Name: Song of the Prairie
Released: 1945
Duration: 1 min 2 s
Cast: Ken Curtis, June Storey, Andy Clyde, Guinn "big Boy" Williams, Jeff Donnell

Brief Synopsis

Joan Wingate's wealthy father doesn't want his daughter to go into show business. As they vacation in the west she gets a job with Dan Tyler's show and uses Wingate money to keep him afloat. Sandwiched in between the numerous musical numbers they try to keep her father away from the show. But he eventually finds out and decides they will return east.

Cast & Crew

Film Details

Release Date

Sep 27, 1945

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Columbia Pictures Corp.

Distribution Company

Columbia Pictures Corp.

Country

United States

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 2m

Sound

Mono

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

1.37 : 1

Film Length

7 reels

Synopsis

When rancher Dan Tyler notifies his old friends the Hoosier Hotshots that he plans to remodel an old barn and stage a musical revue there, they immediately head out West to join the show. Upon arriving, the Hotshots learn that Dan is experiencing difficulty raising the necessary financing and so volunteer to solicit their New York friends to become investors. As auditions begin for the "Painted Post Barn Dance Show," Dan meets Joan Smith, a young singer trying out for her first job, and hires her. When Joan gives her address as the exclusive Hacienda Royale dude ranch, Dan expresses surprise, and Joan tells him that she is working as a maid for one of the wealthy guests. In reality, Joan is the daughter of wealthy Boston businessman Jerome Wingate, who thoroughly disapproves of his daughter's theatrical ambitions. At the hotel stables, Penny, Joan's maid, meets Big Boy Jackson, the foreman of the Tyler ranch, and becomes smitten. When Joan arrives at the stables, Penny warns her that William Van Welby, the Boston dude that her father has chosen to marry her, has just arrived at the hotel. Soon after, Dan notifies Joan that he is canceling the show because Ezra Higgs, the man who owns the barn, has reneged on his agreement to lease Dan the property and now is demanding that he purchase it instead. Unknown to Dan, Joan then buys the barn from Higgs and leases it to Dan. On the night of her debut, Joan storms off the stage after the Hotshots play a practical joke on her. Furious, Joan tells Penny that she is going to cancel Dan's lease, but Penny convinces her to change her mind. One night, the myopic Van Welby decides to attend the show, and Penny arranges for the Hotshots to break his eyeglasses and take him home. When Penny informs Dan that Van Welby has been pestering Joan, Dan arranges for his friends to dress up as Indians and attack him, thus scaring him into returning to Boston. Upon learning of Dan's ruse, Van Welby takes Wingate to the Painted Post and there Wingate orders Dan to stop seeing Joan. Angry at Joan's deception, Dan decides to close the show until Penny explains that Joan has fallen in love with him and was only trying to help. Soon after, Wingate decrees that Joan must accompany him home to Boston. Masquerading as doctors, the Hotshots convince Wingate, a hypochondriac, that his health dictates he remain in the west, causing him to change his plans. On the night that Parker, a businessman interested in sponsoring the Painted Post show on the radio, comes to see a performance, Van Welby sabotages the show by hiring some men to phone in a tip that Dan is running a casino in the tack room. When the deputy sheriff raids the barn, Parker departs and Dan and his friends are arrested. At the jailhouse, Andy, one of Dan's friends, forces the men to admit that Van Welby paid them to frame Dan. Freed, Dan decides to continue the show, and as the performers return to the theater, Andy takes the health-fiend Wingate to a restaurant and at gunpoint, forces him to consume several steak dinners. As Wingate is about to gobble up dessert, Parker arrives and recognizes him as a former road show stage manager. Embarrassed, Wingate confides to Andy that he forbade Joan to enter show business to protect her from the hardships that he had experienced. Finally realizing that he was wrong, Wingate proceeds to the theater and tells Joan that he has decided to back her and her friends in musical revue.