You won't be disappointed!

Very Cool!!!

So much average

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This movie hounded me for YEARS. We saw this on a double-bill with PUFINSTUF, and all I could remember was it being a family-friendly western with a saloon gal as part of the plot. Thanks to the online Chicago Tribune archives I found the listing and solved the mystery. Someone had posted the movie to YouTube and this is definitely the movie I had remembered. Good performances by a veteran cast (the opening credits panning through a turn of the century catalog were pretty creative), this is an ideal movie you can enjoy with the family, hopefully Universal will finally make this available on DVD or BluRay.

The towns Black Smith and his anvil are headed back east after a bout of loneliness gets him down, his mail order bride did not wait for him? His friends might let him drift but there is not another one for 50 miles, or an anvil, and that is a bigger problem. Now his poker playing buddies need to step up and do for him what no self respecting buddy would do to a bachelor, find an unattached available, marriage minded female fast, but where? They slowly gather the whole town into their dastardly, good deed doer's plot, even the only dance hall girl in town. Without a doubt each new solution creates a new problem, when is Jack due back?

When the only blacksmith in the tumbleweed town of Calico is set to pack up and leave after he's humiliated by his no-show mail-order bride, the other residents band together to replace her with a substitute: the trampy bar-hostess. Universal originally intended "Cockeyed Cowboys" as a television movie to be entitled "A Woman For Charley", but released it theatrically first. While lacking seriously in budget (not to mention originality), the film does have Dan Blocker in the lead, and the gentle giant from "Bonanza" really knows how to work the 'bruised big guy' routine for a touching affect. Unaware of his lady love's true identity, Blocker is quite charming "courtin' her at full steam"; though Blocker occasionally looks winded or overly-tanned, his crestfallen bachelor is the best thing in the picture (and when he's not around, it dies). Blocker inexplicably vanishes from the action twice: after a drinking binge and during a walk into town, leaving the supporting players to pick up the slack. Jim Backus is good as the sheriff, Jack Elam isn't bad in a slapstick role as a near-sighted bounty hunter, but Mickey Rooney chews the scenery (what little of it there is) and Nanette Fabray is disappointing as the bridal ringer. Ranald MacDougall wrote, produced, and co-directed the film...and maybe could have used some extra help. *1/2 from ****

I absolutely adore this movie, and am so sad that it isn't available on VHS, laserdisc, DVD or any premium channels to speak of, since I tend not to watch movies on channels with commercials. Packed with great laughs and touching performances, the movie teaches some of life's great lessons about beauty truly being in the eye of the beholder, love, stereotyping, and yes, even Christianity and forgiveness. My fondest wish is that someone from the Westerns channel would happen onto this gem and pick it up for broadcast during family viewing hours. Maybe even on DVD???? Pop the popcorn, light the fire, and settle in for a feel-good movie that doesn't rely on pyrotechnics, violence, sex or foul language to define "entertainment value."