Given the comparative lack of Joe Cook material available on the silver screen it's sure great being able to see whatever you can get of him! And for a guy who only did two feature length films (as well as a smattering of shorts for Educational Pictures) it's like you gotta see what you CAN of Joe Cook, because that's all you're gonna get so be thankful for that!
As in RAIN OR SHINE, Cook plays the owner of a floundering circus...however, the setting's now in the ol' Wild West with Cook riding an elephant into town pulling a cart containing only one circus member played by a rather young Robert Cummings. Meanwhile a nice looking in those old thirties films sorta way lass has arrived on the stagecoach to take over an inherited cattle ranch only the moocows have all been rustled away, and it's up to none other'n Buster Crabbe playing one of those sorta bad guys who are good to see that they're gotten back 'n gotten back GOOD!!!
In all of the honesty that I can manage to muster up I gotta say that maybe this 'un ain't the best vehicle for Cook's (timeworn descriptor warning) "surreal" humor, what with the whole seriocomedy nature of the film and the not-that-hot scenes which are supposed to display Cook's out-there talents but just don't gag ya like they should (maybe it's the dark tee-vee print?). Buster Crabbe is fine as the stagecoach robber turned good guy, while Cummings is just too ikky playing the aw gosh-it ex-clown who falls flat for the new gal and ends up getting a job in the local general store that just happens to be run by the local rustler.
Still way better'n a good hunk of the slag that pops up as "entertainment" these sucky days, but for those who want to see Cook at his unadulterated comedic best try the Educational shorts he did just before this 'un, which I'm sure some enterprising "grey area" dealer onna web is willing to part with for but a mere sum which you BETTER cough up (hack!) if you know what's good for your sense of depraved yuck ups.
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