Hoedown (1950)

Cowboy movie star Stoney Rhodes (Jock Mahoney as Jock O'Mahoney) has made one western film and thinks he is on a personal appearance tour paid for by the studio, but he and his film were so bad that the studio, unknown to Stoney, has cancelled his contract, and his mother has mortgaged her home to supply the funds necessary for the tour and expenses of Stoney and his agent. (Stoney is shown in front of two theatres where Columbia, missing no bets, has displays of one-sheet posters from "Strawberry Roan" with Gene Autry and "The Undercover Man" with Glenn Ford.) Reporter Vera Wright (Jeff Donnell), following him to get a story of a failure, informs Stoney that he is a never-was has-been, and they find themselves stranded in the hometown of Eddy Arnold, where Eddy's film "cousin" Carolina Cotton (Carolina Cotton) quickly takes a shine to the shy and clumsy Stoney. Eddy sees a print of Stoney's film in which the character is singing "I Can't Shake the Sands of Texas From My Shoes" and is impressed and telephones his agent Sam Baker (Fred Sears) to come there quickly and sign Stoney to a contract, especially since he sounds like Gene Autry. Meanwhile, some bank robbers and gangsters get involved and have their eyes on the proceeds from a charity fund-raiser Eddy is doing. When the agent shows up to sign Stoney to a recording contract because "you sound like Gene Autry", Stoney says that is because it was Gene Autry doing the singing in the film. The film is somewhat of an inside joke built around ace stuntman Mahoney, in that his Stoney role is the opposite of his real-life abilities, and most of the males in the cast, Big Boy Williams, Douglas Fowley, Don Harvey and Charles Sullivan, takes turns beating him up and knocking him out...when he isn't falling out of hay lofts or involved in accidents. But a kiss from Carolina makes a new man out of him and the gangsters are rounded up in a one-man blitz, and Stoney ends up with eight studios bidding for his services. Eddy performs most of his best-selling hits of the day, with the exception of "Cattle Call", the vastly-underrated Carolina Cotton (as a performer and actress with a personality) yodels up a storm, and this overall turns out to be a pretty fair little sleeper, especially in regards to films where Hollywood takes a poke at itself.And probably unknown to those who go around compiling such lists.