Never a Dull Moment

When a rodeo cowpuncher lassos a Park Avenue pigeon, and weds and whisks the sophisticated lady to his ramshackle Wyoming ranch, there's Never a Dull Moment -- and many funny ones in this unabashedly corny but charming roundup. As a Broadway songwriter swapping city lights for country chores, Irene Dunne supplies her timetested gift for physical comedy -- and her lovely voice gives sass and class to three tunes by legendary composer Kay Swift, whose source memoir for the script chronicled her own (short) marriage to a rodeo rider. Fred MacMurray is Dunne's prime-rib partner in laughs as the widower saddlebum who brings to the union two frisky daughters (Natalie Wood and Gigi Perreau), a meddling matchmaker sidekick (Andy Devine) and a grumpy neighbor (William Demarest), who controls the area water rights. (MacMurray and Demarest would gitalong just fine 15 years later on TV's My Three Sons). Briskly directed by Hollywood veteran George Marshall (Destry Rides Again, How the West Was Won), Never a Dull Moment is a hilarious home on the range.