Riding High (1943)

No relation to the 1950 Frank Capra film of the same name the 1943 Technicolor musical Riding High is a bythenumbers vehicle for Dorothy Lamour and Dick Powell Lamour stars as Ann Castle a former burlesque queen who heads westward to claim her fathers silver mine Powell plays mining engineer Steve Baird who like Ann has a vested interest in the workedout mine With the help of genial counterfeiter Mortimer J Slocum Victor Moore Steve and Ann are able to peddle mining stock thus saving her from bankruptcy The stockholders are in a lynching mood when it appears that theyve been flimflammed but a last minute miracle saves the day Featured in the cast are Paramount stalwarts Cass Daley and Gil Lamb the former doing her quasiMartha Raye act and the latter swallowing his harmonica for the millionth time Production values are excellent and the songs are exuberantly performed its only in its hackneyed plot that Riding High slows to a clipclop