Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

THE OKLAHOMA KID is a somewhat unusual western in that it stars the inimitable pairing of James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, two actors best known for their roles in contemporary gangster movies. Cagney is the titular character, a Robin Hood-style lone cowboy who has a bounty on his head, while Bogart is part of a ruthless gang who use violence and murder to hold sway over a small town. The first half of this production is a little slow, but the strong production values see it through, and Cagney burns up the screen as always. It gets good in the second half when it transforms into a revenge flick with all of the showdowns a genre fan could wish for.

I was never sure about either James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart being in westerns but "The Oklahoma Kid" is not too bad. It has a brief running time, a fair measure of action and incident, the music is perfectly tolerable and at least Cagney and Bogart have a proper one on one confrontation at the end. I bought this film on video in the early 1990s and I enjoyed it then. Cagney is a "Robin Hood" type of hero who hides his true identity behind the name "The Oklahoma Kid." Bogart is a killer and dishonest businessman who wants to turn the local town into a place of sin, corruption and degradation. Cagney stated in his memoirs that he added little bits of dialogue in order to relive his boredom! What he included certainly does the film no harm.

Bet you didn't think two urban gangsters could put over a cowboy picture, did you? Not only that, make it so believable that it was entertaining - very much so, in fact. Well, surprise, surprise.This was a good picture with a very good storyline. Well done in all departments.Cagney plays the good-bad guy and Bogart, in a pre-Sam Spade role, plays the bad-bad guy.One of the interchangeable Lane sisters (in this case Rosemary)is the love interest.Long story short; somebody done somebody wrong, with fistfights and gunplay and double-crosses and all the elements that make westerns so greatly entertaining. If you haven't seen it and like good westerns, do it.There is more than enough to like here. This movie was shown on 'old reliable'TCM just the other night. I don't think it's available in any format so you'll have to wait until they show it again and tape it.No sequel, though. One oater with two crooked mobsters is enough. And they should have issued Cagney a different hat.

This is one for collectors; when those personifications of Urban gangsters Cagney and Bogey are transplanted to an Oklahoma territory that is so far ahead of progress that it boasts an electric door-bell Cagney rings it long and hard on two separate occasions)it shows that les freres Warner spared no expense on researching the period. Journeyman director Lloyd Bacon phones it in as do just about everyone from Cagney right on down to an uncredited Clem Bevans and the plot - you should excuse the expression - manages to hit every cliché withing shooting distance and some that should have been well out of range. Oklahoma crude would make an ideal subtitle for this snake oil but see it if you must.