The adventures of a couple of regular modern-day cowboys, Ben Jones and Howdy Lewis as they work for the snaky Jim Ed Love, breaking in horses and gathering stray steers in the high country around Sedona, Arizona.
A lot of the film is concerned with how one particular ornery horse makes the lives of these two cowpokes miserable, and how they try to sell him, run him over, give him away, and even fantasize about turning him into dog food. Doesn't sound funny on paper, but it is.
Don't watch this film expecting a clever plot - or any kind of plot, for that matter. It's a character study and and a low-key, warm comedy western with a perfect cast and excellent characterizations.
Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda are very well matched as Ben and Howdy, the main characters. Both have a flair for the kind of offbeat comedy the script calls for. Chill Wills is great as smooth talking Jim Ed Love. Edgar Buchanan is perfect as Vince, the small-rancher with two eligible daughters - well played by Joan Freeman and (unrelated) Kathleen Freeman - and a stash of home-made booze. Denver Pyle, Doodles Weaver, Barton MacLane, Warren Oates, Ralph Moody, and, in the last quarter of the picture, Sue Ane Langdon and Hope Holliday, as a couple of cute strippers stranded in Sedona, all add to the fun.
It's a little hard to describe the simple charms of this movie. It has both a wistful and a raucous quality. There's a nice Christmas segment, and a funny skinny dipping scene. The pastoral and the realistic are blended quite well. It has a kind of circular quality, in that, no matter how much these two guys dream of getting away and bettering themselves, they tend to always end up right back where they started - but somehow, happy just the same.
The cinematography (Paul C. Vogel) is beautiful; the sweeping music score (Jeff Alexander) adds to the mood in all the right ways.
A lot of the film is concerned with how one particular ornery horse makes the lives of these two cowpokes miserable, and how they try to sell him, run him over, give him away, and even fantasize about turning him into dog food. Doesn't sound funny on paper, but it is.
Don't watch this film expecting a clever plot - or any kind of plot, for that matter. It's a character study and and a low-key, warm comedy western with a perfect cast and excellent characterizations.
Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda are very well matched as Ben and Howdy, the main characters. Both have a flair for the kind of offbeat comedy the script calls for. Chill Wills is great as smooth talking Jim Ed Love. Edgar Buchanan is perfect as Vince, the small-rancher with two eligible daughters - well played by Joan Freeman and (unrelated) Kathleen Freeman - and a stash of home-made booze. Denver Pyle, Doodles Weaver, Barton MacLane, Warren Oates, Ralph Moody, and, in the last quarter of the picture, Sue Ane Langdon and Hope Holliday, as a couple of cute strippers stranded in Sedona, all add to the fun.
It's a little hard to describe the simple charms of this movie. It has both a wistful and a raucous quality. There's a nice Christmas segment, and a funny skinny dipping scene. The pastoral and the realistic are blended quite well. It has a kind of circular quality, in that, no matter how much these two guys dream of getting away and bettering themselves, they tend to always end up right back where they started - but somehow, happy just the same.
The cinematography (Paul C. Vogel) is beautiful; the sweeping music score (Jeff Alexander) adds to the mood in all the right ways.