Mon copain le roi

It's no fun for Mickey Rooney, being King of Alvonia. When Tom Mix and his Wild West show comes through, he plays hooky from a council meeting to greet the great man. He attends a special show along with his kindly tutor, Wallis Clark, and then chats with Tom in his throne room. Tom urges him in the American creed of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the youngster is sold. However, evil prime minister James Kirkwood sticks Mickey and Clark in a dungeon and proceeds to open the floodgates to drown them. However, Princess Noel Francis tells Tom, so he sets out to rescue his pal. Can the forces of Evil stand up against Tom, Tony the Horse, and a cohort of western performers that includes Paul Hurst and Jim Thorpe?

It is to laugh. We get to see Tom Mix's Wild West show in performance, including a lot of lariat artists and an Indian attack on the Overland Stage. It's great stuff, even if the attack on the Palace -- the exteriors are clearly the sets from THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME -- is clunkily cut together. Tom is beginning to look a bit chunky, but he rides like the great Western star he is, and sounds good too; the story gong around was that he didn't have a good voice. That's clearly nonsense. He liked running his Wild West Show, even though he didn't really make much money at it; he didn't do radio, because radio didn't-at enough to support his extravagant lifestyle.

This was supposed to have been a big money maker for Universal, and it's easy to see why. It's not a great movie, but there are enough great bits to be entertaining throughout.