No.248 : The Duel (2016)

The Duel at the IMDb

Woody out of ‘Cheers’ and the less successful Hemsworth brother star in this derivative western that starts out in decent, if predictable fashion, but ends in farce.

The film opens in 1863 after some captions tell us about the Mexican / American War and the uneasy truce that now exists. The Texas Rangers have been set up to keep the peace but frontier justice still prevails. We meet a bald Woody in the rain who is about to take part in a ‘Helena Duel’ which sees the two men tied arm to arm, armed with a small knife each. They then get all stabby with each other until only one is left standing. Woody, not surprisingly as he’s the headline actor, wins the day but the body of his dead opponent is mourned over by the corpse’s now orphaned son. Bet that’s significant!

We fast forward 22 years and that mourning son is now a Texas Ranger in the shape of Liam Hemsworth. He’s called in by his boss, Death out of ‘Bill & Ted’, and asked to investigate a series of dead Mexicans who are showing up in the river. They suspect Woody is involved as he has a secret settlement just upstream. Rather implausibly he sends Liam undercover on the pretext that sending a garrison would be problematic and says that our hero should report back with his findings.

Liam is a modern henpecked man with a Mexican wife who nags him into taking her along. The two head into town and are soon welcomed, with Woody appointing Liam as sheriff. He is meant to come over as all culty but that turns out to be a spelling mistake, as he has designs on the wife and in brainwashing the town. As is standard, he has a sadistic and dim son who sets about the hooker with a heart with his knife. At times it’s like western cliché bingo here!

Woody’s wise words start to turn Liam’s wife’s head and when she gets ill things start to fall apart. Liam susses out Woody’s grand scheme and is captured - he’s then set loose to be hunted by Woody’s paying customers . Can he survive and win his woman back? Is this about revenge or just a long metaphor about the poor treatment of Mexican immigrants? Or maybe it’s just a directionless mess with more unintentional laughs than drama?

This was a strange film, it was almost like several scripts had been cut into pieces and randomly stuck back together. The opening brutal scene of the knife fit was well done and I expected this to be a film about revenge and redemption. It was fine that they chose not to go down this path, but the route taken instead was signposted ‘Ridiculousness’.

Woody was portrayed as the Messiah type figure who perhaps had supernatural powers, but after an hour it was revealed that he was only running a ’Westworld’ type operation, where patrons could shoot Mexicans for $200 a pop. It would have worked too if his idiot son hadn’t dumped the bodies in the river rather than bury them as instructed!

Liam uncovers the terrible conspiracy but is captured. Amazingly Woody makes him the subject of the next hunt but also gives him a rifle and ammo. Predictably Liam takes out all of the red shirts and our two headliners have the duel of the title. And what a laugh it is! The two shoot at each other for five minutes whilst ten feet apart. Then, low on bullets, Liam tips a big rock onto Woody Wile E. Coyote style. Now trapped with his leg pinned Woody goes all ‘127 Hours’ and stabs his own leg off with a penknife. It is glorious in its mentalness.

There is no big lesson here apart from don’t watch this whilst drinking red wine or you’re liable to redecorate your walls with each burst of outrageous action.

It may have been that the film set out to redefine the western a la ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and lost its nerve, but it ended up as risible nonsense that had more laughs than a tickling convention.

THE Tag Line : You Mexican’t Be Serious 41%

 

No.223 : The Gambler (1980)

The Gambler (1980) at the IMDb

It’s quite common to have hit songs come from a film, but it’s less usual to have a film made around a hit song. Such is the case here in our third ‘The Gambler’ offering in short order. Dare you place a wager as to which is best? Clue : It’s not this one!

In doing my usual exhaustive research I was surprised to learn that this was the first of five films in ‘The Gambler’ franchise. All were TV movies and each starred Kenny Rogers as the wily and wise card player, Brady Hawkes.

The film sets its stall out early doors with ‘The Gambler’ predictably playing over the titles. Kenny was 42 when this came out so he’s clearly meant to be the one doling out the advice rather than the one asking for it. That said maybe he’s the non-dead one in the song, now grown up.

Anyway, Kenny rides his horse slowly into town and makes his way to the station waiting room which could not look more like a set if it had ‘This is a set’ written all over it. We’ve already met young card sharp Billy Montana who has tried and failed to pick up a single lady with his tales of his journey to a big poker tournament in San Francisco. He takes on and beats a couple of poker players who accuse him of cheating and who draw guns on him. Fortunately Kenny has arrived and exposes them as cheats and sends them on their way. He also notes that Billy was cheating too, but he was better at it than his marks.

Kenny enlists the lady to deal the cards and he gives Billy a lesson in five card stud. At no point does anyone swear or stab anyone and you just know we’re in the version of old west, where values remain strong and no one says ‘motherfucker’. With the wisdom now extolled, the long awaited train is ready to leave now that the rich owner has arrived. We also learn that Kenny is on a mission, no not to sell chicken but to answer a letter. We hear it read out by a young lad who claims Kenny is his Dad - rubbish he doesn’t even have a beard. He says his mother kept him a secret, so that we know Kenny isn’t a bastard, but now they need help.

