The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970)

Dan Blocker is Charley Bicker, a lonely blacksmith who’s been secretly corresponding with a mail-order bride who lives in Boston.

That’s supposed to be a secret, but on the day Charley heads to town to meet the train on which Ellen Carroll is supposed to arrive, the whole town turns out to greet her.

Problem is, Ellen Carroll doesn’t show. And Charley feels as though the entire town of Calico is laughing at him as a result. After all, he spent a year’s pay to cover Ellen’s transportation costs from Boston to the West.

Charley’s solution: Leave town. But that throws the town leaders into a panic. He’s the only blacksmith within 100 miles of Calico. And the only good blacksmith within 200. “We’ll all be walking within a month,” one townsman predicts.

So Mayor Staunch, also sheriff of Calico, hatches a plan. They’ll convince the town’s saloon girl, Sadie (Nanette Fabray) to pose as Ellen and pretend she missed her train.

She’ll romance Charley for a while, then let him down easy. Charley will save face; the town will keep its blacksmith.

But the town leaders didn’t envision the early return of Sadie’s boyfriend, the jealous Roger Hand. Or the arrival of a near-sighted bounty hunter named Kittrick.

Or that Sadie might actually fall for the gentle giant of a blacksmith, thereby creating a new dilemma — how to tell him who she really is.

Review:

A comedy Western chock full of familiar faces, including Jim Backus, Noah Berry Jr., Stubby Kaye, Mickey Rooney and Henry Jones as townsmen in on the plot to fool Charlie.

But while Blocker’s character is likable enough, the film’s too often silly rather than funny.

And would Charlie, so desperate for a wife, really not recognize Sadie, the only unmarried female in all of Calico?

Blocker was still playing Hoss on Bonanza when this film was made. Sadly, it marked his last feature film. He died two years after its release at age 43 from complications following gall bladder surgery.

Before the decade ended, Nanette Fabray — the saloon girl here — would land a recurring role on the hit TV series “One Day at a Time” — as a grandmother.

Directed by:
Anton Leader
Ranald MacDougall

Cast:
Dan Blocker … Charley Bicker
Nanette Fabray … Sadie
Jim Backus … Staunch
Wally Cox … Mr. Sherman Bester
Jack Elam … Kittrick
Henry Jones … Hanson
Stubby Kaye … Bartender
Mickey Rooney … Indian Tom
Noah Beery Jr. … Eddie
Don “Red” Barry … Rusty
Marge Champion … Mrs Bester
Hamilton Camp … Mr. Fowler
Iron Eyes Cody … Crazy Foot
James McCallion … Dr. Henry
Jack Cassidy … Roger Hand

Runtime: 99 min.

Memorable lines:

Mr. Bester to his wife: “Henceforth, my precious, I’ll ask you to keep your mouth shut when I’m telling people how happy we are.”

Charley: “Crazy Foot, you have anything to say about me getting married?”
Crazy Foot: “Foot crazy. Not mouth.”

Kittrick, after bumping into a wooden Indian: “Hold it right there. One false move, and you’re a goner.”

Mrs. Bester to Saddie: “You, a single woman, is one thing. You, a married woman, is something else. And hooray for that.”

Kittrick: “You shouldn’t have said that, Panama. Mercy went clean out of my heart.”