Pardon My Gun is an example of how not to make a movie. Thinking about it in the context of 1930, the singing cowboy in movies was still developing, but the proper way to make a movie had been figured out for years. This movie was wrong in every way.
There is supposed to be a plot, but it is pushed aside for what would normally be filler. There is supposed to be a hero and a heroine, but they are pushed aside for what would normally be filler. Let me explain...
The plot is supposed to be about Ted Duncan (Tom Keene) saving Mary Martin (Sally Starr) from having to marry the villain, Cooper (Harry Woods), to settle her father's gambling debts. That is simple enough. The problem is that if I were to use a stopwatch to log the time Tom Keene is on screen it would probably total less than five minutes out of the hour long film. Heroines usually have little screen time, but Sally Starr could have filmed all of her dialogue in half an hour including set changes.
Pardon My Gun starts off kind of slow then works to a dead stop. The scene where Peggy (Mona Ray) arrives never seems to end. Peggy is a 20's flapper who would normally be out of place in a western, but this was hardly a western. The characters keep talking to one another, but nothing is said that pushes the story along. Watching Lightnin' (Stompie) talk to his frog, Fuzzy, over and over does nothing for the plot. The big barn dance scene takes a great deal of time with music, dance, and comedy performances. The redeeming value to the scene is that it gives a glimpse of what vaudeville acts were like. For what it was, it should have been left for film shorts rather than part of what should have been a movie. As much as we would like to have the hero on screen all the time, those scenes with playful interaction among the minor characters can add to the charm of the movie. In this case that is all there is! The charm wore off immediately.
Yes, there is an exciting horse race, a fight scene, some shots, and some cowboy hats. It would have been nice to have more than a few minutes of western action. The MacFarlane brothers apparently worked the rodeos because they did roping and singing for this movie in flashy western outfits. They are the closest thing to the wild west of anyone in the cast. Abe Lyman was popular on radio in the 1930's. Seeing his band in cowboy outfits is fun, but hardly western in the context of music for cowboy movies.
I have seen silent movies with much more cohesive stories than Pardon My Gun. I have seen early Bob Steele and Ken Maynard films with much more heroic action. There were better films made before, during, and of course, after the time Pardon My Gun was made. I am certain that movie-goers of 1930 felt the same way.
