Calaboose
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Hal Roach Jr.
Jimmy Rogers
Noah Beery Jr.
Mary Brian
Bill Henry
Paul Hurst
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Jim and Pidge, two unemployed cowboys, come down from the hills to look for work in the town of Lanning. Their old friend, Ed Hopkins, who has remodeled his saloon complete with a jukebox for "jive" music, recommends that they ask Tom Prendergast for work, as he needs men to break in horses for the Army. Tom hires the cowboys to break in a number of horses, but Pidge is easily distracted by the sight of a beautiful woman. When he sees the sheriff's niece, Doris Lane, nearby, he forgets to close the gate on a train car into which Jim is herding the horses, and the animals stampede through town. Despite the mishap, Jim and Pidge secure a winter job working at a local ranch. Before they report for work, Pidge returns to Ed's, hoping to meet Doris, who is Tom's girl friend. When Pidge learns that a local drunk named Charlie was given a personal "cure" by Doris, he picks a fight with Ed, then kicks the sheriff in his bottom so he will be arrested. Jim offers to raise money for Pidge's release, but becomes suspicious that a "dude girl" is involved when Pidge refuses to leave jail. Indeed, Doris, an avid reformer, has determined to cure Pidge of his reputed larcenous nature, and lavishes special attention on him. Pidge has convinced Doris that he is a close friend of gangster Sluggsy Baker, who was recently released from prison. When Jim sees Sluggsy at Ed's bar, he is certain that Doris will dump Pidge for Sluggsy, and Ed helps Jim by instigating a fight with Sluggsy, who is then arrested. Doris commits herself to curing Sluggsy, and naïvely sends for his "Ma," unaware that she is his moll Gert, who promises to send Sluggsy's "best friends" to come see him. Jim, meanwhile, takes Ed's next suggestion for breaking Pidge out of jail and tries to slip sleeping pills into Pidge's lunch. Jim reluctantly shares Pidge's lunch under Doris's watchful eye, and finds himself growing sleepy as he digs an escape tunnel under the jail. When he emerges in the middle of the jail, Sluggsy's thugs lock him in a cell with the sheriff, release Sluggsy, and take Pidge hostage. Jim and the sheriff escape and chase the gangsters, who hole up in Ed's bar. After an intense gunfight in which no one is wounded, Jim, Pidge and the sheriff capture the gangsters, and the women's war assistance league practices putting bandages on the prisoners. The sheriff officially frees Pidge and announces Doris' engagement to Tom, so Pidge and Jim leave to work at the ranch.
Director
Hal Roach Jr.
Cast
Jimmy Rogers
Noah Beery Jr.
Mary Brian
Bill Henry
Paul Hurst
Marc Lawrence
William Davidson
Jean Porter
Iris Adrian
Sarah Edwards
Crew
Arnold Belgard
Joe Depew
Charles D. Hall
Donald Hough
Bert Jordan
Holly Morse
Robert Pittack
William Randall
Hal Roach
Royer
Roy Seawright
W. L. Stevens
Harvey Thew
Glenn Tryon
Edward Ward
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film is the second of three films featuring Jimmy Rogers and Noah Beery, Jr. as cowboys "Jim" and "Pidge." For additional information on the series, please see the entry below for Dudes Are Pretty People and consult the Series Index. Calaboose was also one of Hal Roach's "streamlined features," a series of short comedies intended to fill the second half of a double bill. The first streamlined feature was the 1941 film Tanks a Million (see below).
