Wild West Whoopee Review: Dust, Horses, and a Very Confused Kidnapping

Is it worth the watch?

If you have an hour to kill and a high tolerance for grainy black-and-white footage where you can barely hear the dialogue over the hiss of the film, then sure. It's a fun enough relic for people who love the history of the genre, but modern action fans will probably find it about as exciting as watching paint dry in the sun. 🌵

I sat down with Wild West Whoopee expecting something a bit more... energetic, given that the word 'Whoopee' usually implies a party. Instead, it’s a pretty standard Jack Perrin horse opera that feels like it was filmed over a single weekend in a very dusty canyon.

The story kicks off with Jack Perrin playing a cowboy who is head-over-boots for the rancher's daughter. It’s the usual setup: the dad is a bit of a grouch and wants to ship his daughter off to the city because he doesn't think a ranch hand is good enough for her.

What’s funny is how casual the elopement plan is. They just decide to go, like they’re planning a trip to the grocery store rather than running away to start a life together.

The most bizarre part of the movie is when the girl gets kidnapped from the stagecoach. She actually thinks it’s part of the plan. 🤠

She’s just sitting there while these masked guys grab her, thinking, "Oh, my fiancé is so romantic for arranging this abduction." It’s a very strange bit of logic that only exists in movies from this era.

You can see the moment the realization hits her face that these aren't the "friendly" kidnappers she was expecting. Josephine Hill plays the daughter, and her expression goes from mildly amused to genuinely concerned in a way that feels a bit too real for a B-movie.

The rival, played by Walter Patterson, is your classic mustache-twirling villain. He doesn't have much depth, but he’s very good at looking menacing in a hat that looks two sizes too big for his head.

The pacing is a bit of a mess. There are long stretches where people are just riding horses across the screen from left to right, and then in the next scene, they’re riding from right to left. I think they might have used the same hill three different times.

It reminds me a bit of the production style in Youth's Gamble, where you can tell the budget was mostly spent on horse feed and gunpowder. There’s a certain charm to how cheap it feels, though.

Starlight the Horse gets second billing in the credits, which I always find hilarious. Honestly, the horse gives a more consistent performance than some of the humans.

There’s a scene where the horse just looks at the camera like he’s tired of the script. I felt that. 🐴

The action picks up toward the end when Jack finally realizes his girl isn't where she's supposed to be. The final rescue at the shack is a bit clumsy, with a lot of stiff-legged wrestling and people falling over furniture that looks like it would break if you sneezed on it.

One reaction shot of a bystander lingers for about five seconds too long. It’s like the editor forgot to cut, or they were trying to pad the runtime to hit the 60-minute mark.

It lacks the emotional weight of something like Hitchin' Posts, but it doesn't really care about being deep. It just wants to show you a guy in a white hat saving the day.

The dialogue is pretty clunky. Half the time, I couldn't tell if the actors were forgetting their lines or if the script just didn't have any words for them to say.

But there is something nice about the simplicity of it. There are no subplots about taxes or complex character arcs; it’s just good guy vs. bad guy in the dirt.

I noticed that the rancher's house has these incredibly clean curtains that feel totally out of place in a dusty desert setting. Small things like that kept distracting me from the actual plot.

Also, the villain’s plan is incredibly poorly thought out. What was he going to do after the kidnapping? Just stay in the shack forever? 🏚️

The movie ends exactly how you think it will. There are no surprises here, which is either comforting or boring depending on how much coffee you've had.

It’s definitely better than some of the other bottom-of-the-barrel westerns from 1930, but it’s no masterpiece. It’s just a Whoopee of a time, I guess, if your idea of a whoopee is a dusty chase scene.

• The Best Part: The horse actually doing most of the work.
• The Worst Part: The weirdly long silence during the stagecoach scene.
• Look Out For: The guy in the background who looks like he’s trying to remember if he left the stove on.

If you're looking for something with a bit more bite, you might want to try The She Wolf instead. This one is strictly for the completionists who want to see every single movie Jack Perrin ever made.

Overall, it’s a fine way to spend an hour if you like the smell of old celluloid. Just don’t expect it to change your life or even stay in your head for more than ten minutes after the credits roll.