Take Me Back to Oklahoma (1940)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Tex Ritter is helped by all manner of sidekicks in this oater from 1940. He rides into Peeko with Slim Hunkapillar (great name for Slim Andrews), with Slim atop his old Arkansas mule Josephine. Tex aims to help his friend Ace Hutchinson (Carleton Young) and pretty Jane Winters (Terry Walker) in an oft recycled story of rival stagecoach outfits competing for the local business. Because there's a church benefit around the corner, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys also arrive to lend a hand and a fair share of musical numbers to this quick paced Western.This time out, the lead villain Storm is portrayed by Karl Hackett. In one of the story's less credible moments, Storm intends to win the stage line business without actually owning one himself. He sends for Mule Bates (Olin Francis), fresh out of the penitentiary, put there by Tex Lawton (Ritter) when he was still in the 'law game'. Little do the bad guys know, but Mule owes one to Tex for having his son raised by Tex's mother. It seemed to me that a whole bunch of elements like this were thrown into the story to tie up loose ends without being tested for credibility. Another included references to Tex trying to win Ace's girl, a plot line that went nowhere; even Miss Winters didn't seem to be in on it.What keeps coming at you with this picture are the comic relief moments and the songs. The outlaw bunch give new meaning to the term box office as they haul off the church social ticket booth with Slim inside. That sequence featured an unusual element, as one of the bad guy posse fell off his horse, saddle and all. No sense trying to figure that one out. Actually, Slim spends a lot of time in close quarters, as he also climbs into the back hatch of a stage coach during the final competition. Slim might have had the picture's most colorful line with "...I'll be a boll weevil's adenoid". That would have been my summary line if it didn't sound just a bit too creepy.As for the music, all the good guys chime in at one time or another on a whole passel of musical numbers. The best are a lively rendition of 'Take Me Back To Tulsa' and Tex singing lead on 'You Are My Sunshine'. With a little more creativity, they might have come up with a tune for Josephine.

Tex , Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys all seem pretty matey. They spend large chunks of this movie roaring with laughter and back slapping for no obvious reason.It doesn't matter though because their obvious enjoyment of everything that isn't happening is infectious! To supplement the (better than average) musical numbers, there is an assortment of standard B western ingredients, apparently chucked in at random with little regard for credibility.In one scene, comic relief Slim Andrews is trapped inside a Tardis-type paybooth, lassooed and dragged across the prairie by bad guys after the concert takings. Incidentally, the character he plays is Slim Hunkapillar. What a great name! Can't be too many of those in West London: Hunkapillars I mean, not Slims.

The scene with Bob Wills and his band riding on top of a stage coach strumming a tune is priceless. Tex Ritter is in fine form saving the little lady's property and snaring the bad guys. Ritter, who has a trusty side kick to add a little slapstick to the plot, sings and so does Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. To any Wills fan this is an excellent opportunity to see how the band looked in a performance. Wills' dancing is not unlike some modern performers. Good entertainment and a great reminder of how Westerns once were in the U.S. This is the kind of movie I spent countless Saturday afternoons seeing and sometimes staying over to see again. Without the music this is about average; with the music it is priceless.

This B Western has it all - a really shaky frame-up, a posse chase aborted for no apparent reason, a stagecoach race featuring not one, but two coach top fights and a disintegrating wheel on the winning coach. It also has the music of Tex Ritter and of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. That and some funny bits here and there earned this movie a 4.