open for you and you need not necessarily pass the stuff and thereby endanger your freedom.
A lot of the comedy here is based on Victor Moore constantly trying to fend off one lug-nut of a sheriff in Gil Lamb who is trying to catch him with the goods. Moore also is at the same time fending off the amorous intentions of amazon Cass Daley. These three totally steal the film from Powell and Lamour. There's a chuck wagon race at the end where rich rancher Russell Simpson bets against Cass Daley's rig with Moore and that gets pretty wild. It's Powell and what he does in that race that makes me think this was intended for Bob Hope.
While shooting this film, Powell who had been promised by Paramount executives that he would be getting some serious dramatic roles, learned that a part he wanted very badly in Double Indemnity was given to Fred MacMurray. According to the films of Dick Powell, he got a release from his contract and refused to ever work there again in the same way he never worked for Warner Brothers again either after leaving them in the Thirties for the same reason.
Riding High is a mildly amusing film today with the supporting cast just taking over from the uninterested leads. Not a film Dick Powell had pleasant memories of.
