Spidersecu
Don't Believe the Hype
Voxitype
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
jpstewart-02578
Never mind the story (it rips along anyway), it's the playing (fun and lively from Bob Burns and Martha Raye) apt from Crosby and adequate from Francis Farmer) and the backgrounds, plus at least three good songs beautifully performed by Crosby and others including, briefly, Louis Prima and Roy Rogers! Well worth a visit.
vincentlynch-moonoi
This film was later remade as "Pardners" with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. While I'm an avid Martin fan, I'm no fan of Jerry Lewis, and I very much like Bing Crosby and like Martha Raye. My suggestion is to watch "Pardners" instead; it doesn't drag as this film seems to. And, while aspects of both films are different, there are other parts that are surprisingly similar.The problem with this film is that, as much as I like Crosby in both musicals and dramas, I have a difficult time imagining him as a bronco riding steer wrestler. It just doesn't work.What does work are the songs, particularly an outstanding rendition of "Empty Saddles" (its debut). In terms of plot...pretty light.Aside from not being very believable as a rough and tumble cowboy, Crosby is still his pleasant self on screen, and this film was right at the beginning of what I think were Bing's best early years on film.I was not impressed with Frances Farmer here as the love interest. I know she had an "interesting" and tragic life, but I have yet to be impressed with any of her film roles.Bob Burns is sort of humorous as the side kick, as is Martha Raye as the Easterner who goes after the hick Westerner. Samuel S. Hinds, a great character actor is along for a few scenes, and Lucile Gleason in a rather truncated role that just seems to hang out there with little real connection to the rest of the film.Even as somewhat of a Crosby fan, this film had trouble holding my attention. It's not bad, nor great.
Jay Raskin
The movie keeps shifting plots every 15 minutes. It seems probable that lots of material was cut out, as very little makes much sense.However, the movie contains so many delightful elements that one hardly cares. Bing Crosby is quite pleasant. He is wonderfully laid back and relaxed, just saying his lines between songs. This allows us to focus mainly on Francis Farmer, who is captivatingly beautiful as a runaway heiress-bride. Bob Burns with an instrument he invented called "the Bazooka" and Leonid Kinskey as the Russian immigrant cowboy "Mischa" provide a few laughs. Cuddles the Bull is also a surprisingly effective animal co-star.This is 20 year old Martha Raye's screen debut and it is quite unusual. She is doing vaudeville without toning it down one iota for the screen. This makes a sharp contrast to Crosby and Farmer's gentle reserved acting styles. She is frenetic, shouting and jumping all other the sets. There is something disturbing about her man-hungry character, Emma. It is a sex-role reversal with the woman as the obsessed predator who can't control herself and offers herself to any stray man. With so many other out-of-synch elements in the film, she just fits right in.It is a little ironic that Raye would get top billing two years later in "Give Me A Sailor" which was Bob Hope's first real starring film. So Raye worked with both Crosby and Hope before they worked together on the road pictures.For about 15 minutes towards the end of the film, there's a nice jamboree which includes the introduction of the classic Johnny Mercer song "I'm an Old Cow Hand". The three or four plot lines are kept in limbo while this is going on. If we had cared about the plot lines, we would have been upset, but since they are so light and flimsy anyway, we can see them as just excuses for this nice vaudeville segment.It is a shame that the duet between Farmer and Crosby was cut. I hope someone finds it somewhere and releases it on Youtube.Ultimately, this is an amusing and reasonably clever concoction of fluff and music. It is too slow-paced for today's ADD generation, but for lovers of Old Hollywood, it is fine.
jmk56
Several of the preceding comments have gone into great detail about the film and its pleasures. "Rhythm on the Range" is, to our modern jaded eyes and ears, obviously dated, but it has a charm and sly humor that are abundant enough that even 21st century sophisticates can enjoy it. I concur that the major reason to watch the film is for the wonderful performance of Frances Farmer, here somewhat eschewing her early haughty characterizations for an almost subversive comedic performance. This was Frances' first "A" production, after receiving top billing in two very well received Paramount "B"'s, "Too Many Parents" and "Border Flight." Frances went straight from this film to her legendary role(s) in Goldwyn's "Come and Get It," so from late summer, when "Rhythm" was released, through the end of 1936, when "Come and Get It" premiered, she was arguably the hottest, and certainly one of the most talked about, new stars of that era.The duet one of the previous commenters mentioned, "The House Jack Built for Jill," was in fact filmed but was not, as that commenter stated, slated for the end of the film, but rather for the scene where Bing and Frances escape the rainstorm and find shelter in the farmhouse. I have Norman Taurog's original shooting script and the scene is still extant in the script, including Taurog's blue line through the pages indicating it was filmed.One of the previous commenters repeated some unfortunately commonly believed misinformation about Frances. Though Frances' institutionalization was certainly no picnic (to say the least), the most horrifyingly sensationalized allegations about her treatment (found in both her ghost-written autobiography and the largely fictionalized "Shadowland") never happened, including the spurious claim that she was lobotomized. My article detailing the truth about these allegations, "Shedding Light on Shadowland," is linked under the Miscellaneous section on the IMDb listing for Frances Farmer. Or you can find it by using a search engine and searching for "Shedding Light on Shadowland."
