Tennessee's Partner

Tennessee's Partner is a 1955 American Western film directed by Allan Dwan, written by Graham Baker, D. D. Beauchamp, Milton Krims, and Teddi Sherman, with uncredited rewrites by Dwan, and starring John Payne, Ronald Reagan, Rhonda Fleming, and Coleen Gray.

The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures, which was then owned by industrialist Howard Hughes. While the film is based upon one of Bret Harte's most popular short stories, "Tennessee’s Pardner," it departs significantly from the original storyline. The 1869 Harte story has also been filmed as Tennessee's Pardner (1916), The Flaming Forties (1924), and The Golden Princess (1925).

Cast

 * John Payne as Tennessee
 * Ronald Reagan as Cowpoke
 * Rhonda Fleming as Elizabeth "Duchess" Farnham
 * Coleen Gray as Goldie Slater
 * Tony Caruso as Turner
 * Morris Ankrum as Judge Parker
 * Leo Gordon as the Sheriff
 * Chubby Johnson as Grubstake McNiven
 * Joe Deviln as Prendergast
 * Myron Healey as Reynolds
 * John Mansfield as Clifford
 * Angie Dickinson (uncredited) as Abby Dean

Legacy
This film inspired one of the greatest hits of The Four Seasons. As the character based on Bob Gaudio explains in the musical Jersey Boys, "I'm watching the million dollar movie. Some cheesy John Payne western. He hauls off and smacks Rhonda Fleming across the mouth and says, 'What do you think of that?' She looks up at him defiant, proud, eyes glistening – and she says, 'Big girls don't cry.'"