An enjoyable comedy western featuring the formidable, if different talents of its leads Bob Hope and Jane Russell. Hope plays his customary cowardy-custard character, a travelling dentist of all things named "Painless" Potter alongside Russell's mannish Calamity Jane as they seek to foil the baddies' nefarious plan to arm the Red Indians, but pay no attention to the plot just like the stars and instead enjoy the fun romp they rampage through.Filmed in glorious Technicolor, the film makes ample room for running gags, like Russell's hammer-like kisses and Hope getting pulled out of his wagon-chair every time he gees up the horses, but is best served by Hope and his ad-libs and one-liners (sample:- Hope trying to act tough at the bar - "Give me four fingers of red-eye - and throw in a thumb too!"). The funniest extended scene is probably when Hope and a hot-shot rival stalk each other around town before their shoot-out. The humour trails off somewhat in the last third when the comedy gets too cartoony and slapsticky but there's still some compensation as Russell's glacial heart melts towards her oafish husband.Sure the treatment of the Red Indians is about as un-PC as you can get, but the real villains are the white guys and along the way Hope gets to sing the catchy singalong "Buttons and Bows". Popular enough to beget a sequel "Son Of Paleface" a few years, this is one of Hope's best comedies sans-Crosby and also demonstrated Russell's comedic talents at the same time.

A typical Bob Hope comedy made more interesting by the presence of the recently deceased Jane Russell.Hope had the honor of singing Buttons and Bows, and the song went on to win the Oscar in 1948.The premise of the movie is quite humorous. To get pardoned for her transgressions, Russell must find out who is smuggling guns to the Indians. When the agent assigned to be her husband is killed, she finds unlikely candidate Hope as an eastern-correspondent school dentist and quickly marries him.Whoever made the costumes for Russell deserved some kind of award. In many scenes, she was made to look frumpy, far out of her usual realm.The picture goes down in quality once she and Hope are captured by the Indians. Some real good straight shooting by Russell makes Hope look like the town hero. This is always good for a laugh.

The chemistry between Jane Russel and Bob Hope is one of the many reasons that this film shines. There are several genuinely hilarious scenes - the Indian on laughing gas, Bob's big gunfight, the cowboy having his rotten tooth pulled ...the list is endless.The only fault is that the films drags a little towards the final all action finale but other than that it's close to perfect. A great comedy and one of only a few truly great comic westerns. The currently available DVD is a great transfer but it comes on a vanilla disc. A documentary about Bob would have been welcome or even an introduction the way they have done with the John Wayne reisues would have added even greater value.As it stands a great little movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that the plot is similar to that of The Shakiest Gun in the West, starring Don Knotts, which was made 20 years later. This worried me a little at first, because although I love The Shakiest Gun in the West, I didn't want to watch a movie that was almost exactly the same except that it starred a different person. However, I didn't let this stop me from watching the entire movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. Enough of the story was different that it didn't get boring, and of course Bob Hope lended his own acting style and sense of humor, so I ended up really enjoying it. In fact, in some ways I liked this movie better than The Shakiest Gun in the West. If you like Bob Hope movies, you'll probably enjoy this one. I know I sure did!