THE COWBOY AND THE LADY is a pleasant light comedy from 1938 that finds bored rich girl Merle Oberon going on a blind date outing with her maids, and ending up in love with rodeo poke Gary Cooper, the fella she’s linked with on the night out.
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets her back, rich & tricky vs. poor & proud; old plotting made fun by the likable natures of the two leads and thanks to the comedic timing of their co-starring foils, Patsy Kelly and Mabel Todd as the maids, Walter Brennan and Fuzzy Knight as the cowboy’s sidekicks.
Samuel Goldwyn provides a nice $1,500,000 production, and sensitive Alfred Newman music scoring surrounds the play. Fun. Oscar nominated for the Score and for Best Song (“The Cowboy And The Lady”) and a winner of the statue for Best Sound. Four people got credit for the script but another thirteen pitched in on it before they finally got about what they wanted. Directed by H.C. Potter when William Wyler walked; then editor Stuart Heisler ended up finishing after Potter left.
With Henry Kolker, Harry Davenport, Emma Dunn, Berton Churchill.
