Go West, Young Lady

During the 1940s, Columbia Pictures made a ton of westerns...most of them B-movies lasting about an hour and featuring a variety of mostly small-time actors. However, occasionally they made a western that was just a bit better...and "Go West, Young Lady" is one of these. While it's about the length of many Bs, it has a better cast than usual. While Glenn Ford was not yet a top-tier actor, having him and many familiar faces in the film (Penny Singleton, Ann Miller, Charlie Ruggles and Allen Jenkins) give it a more sophisticated look than a B....making this sort of like a B+ picture!

The star of the picture is Penny Singleton. She was a veteran of Bs...and in the middle of her Blondie and Dagwood series when she made this western. But she's certainly no typical western woman (at least the movie versions), as when bad guys strike, she's quick to shoot back and isn't the least bit a cowering lady! Glenn Ford is the male lead...but with such a dynamic lady starring in this one he's easily overshadowed!

As for the plot, apart from Singleton's wild (and sometimes ditsy) character, it's pretty standard stuff. Some masked gunman named Killer Pete is terrorizing a town...killing sheriff after sheriff. His ultimate goal isn't robbery but to force folks to want to leave town...so he can then buy them out and become the big boss man...a very familiar western cliche.

Watchable and a bit better than usual for the genre.

Delightful slice of western slapstick from Columbia Studios. The humor is pretty broad, the musical numbers frequent, and the cast especially appealing. It's a really young Glenn Ford showing why a big, versatile career lay ahead; a tomboyish Penny Singleton showing why she was more than just Blondie; and bad girl Ann Miller (!) still tap dancing her way into our hearts. And mustn't overlook an outstanding supporting cast, e.g. Ruggles, Jenkins, Waffles. I especially like that Miller-Jenkins tap dancing number with her in cowboy boots and him tripping the light fantastic.

Oh yeah, the plot's something about a masked bad guy terrorizing the town. Turns out it's a town bigwig, just like in a kid's western. But who cares since that's just a way of stringing together the other, better elements. I'm not sure who the intended audience was since the result is neither a kid's matinée nor an A-production (the guys ride around greater LA). I doubt that the audience was ever found since the release date was right before Pearl Harbor! Anyway, for me the 70-minutes came as a pleasant surprise, though that opening stagecoach chase seems an unnecessary body-count. Nonetheless, the music's delightful and the acting appealing, so there's a lot to like in this unheralded Columbia production.

GO WEST, YOUNG LADY (Columbia, 1941), directed by Frank R. Strayer, is a western spoof starring the one and only Penny Singleton, in a rare opportunity taking time off from her then popular "Blondie" movie series, also then directed by Frank R. Strayer, which played in theaters from 1938 and ending after 28 theatrical episodes in 1950. As with the "Blondie" series, GO WEST, YOUNG LADY is a 70 minute "B" movie that concentrates on comedy, whether it be physical or verbal. It also reunites Singleton with the up-and-coming Glenn Ford, who earlier appeared in one of her "Blondie" comedies, BLONDIE PLAYS CUPID (Columbia, 1940).

Set in a frontier town of Headstone, Jim Pendergast (Charles Ruggles), owner of the Crystal Palace saloon, learns that his nephew, Bill, is arriving on the next stagecoach. Since Headstone is in need of law and order, considering it is being terrorized by a masked bandit named "Pecos Pete," Pendergast believes Bill will become the town's new sheriff. After the stagecoach arrives, Pendergast mistakes Tex Miller (Glenn Ford) as his nephew, and is stunned to learn that Bill is actually an attractive young gal named Belinda Pendergast (Penny Singleton). In spite of her being a female, she is quick on the draw and can do anything a cowboy can do, even better. Later Belinda encounters Lola (Ann Miller), entertainer of the Crystal Palace, who becomes jealous over her encounter with Tex, whom she loves. Eventually with Belinda's help, she succeeds in taming the west.

GO WEST, YOUNG LADY may seem overly familiar in plot mainly because portions of it borrows from other westerns, such as DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (Universal, 1939), starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart, where the central character is mistaken for a stronger and more forceful hero, unaware that the least likely individual turns out to be otherwise, along with a knockout fight between the two women (Singleton and Miller), but not as memorable as when Dietrich battled wits with Una Merkel; and MY LITTLE CHICKADEE (Universal, 1940), starring Mae West and WC Fields, where the hero, being

Belinda, riding in a stagecoach with a rugged hero named Tex, becomes part of an Indian massacre where the Redskins riding on their horses are attacking the stagecoach with bows and arrows. As Tex tries to shoot them off, he becomes very much surprised to find Belinda with her pistols disposing the Indians shooting gallery style from their horses one by one (as did Mae West in the earlier film). Another borrowed element from MY LITTLE CHICKADEE is a masked man terrorizing the town, who becomes the least likely suspect from the citizens but known only to dance hall girl Lola and the movie audience.

