Horse Opera

Oldtime Alberta ranchers like Edward Waines, 87, have watched the Calgary Stampede grow through the years from a purely local show, which featured only straight ranch contests, to a commercialized, supercolossal spectacle. They have not been too happy about it. Last week, when Hollywood's Eagle Lion movie company moved into town to use this year's Stampede as background for a new horse opera in cinecolor, old man Waines gave up. "They're exploiting the cowboys just for the almighty dollar," he said.

In the 62nd Calgary Stampede ("the biggest yet"), 330 cowboys from the U.S. and Canada competed for $20,680 in prize-money. Fifteen hundred cattle were entered in a $12,214 competition.

Tepee Camp. Calgary's 31 hotels were booked solid. Some 75,000 people jammed the streets, pushed and shoved through the midway sideshows, watched a four-mile-long parade that included everything from Indians to Sherman tanks. Indian families camped in tepees.

For the movie people, all this was made to order. Eagle Lion had flown in a crew of 100, with Producer-Director Albert Rogell and Stars Joan Leslie, James Craig and Jack Oakie. Railroad Tycoon Robert Young, Eagle Lion's chief stockholder, had arranged for the ranch scenes to be made at the nearby showplace of his friend the Duke of Windsor. But Eagle Lion concentrated on the Stampede.

Director Rogell got cowboys to double for the stars. Though women have never been allowed in the Stampede, the picture's plot calls for a hard-riding heroine to shame the hero into being a real bronco-busting man. A former world's champion all-round cowboy, Jerry Ambler, got the assignment to double for redheaded Joan Leslie. In a red wig, he came out of the chutes at the fair grounds, astride a bucking bull. The grandstands hooted.

Stardust. Though overshadowed by their doubles and by the Stampede itself, Hollywood's stars managed'to get some attention. Heroine Leslie gave costume prizes to Indians. Jack Oakie strode around town dressed in a bright orange shirt and other cowboy trappings. Hero James Craig played up to the bobby-soxers. To prove that "all Hollywood cowboys are not the drugstore type," Craig threatened to compete in the Stampede. But this would have been carrying verisimilitude too far. Director Rogell spiked the idea.

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