Stodge City is a pretty tame place, until the Rumpo Kid (Sidney James) rides into town. He takes over, prompting city fathers to send for a marshal.
Thanks to a mistake by Washington, D.C., bureaucrats, they get Marshal P. Knutt (Jim Dale), a sanitary engineer someone mistakes for a marshal because of his first name. He arrives in Stooge city expecting to do cleaning up of an entirely different sort than the town fathers expect.
Fortunately for Knutt and the good folks of Stodge, Annie Oakley (Angela Douglas) enters town on the same stage. The sharp-shooting blonde is after the man who killed the last sheriff of Stodge.
She’s quite capable of charming a man, then filling him with bullets. Or going straight to the bullets. And she’s not too bad at providing Knutt with the backbone he’ll need to square off with the Rumpo Kid and his band of hoodlums.
Review:
This was one of about 30 “Carry On” films, so they were bound to get to the Wild West sooner or later. This entry drags early on and the jokes seem way too forced.
But hang with it, because things get much better and much funnier when the lovely and charming Angela Douglas and a very confused Jim Dale arrive in Stooge City.
Highlights include the bedroom trap Annie sets for the Rumpo Kid, only to nab the wrong man, the way lovely lasses keep showing up in Knutt’s Wild West bedroom and the lead-up to the climatic showdown, as Annie teaches Knutt how to handle a gun.
This was one of 10 “Carry On” films for Dale; Douglas appeared in four.
Directed by:
Gerald Thomas
Cast:
Sidney James … Rumpo Kid / Johnny Finger
Jim Dale … Marshal P. Knutt
Angela Douglas … Annie Oakley
Kenneth Williams … Judge Burke
Charles Hawtrey … Chief Big Heap
Joan Sims … Belle Armitage
Bernard Bresslaw … Little Heap
Peter Butterworth … Doc
Percy Herbert … Charlie (bartender)
Jon Pertwee … Sheriff Albert Earp
Sydney Bromley … Sam Houston
Edina Ronay … Dolores
Lionel Murton … Clerk
Peter Gilmore … Curly
Davy Key … Undertaker
Title tune: “Carry On Cowboy”
Runtime: 95 min.
Memorable lines::
Annie Oakley to Marshal Knutt: “I came to turn myself in. I shot a man … It was an accident.”
Marshall: “We all make silly little mistakes. How did it happen?”
Annie: “I shot him. With a shotgun. A rifle. And two revolvers.”
Marshall: “That must have been some accident.”
Rumpo Kid, sending a saloon girl named Dolores to distract Marshall: “Can you remember all the things your mother told you not to do when you came out West?”
Saloon girl: “Yes.”
Rumpo Kid: “Do them.”
Mayor: “I thought I heard shooting.”
Doctor: “It was probably just a horse backfiring.”
Chief Big Heap as his attractive new squaw shows up: “This is my new squaw. I bought her for two buffalo skins.”
Gunman: “How.”
Rumpo Kid: “Never mind how. Where?”
Bartender: “This is the mayor.”
Rumpo Kid: “You’d better stay away from my horse. He hasn’t seen a mare in three weeks.”
Belle Armitage: “Johnny, have you forgotten? I’m your little ding-dong.”
Rumpo Kid: “I’m sorry to have to say it, but your ding has lost its dong.”
Marshal P. Knutt, as he witnesses a three-way catfight: “I know this is the wild West, but this is ridiculous.”
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