The Dude Goes West (1948)

Eddie Albert is Daniel Bone, a gunsmith who heads west because Brooklyn’s become so tame his briskest business is repairing children’s cap guns for free.

So he sets his sights on Arsenic City and, on the train ride there, meets a pretty young woman named Liza Crockett with the same destination, but a distinct mistrust for men.

That mistrust only grows deeper when her self-appointed protector, Pecos Kid (Gilbert Roland), tries to steal her purse.

Bone gets it back, but by the time Liza realizes it’s missing, Pecos is gone and the purse is in Bone’s hand. She immediately suspects him of being the thief.

At the time, he doesn’t realize that purse contains a map to her late dad’s gold mine. That’s her reason for traveling to Arsenic City.

Pecos Kid is well aware of the map. In fact, there are at least two bands of outlaws after that map, with saloon owner Kiki Kelly (Binnie Barnes) and Texas Jack Barton (Barton MacLane) leading the rival gangs.

No one figures Daniel Bone — or Daniel Boone, according to the misspelling on his wagon — will prove much of an obstacle. He’s a tenderfoot, after all.

But he’s a tenderfoot who’s done lots of reading about life in the West. And what kind of gunsmith would he be if he didn’t know how to handle a six-gun?

Review:

Likeable comedy Westerns thanks to fine performances from Eddie Albert and Gale Storm.

He’s the oft-underestimated easterner who proves quite capable of handling himself out West, thanks in large part to his book-learnin’.

She’s downright adorable, especially early in the film, as the young girl traveling alone and warned by her grandmother never to trust a man.

One of the best segments comes when they wind up in an Indian village. Having read a book on sign language, Daniel Bone has no trouble communicating with the Indians.

Heck, with a bit of gunpowder, a silk handkerchief and a pinwheel, he convinces the Indians he has big power and earns the name Big Wind.

Albert would go on to be best known for his role as Oliver Wendell Douglas, alongside Eva Gabor in the 1960s TV comedy “Green Acres.”

Directed by:
Kurt Neumann

Cast:
Eddie Albert … Daniel Boone
Gale Storm … Liza Crockett
James Gleason … Sam Briggs
Gilbert Roland … Pecos Kid
Binnie Barnes … Kiki Kelly
Barton MacLane … Texas Jack Barton
Douglas Fowley … Beetle
Tom Tyler … Spiggoty
Harry Hayden … Horace Hotchkiss
Chief Yowalachie … Running Wolf
Sarah Padden … Mrs. Hallahan
Catherine Doucet … Grandma Crockett
Edward Gargan … Train conductor
Olin Howland … Ginnegan
Francis Pierlot … Mr. Brittle

Runtime: 86 min.

Memorable lines:

Daniel Bone, of his decision to head west: “Where there’s gold there’s guns. And, after all, I’m a gunsmith.”

Pecos Kid of Daniel Bone: “He owes me a gun. I owe him a slug out of it.”

Sam Briggs: “If that female (Liz Crockett) had come along, she’d a wanted to do the cookin’. You’d have found yourself with a cup of coffee with no hair on its chest.”

Daniel Bone: “You mean there are no officers of the law in Arsenic City?”
Blacksmith: “No officers. To tell you the truth, there’s no law either.”

Kiki Kelly: “So that’s the dude you were beggin’ to draw on you.”
Pecos Kid: “Yep.”
Kiki Kelly: “I’d change your plans. Yours aren’t healthy any more.”

Liza Crockett, as she and Daniel flee Pecos’s men: “Did you hit anything?”
Daniel, incredulous: “In a bouncing buckboard? With a pistol? At 300 yards?”

Edward Gargan as the train conductor in The Dude Goes West (1948)

Eddie Albert as Daniel Bone and Gale Storm as Liza Crockett leave the Indian village in The Dude Goes West (1948)

Gilbert Roland as Pecos Kid and Gale Storm as Liza Crockett in a disagreement over a map to a gold mine in The Dude Goes West (1948)

Gale Storm as Liza Crockett pulls her derringer on one of those untrustworthy men in The Dude Goes West (1948)