Ride 'Em Cowboy

Ride 'Em Cowboy is a 1941 comedy set around the rodeo circuit, in which two peanut vendors, Duke and Willoughby, run into trouble with their boss. They take refuge on a train bound west, and before long they are hired as cowboys at a dude ranch even though neither man has the slightest idea how to handle horses or ranch work. Their path crosses that of Bronco Bob Mitchell, a Western novelist whose reputation rests on stories he has never actually lived, and of Anne Shaw, the cowgirl who comes to his aid at a charity rodeo.

The film was directed by Arthur Lubin and sits among a run of comedies he made in the early 1940s, arriving in the same year as Hold That Ghost and Buck Privates and before his later adventure and horror pictures. The screenplay is by John Grant and True Boardman, and the picture is carried by the comedy duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello as Duke and Willoughby, with Dick Foran as Bronco Bob Mitchell, Anne Gwynne as Anne Shaw, Johnny Mack Brown as Alabam' Brewster, and Judd McMichael as Tom. Fifty-five cast members are credited.

Made and released by Universal Pictures, the film runs 86 minutes. Audience response is modest but steady, with a 6.5 rating on IMDb from roughly 1,900 votes and a 6 on TMDB from a much smaller group of voters.