The Cowboy Quarterback

The Cowboy Quarterback (1939)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Really lame comedy about a professional football coach who travels to the middle of nowhere to find Harry Lynn (Bert Wheeler) who is said to be a terrific quarterback. The dimwit is a star at throwing the ball and he turns the Chicago Packers into a winning team but before the championship game he loses money to some gamblers who now wants him to throw the game. THE COWBOY QUARTERBACK is a really bad film that doesn't work on many levels and it pretty much put an end to the career of Wheeler, or at least in leading roles. I guess you can't blame him too much since this here was the first picture he had done after the death of his partner Robert Woolsey and without the duo it's clear Wheeler's entire brand just wasn't the same. Of course, one major problem is the horrible screenplay that doesn't offer up anything funny and instead is just one cliché after another. The film starts off with some really lame jokes aimed at Indians but things don't get any better once the actual football stuff starts. The majority of the stuff is just stock footage and what real footage there is is just poorly directed. Wheeler's character here is incredibly annoying and there's not a single second to where you like him. Marie Wilson isn't too bad as his silly girlfriend but she doesn't have too much screen time. When people talk about the greatest year for movies, 1939 often gets the majority of the votes but there's a clear reason why this thing is never mentioned.