The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County is a 1970 American comedy Western film by Universal Studios, directed by Anton Leader and Ranald MacDougall, and starring Dan Blocker and Nanette Fabray, with a supporting cast featuring Jim Backus, Mickey Rooney, Wally Cox, Jack Elam, Noah Beery, Jr. and Don "Red" Barry. MacDougal wrote the screenplay. It was originally made as a television film but the decision was made to release it to movie theaters. The film became Blocker's final role (besides his long-running role as "Hoss Cartwright" on Bonanza) before his death from complications from gall bladder surgery in May 1972. In late 2010, the Encore Westerns channel began showing this film intermittently on their schedule. Synopsis Shy naive Charley Bicker, the only blacksmith within 100 miles, begins corresponding with a potential mail-order bride named Ellen, and sends her all his savings for a train ticket to the town of Calico. He kept his marriage plans secret from everyone except the storekeeper who sent off for a wedding ring, but the storekeeper told everyone else, so a crowd shows up at the train station when Charley goes there to meet his bride. The lady isn’t on the train and Charley is humiliated, so pretends it was all a joke. Meanwhile a nearly-blind bounty hunter named Kittrick comes to town and tries to find his way to the sheriff’s office. Charley believes he is the laughing-stock of the town, and starts packing up to start a new life elsewhere. The townsfolk are in a panic, for they need their blacksmith. Mr. Bester, who owns a freight hauling business, has all his wagons at the blacksmith shop for repairs, and if they aren’t repaired no businesses can get new supplies. It is decided to say Charley’s mail-order bride got off at the wrong town, and will be arriving on the stagecoach. They will need to find someone to pretend to be the lady Charley was corresponding with, who will agree to be courted for a few days, and then politely say she changed her mind about marriage. The only single woman in town is saloon girl Sadie, who is seeing Roger Hand – a man who is jealous of anyone who pays attention to Sadie. Charley doesn’t drink much, so he’s never seen the saloon girl. At first Sadie refuses to go along with the scheme, but then thinks of how the respectable