Lucille Ball is Christine, owner of the Busy Bee Cafe, a restaurant out West. She figures to marry Indian agent and rancher Jim Sawyer (Dean Jagger). Her fiance has an interesting method of adding to his herd — by cheating the Apache out of their government promised allotment of beef.
James Craig is Jonathan Ware, a white man sympathetic to the Indians, determined to discover who’s stealing from them and hellbent to stop a wedding. As one point, Ware, Sawyer and Christine all wind up captives of the Apaches. They only escape after Ware proves he’s more adept at Indian fighting than Geronimo.
But once freed, Sawyer no longer feels bound to live up to his promise to return all the beef he’s stolen to the Indians. That leaves Ware with something more important than a wedding to half. Now he has to stop an Indian war.
Review:
Along with “Fancy Pants” (1950), this was one of only two Westerns to feature Lucille Ball, who was still nine years away from the launch of “I Love Lucy.” Here, most of the comedy happens to her.
For instance, her wedding is interrupted by a fistfight, fire ants, an Indian attack and the kidnapping of the judge who’s supposed to perform it. Then, once kidnapped, she finds herself “married” to Ware without even knowing it happened.
The film has its moments, but too much of the comedy is forced, and the depiction of Geronimo is one of the oddest you’re likely to find on film. And for some reason, Cochise is constantly being pronounced “Co-chi.”
Directed by:
George Marshall
Cast:
Lucille Ball … Christine
James Craig … Jonathan Ware
Dean Jagger … Jim Sawyer
Cedric Hardwicke …. Warrick
Peter Whitney … Willie
Bill Gilbert … Homer Burnaby
Tom Tyler … Geronimo
Antonio Moreno … Chief Cochise
George Cleveland … Bill Yard
Richard Fiske … Lt. Burke
Runtime: 79 min.
Memorable lines:
Jonathan Ware, upon meeting the Englishman Warrick for the first time, picks up a piece of his sports equipment.
Warrick: “(It’s a) cricket bat.”
Ware: “You must have awful big crickets around here.”
Warrick, musing on Christine’s willingness to marry Sawyer: “The way to a woman’s heart: Take her out of the kitchen.”
Bill Yard: “There’s only two ways to deal with women, and nobody knows what they are.”
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