Besides its broad comedy, and a couple of pies that are accidentally tossed at Glenn Ford's face, compliments of Penny Singleton (in a role that might have gone to other slapstick queens as Joan Davis, Judy Canova or even Lucille Ball), the movie takes time off for some musical numbers, songs by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, including: "Go West, Young Lady" (sung and tap danced by Ann Miller); "Somewhere Along the Trail," "Little Doggie, Take Your Time," "I Wish I Could Be a Singing Cowboy" (sung and performed by Allen Jenkins and Ann Miller); "Gentlemen Don't Prefer a Lady" (sung by Penny Singleton); and "Ida Red" performed by Bob Wills and his Texas Cowboys.

Featured in the supporting cast are: Jed Prouty as Judge Harmon; Edith Meiser as Mrs. Hinkle; Bill Hazlet as Chief Big Thunder; and Waffles, the dog (filling in for the Blondie pooch, Daisy), among others.

Watching GO WEST, YOUNG LADY, makes one wonder how this movie in a similar situation would have played as a "Blondie" episode, possibly titled BLONDIE OUT WEST, with Penny Singleton as Blondie, along with series regulars Arthur Lake as her husband, Dagwood Bumstead, and Larry Simms as their son, Baby Dumpling (Larry Simms), going west on vacation where Dagwood is elected sheriff to fight off cattle rustlers, shooting 'em up with cowboy villains, etc. Anyway, that never happened, but it was just a thought.

GO WEST, YOUNG LADY, which was once a frequently revived movie that could be found on any given afternoon on commercial television back in the 1960s and '70s, is a very hard movie to find these days. However, it is not lost and gone forever, for it has been revived on cable television's The Westerns Channel (2003) and Turner Classic Movies (August 22, 2007). Other than watching Penny Singleton in a non-Blondie performance, providing her comedic and vocalizing talents, GO WEST YOUNG LADY does have its quota of laughs to make this one an enjoyable outing and a worthy time filler for classic movie fans. (**1/2)

Columbia's western comedy Go West Young Lady owes the fact that it was made to Harry Cohn seeing how successful Destry Rides Again was over at Universal for Carl Laemmle. The resemblance of Glenn Ford's character to lean and lanky Jimmy Stewart is unmistakable.

Ford and Penny Singleton arrive on the same stage to this frontier town where Penny is visiting her uncle Charlie Ruggles who owns the saloon and Ford has been appointed the new sheriff. Like the town of Bottleneck in Destry Rides Again the job of sheriff gives the owner a limited life expectancy.

Specifically Ford is sent there to get a Mexican bandit, Killer Pete, who's been terrorizing the territory and he's got an alliance with the local Indians, a deadly combination if ever I saw one in a western. This bandit is one clever dude, he seems to just disappear with no trail after every job.

Singleton is a western girl who can shoot like Annie Oakley, but she has a horrible sense of timing and hurts more than she helps poor Ford. Still it looks like love.

Providing the saloon entertainment is Ann Miller, The Foursome, and Bob Wills Texas Playboys Band. There are quite a few musical numbers in this more than in Destry and Go West Young Lady is a shorter running time. There's a really cute one with Ann Miller and Allen Jenkins where Jenkins laments he doesn't have the voice to be a singing cowboy.

And there's the obligatory chick fight between Singleton and Miller, not as good as the one involving Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, but it certainly can hold its own.

Taking time off from the Blondie series for Penny Singleton definitely proved worthwhile. The film is a pleasant diversion and gave Glenn Ford the first opportunity on screen to show his comic talents. He takes a pie in the face as good as any Keystone Cop.

A pleasant, diverting, fast-paced, unpretentious musical Western. Shown frequently on commercial TV in the late '50s and '60s, it seems to have disappeared.

Will someone at Columbia Pictures please stop promoting their 2001 mega-budget stinkers and instead preserve and re-release their past glorious unsung treasures (such as "Go West, Young Lady") and make them available on cable-TV and videotape.

This "B"-unit film is an unalloyed delight. A precursor of such later films as "Calamity Jane" & "7 Brides for 7 Brothers". Penny Singleton is adorably ditzy as the heroine, Glenn Ford honed his comic skills as "the tenderfoot" and sparkling Ann Miller as the tart-tongued saloon-singer steals the show. The Sammy Cahn score is a treat, and Annie's tip-tapping with Allen Jenkins singing "I Wish That I could Be a Singing Cowboy" is one of the many highlights of this unique lark of a film.

Good, rousing, old-fashioned fun--packed into a tight 70 minutes!