Take Me to Town * (1953, Ann Sheridan, Sterling Hayden, Philip Reed, Lee Patrick) – Classic Movie Review 11,728

Director Douglas Sirk’s 1953 Universal Pictures Technicolor Western family adventure film Take Me to Town stars Ann Sheridan, Sterling Hayden, Philip Reed, Lee Patrick and Lee Aaker.

Shady lady Vermilion O’Toole (Sheridan) and her pardner Newt Cole (Reed) are on the run from the law after a robbery, hoving up in the town of Timberline, where Vermilion changes her name to Mae Madison and is asked by three young boys to become their surrogate mom when their recently widowed father, logger/ preacher Will Hall (Hayden), is out preaching. Then the lady outlaw and widowed father begin to hit it off.

The snooty gossips of the timber town of Timberline don’t take to the oomph girl Sheridan, that is till she puts on a show for their new church (for it turns out that she is a sexy dance-hall singer). Sheridan performs ‘OH, YOU RED-HEAD’ and ‘TAKE ME TO TOWN’.

Take Me to Town is a well-crafted but very insubstantial and cloyingly cosy and sentimental romantic comedy Western adventure, with both stars miscast and a predictable plot that defeats even ace director Sirk.

It is actor Ross Hunter’s first film as a producer. Sheridan, who suggested he turn to producing, agreed to work for $100,000 instead of her usual $475,000 fee. Hunter recalled: ‘It was Annie who really gave me my first break. She was a very great lady.’

The cast are Ann Sheridan as Vermilion O’Toole, aka Mae Madison, Sterling Hayden as Will Hall, Phillip Reed as Newton Cole, Lee Patrick as Rose, Lee Aaker as Corney Hall, Harvey Grant as Petey, Dustey Henley as Bucket, Larry Gates as Marshal Ed Daggett, Forrest Lewis as storekeeper Ed Higgins, Phyllis Stanley as Mrs Edna Stoffer, Dorothy Neumann as Felice Pickett, Ann Tyrrell as Louise Pickett, Lane Chandler, Robert Anderson, Anita Ekberg as Dancehall Girl, Ruth Hampton as Dancehall Girl, Valerie Jackson, Jimmy Karath, Alice Kelley, Mickey Little, Jackie Loughery, Fess Parker as Long John, Frank Sully, Jerry Wayne, and Guy Williams.

Ann Sheridan is remembered for Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Torrid Zone (1940), They Drive by Night (1940), Kings Row (1942) and I Was a Male War Bride (1949).

Clara Lou Sheridan [Ann Sheridan] was born February 21, 1915, in Denton, Texas, and died on January 21, 1967, in San Fernando Valley, California.

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,728

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