Riding High (1943) DVD-R

Starring Dorothy Lamour, Dick Powell, Victor Moore, Gil Lamb, Cass Daley, Bill Goodwin, Rod
Cameron, Glenn Langan
Directed by George Marshall

Print: color
Runtime: 88 min.
Genre: musical
Print Quality: B

No relation to the 1950 Frank Capra film of the same name, the 1943 Technicolor musical
Riding High is a by-the-numbers vehicle for Dorothy Lamour and Dick Powell. Lamour stars
as Ann Castle, a former burlesque queen who heads westward to claim her father's silver
mine. Powell plays mining engineer Steve Baird, who like Ann has a vested interest in the
worked-out 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 they've been flim-flammed, but a
last minute "miracle" saves the day. Featured in the cast are Paramount stalwarts Cass
Daley and Gil Lamb, the former doing her quasi-Martha Raye act and the latter swallowing
his harmonica for the millionth time. Production values are excellent and the songs are
exuberantly performed; it's only in its hackneyed plot that Riding High slows to a clip-clop.