The son’s mother has a Mrs Skywalker relationship with his step-father and can’t escape his evil clutches, but the boy gets away and meets up with Kenny on the train. Meanwhile the rich railroad owner has set up a $10k a head card game involving Kenny, Montana and a hired card sharp, The Doc. Soon the hangers on are eliminated and it’s down to the last hand. Can Kenny win and will he outsmart the boy’s father’s henchmen who lie in wait? Can the boy escape his servitude and will Kenny gets some more homilies in before the credits roll? Yes to everything!

This would fall strictly into the ‘does what it says on the tin’ file and you would be hard pressed to find fault in this gentle offering. Let’s try anyway. Rodgers is no actor and tends to mistake talking slowly for wisdom. He hobbles about on a stick but is as fast a cheetah when chucking folk out of windows or over bars. Hope the DSS are watching.

Everyone listens with rapt attention when Kenny starts giving out his wise words, including a long conversation with the lady who turns out to be a reformed whore. Kenny tells her that’s all good and she’s very grateful to him. Not that grateful though.

The poker scenes were decent with a king high losing to a pair of fours in one hand of five card stud. It did all fall apart in the last hand however, when Kenny starts to shove in the chips despite facing three aces with a card to come. ‘That’s way they call it gambling’ he says wisely - no Kenny, that’s what they call suicidal bankroll management.

Bruce Boxleitner was likeable as Montana, but I doubt he’d last five minutes in the real old west. That said, Kenny’s large ass would be hung out to dry as soon as he took on three gringos with his stick, so there is an element of disbelief being suspended throughout.

You could show this one to your granny if she was OK with talk about whores and unlikely straight flushes. Right onto the sequels for me.

That was a bluff!

THE Tag Line : You Gotta Know When to Watch ‘Em and When Not to Bother 57%

No.117 : The Unforgiven (1960)

The Unforgiven at the IMDb

 No, not the Clint Eastwood non definitive article effort, this is the 1960 John Huston directed western that stars Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn. It is a bit long at two hours but it has a bit to say and plenty of action, especially in the last half hour.

Burt plays a cattleman returning home prior to a big drive to Wichita. He’s brought home a piano that he won in a bet and his old Ma Lillian Gish is most impressed. His sister Audrey is also pleased, as are the cows and the minister. In what is a slow burning half hour they bash out a couple of tunes and break some horses in, scenes that would have been far better on the editor’s floor. Still it sets an idyllic scene that we know can’t last.

We learn that Audrey is a founding, with the story going that she was found in a settler's wagon after they were killed by the Indians. Not everyone is convinced however, especially an old stranger with a big sword who keeps popping up and looking ominous. Things come to a head when three Indians appear with a gift of horses and ask ‘How much for the woman’ in a scene later echoed in ‘The Blues Brothers’. The Indians are convinced that Audrey is a child stolen from them during a massacre and they want her back, even though she’s at least 30.

Burt, who may have more of a shine to his ‘sister’ that is healthy, spurns the Indians but soon the racist locals start to question the squaw in their ranks. The mysterious stranger is captured and tells what he thinks is the truth of Audrey’s origins before Lillian hangs him by chasing off the horse he’s sitting on while he's wearing a noose. With Audrey suffering the shortest engagement in history the locals leave Burt and his clan to take on the whole Indian nation on their own. Luckily they have more bullets than Patton and the Indians have been practicing falling off their horses. Will Audrey return to her roots or will Burt reveal his thinly hidden passion? Can the cowboys v. Indians saga be resolved once and for all or will the smashed piano fester resentment evermore?

After a slow start this film turned out to be an enjoyable and thought provoking effort that delivered with an action packed last half hour as the homestead is besieged by endless Indians. The main theme was one of identity and the trouble in store was rote large from the off when the family cows were grazing on the homestead roof - off the reservation you see!

Things start off well and the neighbours are nice until the trouble starts and then they disappear. Masks are dropped when Audrey’s fiancé gets filled with arrows after his first kiss. This lets rise all the bubbling resentments with one old woman totally racialist! Audrey does well but I wasn’t convinced she was a red Indian and she herself didn’t seem that bothered with a return to her roots on the cards one minute, with Burt’s brotherly and incestuous arms favoured next.

Burt did his usual stand up job of being softly spoken and decent but with a strong right hand to back it up. His motivations were suspect from the off as he beats up an Indian for touching his sister’s hair and we were sure it was more than brotherly love that saw him lose his herd and then burn down his house for his frankly rather skinny and annoying sister.

The Mexican locations were great and the cast list was filled out with some great character actors, especially the scene chewing tell tale, John Saxon, Audie Murphy, Doug McClure and even Dr No!

