Callaway Went Thataway *** (1951, Fred MacMurray, Dorothy McGuire, Howard Keel) – Classic Movie Review 12,309

Callaway Went Thataway (1951, Fred MacMurray).

Writer/ producer/ director team Melvin Frank and Norman Panama’s genial 1951 spoof Western film Callaway Went Thataway [The Star Said No] stars Fred MacMurray, Dorothy McGuire, and Howard Keel.

Callaway Went Thataway is a gentle, amusing Hollywood satirical comedy about an actual cowboy, ‘Stretch’ Barnes, taking the place of a drunkenly wayward, old-time cowboy film star, ‘Smoky’ Callaway  (Keel), whose career a couple of publicists, Mike Frye (MacMurray) and Deborah Patterson (McGuire), want to revive after his old cowboy films go down well on TV. But nobody has seen old Smoky in ten years.

Frye and Patterson travel to see the real cowboy named ‘Stretch’ Barnes (also played by Keel), who complains his friends keep making fun of him because of his resemblance to Smoky, and talk him into impersonating Smoky, telling him he is dead. Then, of course, just when the lookalike is filming a new ‘Smoky’ Callaway movie, along comes the real Callaway.

That most genial of actors Keel plays both parts with much charm, McGuire and MacMurray are fun, while Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable and Esther Williams appear in cameos as themselves.

MGM’s film is daft but amiable stuff. Who could writer-directors Frank and Panama have been thinking of in their creation of the drunken, missing, womanising Callaway? The secret is out, it is a spoof of the Western craze generated by the TV show Hopalong Cassidy that ran from 1949 to 1952 on NBC starring William Boyd and led to other TV series, notably The Gene Autry Show and The Roy Rogers Show.

Hopalong Cassidy was the first Western TV series, which began as broadcasts of edited versions of Boyd’s old Hopalong Cassidy movies before transitioning to original episodes. Similarly, Mike and Deborah find they have a big hit when they recycle some old Western films starring ‘Smoky’ Callaway for a TV audience and the show’s sponsor Tom Lorrison (Fay Roope) wants to make more films.

Also in the cast are Jesse White, Natalie Schafer, Fay Roope, Stan Freberg, Douglas Kennedy, Elisabeth Fraser, John Indrisano, Don Haggerty, Ned Glass, Hugh Beaumont, Mae Clark, Harry Cody, Douglas Fowley, Earle Hodgins, Emmett Lynn, and Glenn Strange.

MGM’s attempt to deride its bitter rival, television, backfired. Despite being advertised as ‘MGM’s new comedy hit’, the film flopped, costing $1,103,000 and $1,338,000, resulting in a loss of $294,000. A nervous MGM say at the end of the film: ‘This picture was made in the spirit of fun, and was meant in no way to detract from the wholesome influence, civic mindedness and the many charitable contributions of Western idols of our American youth, or to be a portrayal of any of them.’ MGM were also keen in their advertising to distance it from actual cowboy films: ‘Nope. It isn’t a Western movie, but the rib-tickling story of a cowpoke who wins fame and fortune in Hollywood.’

Melvin Frank and Norman Panama abandoned comedy temporarily to make a serious Western, The Jayhawkers! (1959) with Fess Parker, Jeff Chandler, and Nicole Maurey.

The cast are Fred MacMurray as Mike Frye, Dorothy McGuire as Deborah Patterson, Howard Keel as ‘Stretch’ Barnes / ‘Smoky’ Callaway, Jesse White as Georgie Markham, Fay Roope as Tom Lorrison, Natalie Schafer as Martha Lorrison, Douglas Kennedy as Drunk, Elisabeth Fraser as Marie, John Indrisano as Johnny Terrento, Stan Freberg as Marvin, Don Haggerty as Director Don, Ned Glass, Hugh Beaumont, Mae Clark, Harry Cody, Douglas Fowley, Earle Hodgins, Emmett Lynn, and Glenn Strange.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,309

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