Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

vincentlynch-moonoi I know that few will agree with me, but I think this may be Gary Cooper's finest film.But let me begin with the plot: Mary Smith (Merle Oberon) is a very bored young lady. Bored because all she does in life is support her widowed father's run for the presidential nomination. She has not private life of her own, although she is egged on to get one by her free-spirited uncle -- Harry Davenport. After a near-accidental-scandal, she heads off to Palm Beach where, on a lark with her maids, she attends a rodeo, where she falls in love with Gary Cooper, one of the cowboys. Because he doesn't care much for society types, she pretends to be a lady's maid. But, they quarrel and he heads by boat to the next rodeo in Texas...with her in hot pursuit. On the boat they get married, but Mary knows she has to go back to face the music and her father...whom Cooper believes is a poor drunkard. Mary delays getting back to the ranch in Montana, so Cooper returns to Palm Beach looking for her, only to interrupt an important political dinner. Realizing Mary's story of being a poor maid, Cooper returns by train to his ranch, only to find that Mary, her father, and her uncle have flown to the ranch where they demonstrate rather quickly that even the rich can be very down to earth. All live happily ever after.So why do I think this may be Gary Cooper's finest film? Let's see -- he accomplishes drama, comedy, pantomime, and romance...all in one package. And he's great at all of it. The pantomime segment is a classic, particularly after he gets a whole bunch of cowboys to participate.Except for her extremely high forehead, which always distracts me, Merele Oberon is beautiful here and turns in a fine performance as the little rich girl who realizes her true happiness will be a very different life, though her fibs seem to have screwed that all up.The supporting cast here is superb. The highlight is the performance of one of the screen's great character actors -- Harry Davenport as Mary's uncle. You even get to see him dance and dressed as a cowboy! Patsy Kelly and Mabel Todd are fine as the maids. Walter Brennan is on hand as a cowpoke and friend, and is -- as always -- a treat. Finally a film in which I enjoyed the performance of Fuzzy Knight, here as another cowpoke/pal. Henry Kolker is fine here as Mary's father, and the presidential hopeful. In fact, for once, he redeems himself in his role as a stuck-up father.It's difficult to find anything to criticize here. So savor this delightful comedy-romance with fine sentimental overtones. Highly recommended.

mark.waltz A lonely socialite (Merle Oberon) is sent by her presidential hopeful father (Henry Kolker) to Palm Springs to avoid scandal after she's discovered in an illegal gambling joint. The spunky deb convinces her maids (Patsy Kelly and Mabel Todd) to set her up on a blind date with a cowboy (who turns out to be Gary Cooper) from a local rodeo and falls in love with him. But there's all sorts of bumps in this road to love, and it will take some fixin' for it to prevail.This totally charming comedy is a nice chance to see the usually ladylike Oberon do some pratfalls and she does so nicely without loosing her class. What could be silly is handled with a romantic script that makes the pairing believable. This has one of the great supporting casts, although it is predictable that the less than glamorous comic supporting actresses will end up with the scraggly character actors (Fuzzy Knight and Walter Brennan) while beauty Oberon gets hunky Cooper.Emma Dunn is adorable as Cooper's surrogate mother, "Ma Hawkins". There's a nice recurring gag between the two that is affectionate and endearing. Harry Davenport is hysterically funny as Oberon's lovable uncle, her biggest supporter who tries desperately to wake his one-sided brother (Kolker) up to Oberon's needs over his own, yet isn't afraid to perform a lively jitterbug. This is one of the rare cases of opposites attracting on screen that really works, even though Oberon's sophistication betrays her supposed job as a ladies' maid. Still, she's very funny in dealing with such poor man's items as a collapsing cot and sticky fly paper.While most of the film is charming and light-hearted, it does turn into Capra-like corn as Cooper confronts the snobby associates of Oberon's father with a list of what the country really needs. This scene is totally faithful to the plot of the film and gives the story some substance in addition to amusement.

bkoganbing The Cowboy and the Lady will never be listed among the top features of either Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon's careers, but it has a unique place in Hollywood lore. Supposedly producer Sam Goldwyn came up with this title and then set about hiring the creative title to fashion a story and then a film from it. Not the usual way the creative process flows even in Tinseltown.Merle is yet another rich girl who's bored living in her mansion because politically minded dad, Henry Kolker who's running for president. This budding Theodore Roosevelt doesn't want an Alice on his hands, he keeps Merle on a tight leash. Even after she gets busted in a nightclub raid with her fun loving uncle Harry Davenport.When two of her maids go out on a double date with a pair of traveling rodeo cowboys, Merle goes along because the cowboys have a third and she hits the jackpot because the third is Gary Cooper. Of course Merle pretends to be a third maid.Anyone who saw even a couple of thirties screwball comedies knows exactly how this one is ending up. Director H.C. Potter borrowed rather liberally from Frank Capra, there are elements of Mister Deeds Goes to Town and It Happened One Night in the story.Still it's a pleasant enough piece of fluff and sure didn't do anyone's career any harm who was associated with it. Look for good typecast performances from Patsy Kelly and Mabel Todd as the maids and Walter Brennan and Fuzzy Knight as Cooper's rodeo buds. They all perform strictly to type.

hcoursen This one is a real bomb. We are supposed to believe that Merle Oberon is the sequestered daughter of an ambitious politician who must prove to the Tom DeLay of the 1930s that he is worth supporting as a presidential candidate. Poor Merle can't go anywhere, but is surrounded by politicians and their quacking, quaking wives and supported only by kindly uncle Harry Davenport. She joins her two maids on a blind date and Gary Cooper happens to show up. Some shots of rodeo might have enlivened things, a la "Misfits," but no such luck with this one. Gary later breaks in to a formal dinner, at which Merle is presiding, and, though invited to sit down and join the group, reads them a lecture on their snobbery. Where did this diffident cowboy's sudden eloquence come from? The most excruciating scene in the film is a phantom party that Gary holds in his unfinished house for his absent wife, Merle. Will it never end? One to avoid.