The Cowboy and the Lady

Old Movie Reviews No.2. The Cowboy and the Lady starring Gary Cooper. Review by Peter Galway in 1939.

The Cowboy and the Lady is a threadbare affair, with the stalest plot in California and nothing to redeem it except Mr. Cooper's unique skill in portraying shy, lanky creatures in the Middle or Far West. Even his charm is severley tested by a scene in which he surveys the house he is building for his wife, and chalks two circles on the floor marked Special Chair For Mary and Special Chair For Me: a fancy which might well incarnadine the cheeks of our own professional whimsy-mongers. Merle Oberon has the thankless part of a lady pretending to be a lady's maid, and there is a horrible old boy of the Nuts-in-May order called Uncle Hannibal, who says, "Dont mind me, I'm only the poor relation," and has a whole lot of senile fun dancing the heebie-jeebies at a night club: "When I think of the time I've wasted teaching political economy," he remarks; but what we think of is the time his unfortunate pupils wasted.