It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Swing in the Saddle (1944) – Musical #814

Studio:
Columbia Pictures

Director:
Lew Landers

Starring:
Jane Frazee, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Slim Summerville, Sally Bliss, Mary Treen, Red River Dave, Carole Matthews, Byron Foulger, Virginia Sale (uncredited)
Themselves: The Hoosier Hotshots, The King Cole Trio, Jimmy Wakely and his Oklahoma Cowboys, Cousin Emmy

Plot:
Two ranches, The Flying W, run by Tiny Baldwin (Guin “Big Boy Williams) and his cowhands (Jimmy Wakley and His Oklahoma Cowboys), and the Diamond Arrow Ranch, run by Steve Barrett (Red River Dave) and his ranch hands (The Hoosier Cowboys) are in search of a better cook. Meanwhile, two out-of-work actresses, Penny Marrow (Frazee) and Addie LaTour (Treen), are hitchhiking, as Addie searches for a romantic pen pal. The girls are mistaken for the new cooks for the ranches.

Trivia:
• First film of Sally Bliss, who later was billed as Carla Balenda
• Red River Dave’s only feature film, though he was in several shorts.
• One of two films that Cousin Emmy appeared in. The other wasn’t until 1955.
• Working title was “Under the Western Skies”

Mary Treen and Jane Frazee

Highlights:
• Mary Treen dancing to the “Cowboy’s Polka”
• Jimmy Wakely and His Oklahoma Cowboys performing

Notable Songs:
• “Cowboy’s Polka” performed by Jimmy Wakley and His Oklahoma Cowboys
• “Dude Cowboy” performed by The Hoosier Hotshots
• “You’re the Dream, I’m the Dreamer” performed by Jane Frazee
• “Singing Hills” performed by Red River Dave and Jane Frazee
• “By the River Saint Marie” performed by the King Cole Trio
• “Free Little Bird” performed by Cousin Emmy
• “When It’s Harvest Time in Peaceful Valley” performed by Jimmy Wakely and His Oklahoma Cowboys
• “Amor, Amor” performed by Jane Frazee
• “There’ll Be a Jubilee” performed by Mary Treen and the cast

Red River Dave and Jane Frazee

My review:
I must begin this review with a topic I’ve mentioned many times: Access to films.

I usually include a footnote in reviews, noting the unsavory methods or poor print quality I’ve used to watch and review classic films. Unfortunately, I’m bringing this to the top because the quality of this print seemed to affect my viewing of the film, as well as my understanding of the plot and characters.

Like the last few summers, this July, our Musical Mondays are themed around musical westerns and singing cowboys. We kick off this year with a Columbia Pictures musical, SWING IN THE SADDLE (1944), but unfortunately, there are only a few options to watch this. The option I picked had excellent sound quality, allowing me to hear the wonderful Western music. But visually, the film isn’t so hot. It’s another one of those films that has such poor picture quality that you can only see the actors clearly in close-ups.

And because of this, it made following the plot tricky.

The plot follows two ranches: The Flying W, run by Tiny Baldwin (Guin “Big Boy Williams) and his cowhands (Jimmy Wakley and His Oklahoma Cowboys), and the Diamond Arrow Ranch, run by Steve Barrett (Red River Dave) and his ranch hands (The Hoosier Cowboys). There are two issues:
Due to a shortage of help because of the war, all of the cowhands are fed at the Diamond Arrow, but the chow is lousy because of the cook, Slim Bayliss (Summerville).
The Flying W cowhands and the Diamond Arrow ranch hands are competing in the musical performance competition at the Frontier Celebration.

Meanwhile, two out-of-work actresses, Penny Marrow (Frazee) and Addie LaTour (Treen), are hitchhiking, as Addie searches for a romantic pen pal. The girls are mistaken for the new cooks for the ranches. But Penny can also sing, so she wants to help in the Frontier Celebration contest.

However, the central conflict in this film is determining which ranch can hire the best cook.
Now here’s how I got confused: When the musicians of The Hoosier Hotshots or Jimmy Wakely and His Oklahoma Cowboys were our main characters, I didn’t know who was who. I know Jimmy Wakely, but not his Oklahoma Cowboys. Now, I attributed this to the fuzzy picture, but perhaps it would have been difficult to tell anyway.

When Guin “Big Boy” Williams was in the scene, I was fine, but he had less screentime than I would have liked (I love him). But even with Red River Dave, who played Steve Barrett, in the scene, it wasn’t much help, because I wasn’t familiar with him before watching this film.

You may be thinking, “Why even watch it if the quality is so bad? That’s no way to watch the movie.” You’re right. But what can you do when these films aren’t available on DVD or streaming? Sometimes, we have to settle for what we can get, especially when we want to watch a film.

The plot may be weak. In the film, I don’t find Steve (Red River Dave) and Penny’s (Jane Frazee’s) romance all that interesting or important, because there’s not enough time building it out that there’s no reason why we should really care.

Despite my mix-up with the characters, the film is filled with wonderful western music. I especially liked “When It’s Harvest Time in Peaceful Valley” performed by Jimmy Wakely and His Oklahoma. We also get a performance from The King Cole Trio, featuring Nat King Cole, and a rare film appearance of Cousin Emmy, a banjo-playing singer. This was the only film appearance for the Hoosier Hotshots, who were famous on the National Barn Dance Radio Show.

Capable songstress Jane Frazee is the star of this film. Frazee is lovely, as pretty as any 1940s singing starlet. At this point, I’ve seen her in several films and find her lovely, but I also couldn’t pick her out of the crowd.

Carla Balenda, billed as Sally Bliss here, is given little to do, and Doreen Nesbit shows up too late in the film to care about her snobbish character. Bliss’s character of Judy Bayliss, sister of Slim Summerville’s character, is pointless, and also two-faced. She keeps acting like she’s friends with Frazee and Treen, and then gleefully outs them as actresses and not cooks. Jerk.

The real standout performer for me in this film was Mary Treen. She’s funny and also the most interesting character in the film, as she searches for her romantic pen pal to learn that she was duped.

A tagline said that it is filled with celebrities of “screen, radio and sagebrush!” It is, but maybe too many.

While I’ve been critical of the film, I must admit that it was genuinely enjoyable, and I had a good time watching it. Even with a weak plot, the music is fun, and the western setting has a great summer feel.