Broadway to Cheyenne (1932)

Waste of time

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Rex Bell who married Clara Bow and then went on to be Lt.Governor of Nevada after leaving the screen stars in this film with cowboys versus gangsters. This was done for Monogram Pictures with a minuscule budget and a lot of stock footage.Nevertheless the film has its interesting points concerning the cowboy and gangster culture clashing in the modern west of 1932.Bell's gone east to be a newspaper reporter and gets himself shot in the middle of a gang shootout. Rest is what the doctor prescribes and Bell goes back to his old ranch a little bit away from Cheyenne.Where he finds that the local Cattleman's Association is just a dressed up protection racket and run by one of the gangsters he left on Broadway. All I can say is that the ending clearly marks this as a pre-code picture. And look to the classic story in the many versions of The Virginian to see how things were handled.Bell's no great actor, but he looks good tall in the saddle. Clara Bow sure thought so. Preston Sturges regular Al Bridge is one of the gangsters and Gabby Hayes has a scraggly beard, but a huge walrus mustache and his character is named just that, Walrus.B western fans might like this.

This was my first look at Rex Bell, and I wish I could say it was a more auspicious introduction. His character Breezy Kildare is a New York City cop working out of the DA's office, who winds up getting shot when Butch Owen's (Robert Ellis) gang opens up on Louie Walsh at the Back Door Night Club. When it's all over, Breezy decides it's the right time to head out West to his Dad's ranch for a while for a little R and R.It's always amazing to me how the law of averages is constantly challenged in these old films of the Thirties and Forties. Wouldn't you know it, but when Breezy arrives in town, he finds the Independent Cattle Breeders Protective and Benevolent Association headed up by who else - Butch Owen! Clear across the country and they both wind up in the same place. This happened all the time in these era flicks, but I guess film goers of the time were still too fascinated with talking pictures to worry much about things like plot and story line.Still, this picture has some fairly novel elements, chief among them the pairing of two different film genres - gangsters and Westerns. There was also the presence of the modern world encroaching on the Old West, with the bad guys tooling around in a motor car for their choice of transportation. In terms of movie trivia, I'd have to say that this is probably the only movie you'll ever see where a henchman uses a machine gun to mow down the cattle of a rancher who refused their so called 'protection'. Not to worry, the cattle were off screen and there were no bodies, but just the idea of it was kind of eerie.In keeping with the machine gun theme, Rex Bell had a novel idea when he climbed up a boulder and used a lasso to rope one out of the hands of the shooter when the eventual showdown occurred between the good guys and the bad guys. This could never happen for real, but I refer you to my earlier comment.George Hayes appears in this one in pre-Gabby mode, and it was unusual to see him with a handlebar moustache instead of his more familiar whiskers. His role isn't much, but he does have a stand-out moment when he shoots the hats off of four henchmen at Joe Carter's Soft Drink Emporium and Pool Hall.Probably the oddest thing to occur in the picture (besides the early scene where the local ranchers stripped Breezy out of his back East duds and threw some cowboy gear on him), was the way villain Owen closed out the picture. Taken into custody following the shoot-out and hustled off by the cowboys, Owen kills himself with his own pistol! Chalk up another unusual event in a Western I've never seen before.

This B-western stars Rex Bell--a man who made quite a few Bs and also married silent star, Clara Bow. For a very interesting account of this woman's life and her marriage to Bell, try reading "Clara Bow: Running Wild"--a very interesting biography.Now to the story. Like so many B-westerns of the era, this one is an odd combination of the old and new. The film is set in the present time and is about gangsters and the like in New York. When the mob tries to kill Breezy Kildaire (Bell), he hightails it back to his family ranch out west. From here on, the film is filled with cowboys and the like--things you'd expect to be seeing around the latter portion of the 19th century. This odd juxtaposition of the old and new is not uncommon in B-westerns. Heck, I remember seeing a Gene Autry film chock full of cowboys chasing pickup trucks on their horses as well as making phone calls! Odd, but not all that uncommon. It is also odd that these cowboys in "Broadway to Cheyenne" drink beer--it IS during prohibition. Talk about anachronistic! Once out west, Breezy learns of a 'protective association'--a group of mobsters selling 'protection'. In other words, if you don't pay them, then you can expect to have a life-threatening accident or have your cattle machine gunned!! This is all very modern and odd in such a western setting--and something you might expect to see in a Jimmy Cagney or Edward G. Robinson flick. I know I sure felt a might confused! So is the film worth seeing? Well, considering Hollywood made 1472950823 B-westerns, I don't think it's particularly good--especially for the casual viewer. Now if you are a huge B-western fan, it is probably worth seeing--even if Bell has a very stiff persona and the film has little to distinguish it from the crowd. Watchable but not particularly inspired or interesting.By the way, you may or may not recognize Gabby Hays in this film. In the early portion of the 1930s, he still hadn't perfected his old coot sidekick persona--and here he looks a bit like this guy but not quite as he's sporting a mustache instead of his usual beard. In fact, Hays played many different types of roles during this time in westerns--erudite gentlemen, crazy old coots, villains or whatever else was needed in the movies. Regardless, he's the best thing about this film--and is quite good in his small role.

Detective Rex Bell is shot by gangsters in a New York nightclub. Coming home to his father's Wyoming ranch in order to recuperate, he trades his city-slicker outfit for a cowboy hat and jeans. Rex soon finds the gang that shot him, trying to muscle there way into new territory by selling "protection" to the local cattlemen.A fun little cowboys-versus-gangsters picture, this combines two of the nineteen-thirties most endearing B-movie genres into a neat little package. One scene has vengeful gangsters mowing down cattle with a Tommy-gun!The following year, Monogram Pictures and producer Paul Malvern launched a new line of B-westerns under the Lone Star moniker, featuring their new contract star John Wayne. Much in the same vein as the Wayne vehicles, Broadway To Cheyenne has some decent action scenes and appearances by western stars George "Gabby" Hayes and Earl Dwire.