RIDE ‘EM COWBOY galloped up 17th place at the box office in 1942, its $7,400,000 take the largest of the four Abbott & Costello comedies released that year. Pardon My Sarong, next in line, is a lot more enjoyable. This one, directed by Arthur Lubin, was the last of five in a row he steered for the team, following Buck Privates, In The Navy, Hold That Ghost and Keep ‘Em Flying. There are some funny elements, thanks to Bud & Lou’s superior timing, but it doesn’t hold up as well as a number of their other romps. *

‘Duke’ (Abbott) and ‘Willoughby’ (Costello), failed peanut vendors at a traveling rodeo show, manage to get work at a dude ranch ‘out West’. They befriend singing cowboy ‘Bronco Bob Mitchell’ (Dick Foran), who’s trying to win over unimpressed rodeo contestant ‘Anne Shaw’ (Anne Gwynne), and otherwise make nincompoops of themselves with everyone else within reach: cowpokes, Native Americans, horses, cows.

Scripted by True Boardman and John Grant, the plotline is fairly reasonable (considering the accepted daffiness of these vehicles) but the dated ‘Indian’ jokes, while not mean-spirited, aren’t going to win many over, and for filler between routines you’re tasked to yawn thru several gawdawful whitebread songs. Most of these are done by Foran and/or The Merry Macs, a then-popular quartet.  Ella Fitzgerald makes her film debut and offers “A-Tisket A-Tasket”.

In the 86-minute mix: Johnny Mack Browne, Samuel S. Hinds, Morris Ankrum, Douglas Dumbrille, Iron Eyes Cody, James Flavin, Charles Lane and one of the dancers is 19-year-old Dorothy Dandridge.

* We direct you to a neat piece on director Arthur Lubin, written for ‘Diabolique magazine’ by Stephen Vagg.  https://diaboliquemagazine.com/the-cinema-of-arthur-lubin/

Anne Gwynne, 1918-2003    She was the grandmother of future ‘Enterprise’ captain Chris Pine.