6 Comedy Western Movies, In Honor of ‘The Lone Ranger’ Starring Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer

Movie #2 – Ride ‘Em Cowboy

Year – 1942

Abbott & Costello made surprisingly few westerns given how popular the genre was during their peak. Since the sets were already built, Westerns were cheap and Hollywood loved cranking them out. And cranking out movies was Abbott & Costello’s specialty. Between the years of 1940 and 1956 they made: 36 feature length films, 52 half hour television episodes, and hosted The Colgate Comedy Hour 19 times. Oh, and they also did a weekly radio show.

This was the first of only two Westerns that Abbott & Costello would make (the second being The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap). However, this still wasn’t a Western in the strictest sense. Abbott & Costello get mixed up with Bronco Bob Mitchell: a best-selling author of Western novels who has never set foot in the West. When a newspaper exposes this fact, he decides to visit a dude ranch and learn for himself how to be a cowboy.

As with most Abbott & Costello movies, the plot exists solely as a delivery system for musical numbers and recycled vaudeville routines. That is to say… it’s exactly what you want from an Abbott & Costello movie. The songs, while not quite as good as in Buck Privates, are pretty solid. I’ll Remember April got nominated for an Oscar and the film features the screen debut of Ella Fitzgerald…not too shabby.

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