Film review: The Bronze Buckaroo (1939)

An all-black cast in a singing cowboy movie?  From the 30s?  Yes please!  And The Bronze Buckaroo did not disappoint.  The titular hero is Bob Blake,

whose outfit looks like it was the influence for Clevon Little's Gucci outfit in Blazing Saddles.  He gets a letter requesting help from his friend Joe, and sets off with his trusty crew to the ranch where Joe and his sister live(d) with their father.  I say titular hero, because the real stars of the film are Dusty,

who is a long-time member of Bob's crew, and Slim (on the left below),

who works on the ranch, and whose first act on meeting Bob and co. is to trick Dusty (the others aren't fooled) with ventriloquism into buying a "talking" mule for 12 dollars.  And intermittently through the film, these two have comedy interludes, including a particularly good card game where each is trying to cheat the other (Slim with a good deal more success).  Turns out Joe's sister is the only one of the family left: the father was found shot in the back out on the ranch and Joe has vanished weeks ago while out investigating.  Suspicion naturally falls on their crooked rich neighbor, and it eventually emerges that there is gold on the ranch and the neighbor has been trying to get the deed by hook or by crook (although it was his thuggish (and portly) head henchman (whom Bob earlier knocks out in a bar fight after he has rather surreally attacked Dusty and Slim by the method of forcing them to smoke 4 cigars at once and drink shot after shot) who killed the father before he could sign the deed).  (The sister is of course pretty,

and she and Bob are seen riding off together at the end.)  There are several singing interludes, and the songs are catchy and the singing great, with a little bit of soft-shoeing thrown in.  And it all winds up in a big shootout out in the desert in rock formations that Jami swore were featured in Tarantula, and Jami should know her deserts, having grown up in Arizona.  I have one question though: turns out Joe wrote the letter while imprisoned by the neighbor (and threw it out into the street, where a kindly old gent found it and mailed it).  So why didn't he say "Help!  I am being held prisoner at ____" instead of the actual vague language of "Could you come and help out?"  Would've saved a lot of time investigating.  (Oh, and in case you were wondering, Dusty gets his revenge on Slim and gets his money back and gets to keep the mule.  All because of a pamphlet on how to learn ventriloquism in ten easy steps...)