Giant Country: Essays on Texas

The Big Show: Autry’s Artful Oater

The Big Show: Autrys Artful Oater grew up seeing big-budget A westerns at the Ritz Theater, on the square in McKinney, Texas, but on Saturday afternoons I also saw a lot of double-feature Bwesterns and serials, cheaper, cruder fare for kids and die-hard adults in a seedier venue, at the Texas Theater, off the square. Looking back, I don't feel any great welling up of nostalgia about all those long forgotten oaters that fonned, even for an artless young viewer like myself, a more or less nonstop barrage of chases, comedy relief, and blazing six-guns. Still, viewing the genre from an adult perspective, you can find amongst all the forgettable flikkers an occasional gem. Such is the case with Gene Autry's The Big Show, a film I happened to stumble upon in the early eighties. Since this film was released a number of years before I was born, I am fairly certain I did not see it as a child. If I had, I suspect I wouldn't have liked it very much. It possessed too much arti227 Giant Country 228 fice, and I wanted my westerns as authentic as possible. I worried a lot about the number of times a six-shooter was fired-that kind of realism. Yet I was a complete sucker for a good tune, never being bothered whether real cowboys could actua\1y sing like Gene Autry or not. The Big Show is unusual for many reasons, not the least of which is that, unlike ninety-nine percent of the Bs, it was shot partly on location. I say partly because there is some confusion on this score. In his autobiography, Back in the Saddle Again, Autry downplayed the location aspect, claiming that although lobby posters advertised that the movie was filmed on location, it in fact was not. He explains, " ... we did the background shots and some of the specialty acts-Sally Rand (yes, that Sally Rand) and the SMU bandin Dallas." Yet in his history, Republic Studios: Between Poverty Rowand the Majors, Richard M. Hurst calls The Big Show a "landmark" because "it was filmed at the Texas Centennial in Dallas which gave the production added gloss and values." A contemporary account in the Dallas Morning News of September 16, 1939, is helpful. According to the newspaper, on the previous day, the fifteenth, a convention of motion picture exhibitors meeting at the fair grounds were treated to visits by several movie actors, including Gene Autry. Autry was in Dallas, the story said, to film "a western with the Centennial Exhibition as a background setting." Rain delayed some of the shooting that day, and prevented an appearance by Texas Governor, James V Allred. However, some background footage pertaining to the Cavalcade of Texas was shot. (The Cavalcade figures importantly in the finished film, but Governor Allred does not appear.) Internal evidence from the film suggests a stronger location factor than Autry indicates. The art deco buildings of the Texas State Fair Grounds are clearly visible in many scenes; the long shallow pond that greets visitors upon entering the fair grounds is the setting for the final showdown, when Autry captures the villains in a rousing chase scene; the midway is visible in several scenes; there is a parade featuring the SMU marching band; and there are scenes of The Big Show considerable duration dealing with the Cavalcade of Texas, as well as shots of the contemporaty audience in the bleachers watching the cavalcade's spectacular show. The sense of location shooting is so strong that The Big Show has a documentaty value today: it is a vivid record of the Texas Centennial as witnessed by the thousands of people who thronged there daily. Of course, given the fact that Republic was famous for its technical expertise, some of the location ambience may be the result of skillful back projection. The Big Show is unusual for other reasons as well, reasons that have to do with artifice and creativity, qualities we don't often associate with B movies. The Big Show is truly and wittily funny at times, containing a level of sophistication that cannot be the result of mindless luck. Of course the film has the usual number of low comedy techniques : especially pratfalls, most of them performed by Smiley Burnette, Gene's sidekick. Smiley wants to be a stunt man like Gene, but he can...