Moviecut—Red Garters

source: Red Garters

Red Garters

I will never forget the night I saw this movie. We were on a submarine on patrol in the North Atlantic and this was the scheduled movie of the evening. We ALL gave up after the second reel. They did not even try to show it at the mid-night showing. Opting for a rerun instead...... This is all I really have to say but they have this stupid rule that my comment must contain ten lines. I'm not supposed to pad the comment with random words so I will just continue to ramble until I get my ten lines of BS. I could not find George Goble listed in the credits but I remember him in the movie. The sining was terrible and the songs even worse.

In 1872, a jovial-but-formidable stranger (Guy Mitchell) rides into Limbo County, California, on an unknown mission where he engages in contention, friendship, romance and... potentially deadly gunfights. The cast includes the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Jack Carson, Gene Barry and Frank Faylen. "Red Garters" (1954) is a colorful set-bound Western parody/musical. It's like "The Wizard of Oz" in the cinematic Old West, but without the fantastical elements and a focus on romance and quick-draw silliness, etc. With a name like "Red Garters" you know one of the highlights is the women. Other than perky Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney's aunt), there's Pat Crowley (Susan), Joanne Gilbert (Sheila) and the several beautiful showgirls who perform inside and outside the saloon. The movie runs 1 hour, 31 minutes, and was shot at Paramount Studios, Hollywood. GRADE: B-

This Paramount version/ripoff of OKLAHOMA!/ANNIE GET YOUR GUN/CALAMITY JANE isn't all that unusual or innovative. The marketing and intro comments may be there to salvage what is really a pretty bad movie musical western shot on a soundstage and like a live TV show. I don't find the use of the background cyclorama, lit in various scenes with yellow, or pink, or red, or....all that innovative. As noted, it looks more to me like a movie that was produced on a TV budget: All soundstage, with minimal sets backed by the lighted cycs! (Compare to NEW FACES (OF 1952). The actors come off reasonably well, though. And this style was much better realized when Paramount shot LI'L ABNER in 1959. Of couorse, this movie suggests the often repeated question: "what were they thinking?"

Red Garters certainly is a peculiar movie. I liked it as a child (where I didn't understand all of it), and not so much as an adult. It's a novelty, to be sure. The best part of this is not the film but the soundtrack. Anyone liking the movie should have the original album. The songs were released on a 10" Columbia red-label LP. This is the best presentation of the music and it really flatters the movie. Don't know about the re-issues and CDs; they often "improve" the sound by adding or removing re-verb, or altering the mix. Find the 10" LP on e-Bay and get the best. As an example, the song "Dime and a Dollar" in the movie is sung as a throwaway, too fast and offhand. On the record, it's presented much slower, more in the cowboy-song rhythm that does it justice. All the songs on the album are better in this kind of way.

A one-off that never caught on but worth an 'e' for effort. Helmer George Marshall already had one spoof western under his belt in Destry Rides Again and now he spoofs two genres with one stone adding musicals to the mix. At the time - early fifties - both genres were still putting bums on seats, in fact that very same year MGM released one of the finest 'western' musical hybrids in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers so arguably both genres were ripe for satirising and it's nobody's fault if it doesn't quite come off. The BLM Brigade will go into spasm when they get a load of Minnie Redwing and Gene Barry's Gilbert Rowland has to be seen to be believed. Worth a look to see what might have been.

Interesting and innovative settings and an excellent cast can't save this sophomoric satire. Clooney has a couple of nice songs and proves that she can act a little. Guy Mitchell has a couple of nice songs and proves that he was never meant to be an actor. Worth one viewing for the visuals but rent, don't buy!

It was good to see that a few of the commented above realized that this was not a musical, not a western,and not a rip-off. It was a spoof, a parody in musical format. Both westerns and musicals were really big back then. When we watched it we laughed our heads off. But we were submersed in the culture and understood the jokes. This movie took things we had noticed and giggled at in other movies. "The Code of the West", the guns that never needed reloading, the good guy never wearing black, and macho posturing that led to fight after fight with never a bruise were just a few of the things on which we had commented to one another while watching the reel McCoy. I was never bothered by the "injun" stereotype in this movie because it was a spoof of the other movies. Check out some of the stuff Bing Crosby did if you want horrible stereotypes. If you were bothered by the "injun" stereotype you almost got the point.