WATCH: The 1937 Movie Wings Over Wyoming

There are many great old Western movies set in Wyoming. For many years, the Western cowboy theme was all the rage in theaters. We’ve shown many of those old movies on this page. Here is one we missed.

Wings Over Wyoming is an alternate title for the 1937 64-minute American Western film Hollywood Cowboy, directed by Ewing Scott and George Sherman. The movie stars George O’Brien as a film star who thwarts a protection racket targeting local cattle ranchers and is available to stream on Tubi.

Why was this Western originally released under the title Hollywood Cowboy? Later, the title and the poster were changed. Something to do with marketing, I’m sure. George O’Brien is a vacationing Hollywood cowboy star who is forced to become a real-life hero when eastern racketeers try to run a protection scheme on local Wyoming cattle ranchers.

The plot is simple, as was often the case with old cowboy movies of that time. The hero is on vacation in Wyoming. He gets a job at a local ranch run by Violet Butler and her niece to escape city life, only to battle an eastern crime boss running an extortion and protection racket against local ranchers. The mobsters harass and kill ranchers for protection money, including causing stampedes by bussing herds with a biplane.

The film was directed by Ewing Scott and George Sherman, and released on May 28, 1937, by RKO Pictures before being re-released as Wings Over Wyoming in 1947.

It is notable for blending classic Western elements like horses and guns with modern 1930s elements such as cars and airplanes.

Below is a gallery of great old movie posters, all Westerns made about old Wyoming.

A movie poster is supposed to attract people to see the flick by showing them what they like.

In the case of that means beautiful women, tough men, fistfights, guns, and action scenes.

Often an old movie poster for a bad movie is just as bad as the movie itself. It told little of what the movie was actually about.

But who cares, they were all about the same thing. That same sill plot over and over again. Before TV that’s all people had to watch, and it was considered good, at the time.