Main Cast: Rosemary Clooney, Jack Carson, Guy Mitchell, Gene Barry
Release Year: 1954
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
On paper, Red Garters sounds like a wonderful idea: a raucous spoof of westerns, done up in the stylized fashion of a Broadway musical. Rosemary Clooney and Guy Mitchell, both popular recording stars of the era, head the cast as Calaveras Kate and Reb Randall, while Jack Carson is on hand as wheeler-dealer frontier lawyer Jason Carberry. The plot, which hardly matters, concerns Reb Randall's efforts to find out who was responsible for his brother's death. The film's basic joke is that none of the traditional western cliches come to fruition: the bad guys outdraw the good guys, the damsel-in-distress isn't rescued in the nick of time, and so on. Also, this may well be the first sagebrush satire in which the male characters doff their hats respectfully when mentioning "The Code of the West" (it certainly wasn' t the last!) To emphasize the unreality of the entire project, the backgrounds are designed impressionistically, like an animated cartoon. Red Garters might have worked better as the closing production number on a TV variety program than a 91-minute feature film; even so, everyone involved (especially tunesmiths Jay Livingston and Ray Evans) deserves credit for trying something different. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
"Red Garters...is a costume piece, a roguish, cheeky musical western in which anything goes. All the cliches of every western ever made are examined with humor and high spirits....Red Garters has no settings in the ordinary sense; houses, trees, windows and the like are merely suggested, as on a musical stage."[2]
It has been distributed on VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD.
Anthony Numkena - Indian Boy, Assistant to Dr. J. Pott Troy (as Anthony Earl Numkena)
Songs
The songs were written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans — a team that won three Academy Awards. The soundtrack was not released at the time, but songs with Clooney, Mitchell and Gilbert were recorded by Paramount, and released on Columbia Records with Percy Faith and Mitch Miller directing. They are:
Red Garters - Clooney
A Dime and a Dollar - Mitchell
Brave Man - Clooney
This is Greater Than I Thought - Gilbert
Good Intentions - Clooney
Meet a Happy Guy - Mitchell
Bad News - Clooney
Man and Woman - Clooney and Mitchell
With the exception of Brave Man, the songs are strongly upbeat.
