In 1911, a widow with two children leaves New York City for territorial Arizona and becomes a ranch hand and later gets herself elected sheriff. A gambler and a rancher become rivals for her affections.
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Reviews
Debbie Reynolds elected to town Sheriff?! That does not compute! There's no way she could have ever handled the job. In fact it just made me root for the outlaws and even cheer as robbed the town captured the new Sheriff and ride off with her. Any Western town that would elect Debbie as Sheriff deserves to be taken over by outlaws!
This certainly is a very unusual film--and its being so different is a big plus. The film begins in the East and the widow Lu Rogers (Debbie Reynolds) and her children are living with her mother-in-law. However, Lu wants to go out and earn her own money and find a place of her own for her family, so she takes up on an offer by an old family friend to move to Arizona (about 1912) and work for him. However, when Lu arrives she learns that the man is dead...and she is without any prospects. But a woman (Thelma Ritter) feels sorry for her and agrees to take this city girl on as a hired hand.Along the way, two men (Andy Griffith and the rakish Steve Forrest) vie for her hand. She also has a bit of a small feud with the local sheriff...that ends up erupting into an all-out war! Can this nice little lady manage to survive all this?!The film is, more than anything else, fun...along with being unusual. It's hard not to like the film and Reynolds is at her spunky best. Well worth seeing and as much different from a typical western as you can find! Cute and clever.
Film buffs love to say Debbie Reynolds is 'underrated' as an actress--but most of her fluffy output from the 1960s look suspiciously like Doris Day cast-offs. Finally, in "The Second Time Around", she gets a sparkling comedy, a disarming concoction with Reynolds in good form as a widowed mother of two who relocates to Arizona in search of work and ends up the new mayor of a tumbleweed town. Sharp script, colorful supporting work from Andy Griffith, Thelma Ritter, Juliet Prowse and the reliable Steve Forrest, and a fine sense of atmosphere and nuance makes this one of Debbie's best comic vehicles. *** from ****
Debbie Reynolds is her usual feisty self, and gorgeous Steve Forrest (Dana Andrew's brother) is the fellow who wins her heart, in this fun film about a "widder lady" bucking convention in the 1800's to go out west and make a new life for herself and her children. Catch it on AMC sometime; it is not out on video.
