Westerns were huge box office at the time this was made as were musicals. Red Garters was designed as a masterful spoof of both genres. There was the good guy, Reb Randall (Guy Mitchell), the saloon singer, Calaveras Kate (Rosemary Clooney), the OK but not all the way good guy, Rafael Moreno (Gene Barry), the blustering blow-hard Mayor, Jason Carberry (Jack Carson), the token "injun", Minnie Redwing (Cass Daley), the villain, Billy Bucket (Frank Faylen), and the two love interests played by Pat Crowley and Joanne Gilbert. Toss in every cliché from every western movie you have seen (all played straight but tongue in cheek) and a couple of decent, though not highly memorable songs, and you had a fun film. This is not a movie to be taken seriously and it spoofs itself as much as anything. The real star is, of course, Rosie Clooney who was in full voice and at the peak of her career. A great movie? No. A fun movie? Yes. As it says at the beginning of the film "They said that movies should be more like life, but a wise man said, 'No, life should be more like the movies'".
Review of Red Garters
