My Pal, the King: Cowboys, Crowns, and a lot of dust

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, you probably already know if you are going to watch My Pal, the King. If you get a kick out of old-school oddities where cowboys roam European palaces, you will have a blast. If you need a movie that makes logical sense or follows modern pacing, stay far away.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of My Pal, the King (1932) through its definitive frames.

This is a movie for people who like to see how weird Hollywood could get when they just threw two completely different genres into a blender. It feels like a relic, mostly because it absolutely is.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of My Pal, the King (1932) through its definitive frames.

The Cowboy vs. The Palace

Tom Mix shows up doing what Tom Mix does best: being a cowboy. Then he walks into this European kingdom that looks suspiciously like a soundstage in California, and suddenly everything is a bit off-kilter.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of My Pal, the King (1932) through its definitive frames.

Mickey Rooney is playing the kid king, and man, the kid has energy. He’s running around trying to be royal while this guy in a Stetson is trying to show him how to act like a normal human being. It’s a dynamic that shouldn't work, yet somehow it kind of does, in a goofy, disjointed way.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of My Pal, the King (1932) through its definitive frames.

There is this one scene where they are just hanging out, and it feels like the director just said, "Okay, be friends now." It doesn't earn the bond, it just dictates it. You can almost see the script pages being shuffled in the background.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of My Pal, the King (1932) through its definitive frames.

Odd Observations

• That horse, Tony, has more screen presence than half the human cast. Seriously, the horse acts better than most of the guards.
• The pacing is all over the place. Sometimes it feels like a fast-paced western, and then it drags for ten minutes while someone talks about royal decrees.
• I kept thinking about After the Circus while watching this, mainly because of the sheer chaos that follows these traveling shows.
• The dialogue is so stiff you could use it to build a fence.

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not even close to a cohesive story. But it has that weird, desperate charm of a movie that is trying way too hard to be everything at once. It’s like watching a kid show you a toy they built out of random Lego bricks—the pieces don’t match, but they are clearly proud of it.

Some of the background extras look like they just wandered off the set of a completely different production. There is one guy in the back of the palace scene who looks bored out of his mind. I relate to that guy.

If you want a polished experience, go watch Cabaret instead. But if you want to see a cowboy try to teach a royal child how to be a regular kid, you know where to look. It’s a messy, dusty, bizarre little film. 🤠👑