Tonight's Movie: Prairie Chickens (1943) - A ClassicFlix DVD Review

I've been out of town the last few days on a short getaway to Lone Pine -- I should have some photos posted later in the week -- hence the "radio silence" here at the blog.

One of the movies I watched while I was away was PRAIRIE CHICKENS (1943), the third and final film in the ClassicFlix set The Complete Hal Roach Streamliners Collection, Vol. 2: The Westerns.

The collection originally came out last June, and I've previously reviewed the other two films, DUDES ARE PRETTY PEOPLE (1942) and CALABOOSE (1943).

This time around Jimmy (Jimmy Rogers) and Pidge (Noah Beery Jr.) are nursing their old jalopy down the road, in search of a new ranching job, when they're picked up by Farnsworth (Dudley Dickerson), the chauffeur to rich, nutty Henry Lewis Clark III (Jack Norton).

Clark owns a ranch he's never visited, and his foreman Albertson (Joe Sawyer) and the ranch hands (Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Glenn Strange, and Ray Teal) are swindling him.

Albertson and his henchmen mistake Pidge for Clark, and before much running time has passed, the boys are spending the night at the ranch house with a bus load of college co-eds (including Marjorie Woodworth and Noel Neill) -- it's a long story -- with the crooked ranch hands trying to make everyone think it's a haunted house.

I got quite a kick out of PRAIRIE CHICKENS and thought it was the best film in the set. Although I tend not to go for overly goofy films, the set pieces in this one were staged really well, and it was so fast-paced at 47 minutes that there was no time for it to wear out its welcome. I suspect my fellow "B" fans will enjoy it also.

This amusing little "spooky old house" comedy, filled with slamming doors and people running around screaming, was in my view as well done as similar Bob Hope type films -- but on a much smaller budget!

A particularly funny sequence comes when hulking Mike Mazurki tries to scare Jimmy, Pidge, and the real Clark by serving them invisible food. The way the trio goes along with it gets funnier as the scene progresses, until the men are so into it that the tables turn and they end up scaring Mazurki.

The young ladies in the film also included Rosemary La Planche, who was Miss America in 1941. The cast also includes familiar faces like Milton Kibbee, Edward Gargan, William Farnum, and Si Jenks.

The movie was directed by Hal Roach Jr. and filmed by Robert Pittack.

Thanks to ClassicFlix for providing a review copy of this DVD.

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