RED GARTERS no stars

It has to be seen to be believed and even then the chances are you won't believe it. This 'spoof-western-musical' is positively surreal, an explosion of Technicolour that announces itself with the title-card that 'life should be more like the movies' and then proceeds to be neither like life nor the movies; you might even call it Brechtian. The director of "Red Garters" was George Marshall but this is as far removed from "Destry Rides Again" as it's possible to get. The songs are by Jay Livingstone and Ray Evans so you know what to expect, (jaunty, heel-kickers with a few ballads thrown in), and the cast includes Rosemary Clooney, Jack Carson and Guy Mitchell, who should have stuck to the recording studio. It's awful but it's self-consciously awful; shamelessly, proudly awful. Did the producers really think there was an audience for this? Of course, Clooney and Mitchell were big recording stars at the time so perhaps it was aimed squarely at their fans. It certainly goes beyond camp and I don't mean in a good way.