The Show Down

When we think of short subjects in the studio days of movie-making, we think of comedy shorts, and other specialties: newsreels, educational shorts, sing-alongs and, of course, cartoons. But westerns were one of the first genres to emerge, starting with Broncho Billy Anderson in the first decade of the twentieth century, and cowboy shorts continued in production up until the 1940s, at least at Warner Brothers.

Anyway, this is one of them and it compresses the usual story into one reel: cowboys riding up and down, shooting their guns in celebration, a fight in a saloon, the pretty girl and the shy cowhand and so forth. It's all directed in a broad comedy style that may remind the modern viewer of some of John Ford's rougher comedies like DONOVAN'S REEF. And that shouldn't be surprising, since he had gotten his directing start four years before this at Universal Studios, whence came this piece.