The Cowboy Millionaire

Any B western with George O'Brien is worth watching. He had the charisma, underlying sense of humor, good looks and athleticism that made him a joy to see perform and always entertaining. In this western, Bob (O'Brien) and his sidekick Persimmon (Kennedy) take a job at a luxury dude ranch in order to earn enough money to continue to continue working on their mining claim. Part of their duties are to greet incoming visitors at the train station and then take them to the ranch in a stagecoach. Along the way, they stage a mock holdup in order to evidently give visitors a thrill and a taste of the old West. In this case, the passengers are an English mother and her daughter Pamela (Bostok) and a smarmy hanger on manager. When the prank is revealed, the mother is amused, the manager livid and the daughter is insulted and in quite a snit. The two plot lines are the one-oneupmanship game played between Pamela and Bob and a con man trying to cheat Persimmon and Bob out of their valuable mining claim. Understandably, the con man works only with Persimmon who is naive and gullible. Bob becomes smitten with Pamela, but, still in a snit, she flits back to England. Bob pursues her there and they join forces in trying to catch the con man. O'Brien and Bostok work very well together and she holds her own in the acting and charisma even if she loses the one-oneupmanship battle. Edgar Kennedy is, well, the familiar Edgar Kennedy but this time in a Western. He is funny and one of the more entertaining obligatory sidekicks. Very enjoyable B Western.

This movie starts off pretty good. George O'Brien and Edgar Kennedy are working at a dude ranch to raise money so they can work their gold mine. The have enough... but Evalyn Bostock shows up and George is smitten; she is annoyed at his presumption, but every attempt to take him down a peg results in his being warm, masculine and masterful. While George is trying to make hay, news comes that the mine is a bonanza --but the telegram is read by con man Stephen Chase, who is trying to marry Evalyn for her money. He offers to pay Edgar $25,000 for their mine, which Edgar accepts, except they have to go to England for plot convenience.

The first half of the movie is good, with some nice humor on display, thanks to director Eddie Cline, O'Brien's casual charm and Kennedy's patented slow burn. The last fifteen minutes, however, is all about rear projection shots of London and the inevitable fight between O'Brien and Chase and is pretty much standard.

O'Brien was getting tired of being a western star. The following year, he would cut a deal with George Hirliman that would get him off a horse -- still in action movies that would require him to take off his shirt. That wouldn't last long. Eventually, RKO would buy his contract and put him back in the saddle.