It’s certainly not as memorable or as brutal as Clint’s effort but it’s still a superior western that will reward those how stay about after the piano is put away.

THE Tag Line : Lillian Gish It Is Not  71%

No.111 : The Desperadoes (1943)

The Desperadoes at the IMDb

 
A crooked banker in a frontier town plans to rip all the townsfolk off for half their savings - how times have changed! Nowadays they wouldn’t be left with half! The scheme involves hiring an outsider to ‘rob’ the bank and then tell the folks that the banks will repay half their losses with the other half going to the crook. Unfortunately the hired gun fails to show and a local mob, hired on the rush, shoot the place up and kill three locals.

The original robber eventually shows up and is not best pleased to see that his  gig has been stolen. He thaws however when he finds his friend is the sheriff and the local floozy catches his eye. Meanwhile the bad guys get nervous as their employers turn out to be loose cannons and a lost fancy spur may spell trouble.

A local posse of well meaning idiots challenge the Sheriff, Steve (good name), to catch the villains and given he’s Randolph Scott he has little choice. For some reason he invests in the counsel of the evil Uncle Willie but we remain hopeful that the two former friends will triumph and at least get the top button undone on their overdressed wenches.

From 1943 this was Columbia Pictures’ first colour movie and it shows in the gaudy costumes and sets  which are clearly used to impress the audience who were still in black and white. It is a basic, unimaginative western with the usual good guys / bad guys motif with a saloon floozy thrown in for a bit of glamour. There is also a scene of two greased up men giving each other a massage only to be embarrassed when the saloon madam walks in - like I say something for everyone!

It does stand above a lot of its contemporaries in terms of locations and a couple of stars in the shape of Randolph Scott and Glenn Ford.  Scott is wooden and I can never see any star quality in him - he’s more like stern history teacher. Ford is better as Bill ‘Cheyenne’ Rogers who wrestles with morals and presumably with the buckles on Randolph’s corset. There isn’t much in the way of danger or menace although I was surprised to see three locals get shot in the opening bank raid - maybe they were just over enthusiastic extras.

The female leads do OK in the standard window dressing roles with plenty of fancy gowns to keep the ladies happy and to let the men play butch. There is also an ill-advised comedy bar brawl which was always going to happen when the saloon keeper says he’s selling up tomorrow. The usual pratfalls and dazed ‘Oh I’ve been knocked out’ expressions ensue but it was good to see a proto-Mongo who would later win the day in ‘Blazing Saddles’.

The early reveal that the late arriving bad guy was once a goodie with the will to reform was puny character development and it was no surprise at all when the two former friends put bygones aside to fight the common enemy.  The weasely banker was good fun as was the likeable and murderously traitorous ‘Uncle Willie’ who was played for laughs but a real bastard.

There was nothing in the way of social commentary and any hints of a moral tale above the standard good versus evil were dispelled early on. Of course it was the 1940s and there had to be something for everyone along with no sex and limited violence you can tell this isn’t going to make any top ten list.

It was competently made and had a lot to like in its naïve view of the world where good beat bad and the nasty banker got what was due to him. Are you watching Financial Crime Office? Probably not.

THE Tag Line : Bill and Steve Moderate Adventure  56%

No.110 : The Spoilers (1955)

The Spoilers at the IMDb

 This review of  ‘The Spoilers’ may contain spoilers. It was his childhood sled. There told you.

The spoilers in question aren’t movie reviewers with a heightened sense of their own worth but people who spoil things for other people - in this case gold miners.

It’s frontier time in Nome Alaska and the sluts at the local saloon are showing an ankle for two bits - well it is 1955. Whoremaster Anne Baxter has a new dress in every scene so there’s clearly cash in teasing the toothless prospectors with low cut tops that on closer examination appear to be flesh coloured flannel.

Gold is in tham thar hills and so are claim jumpers, spoilers who try to make claims against the legitimate miners working on the legal precedent of ‘finders keepers’. To stop these carpet baggers a circuit judge is employed to vet the legal veracity of the claims. In Nome the Judge is due but so is Anne’s boyfriend and she tarts herself up in her finest duffel coat as the ship appears. But wait! Her beau Roy has hooked up with the Judge’s matronly looking daughter.

Happily for Anne she is not short of admirers and despite Roy’s protestations of innocence she’s soon showing an ankle to Alex, who is a dirty dog if ever I saw one. Roy’s mine is one of those challenged and he foolishly ignores his toothless hillbilly partner and turns his claim over to the Gold Commission for the Judge’s verdict. Alas this is delayed 90 days meaning the mine could be stripped clean by the time they get it back.

This can’t be good old American justice and of course it’s not as we soon learn that the Judge and ‘the Gold commission’ are a bunch of big fakers. What follows is a predictable sequence of bar fist fights and shoot outs before a toy train falls over and honour is restored. Roy gets a kiss on his dirty face and could that be a bit of real cleavage as the credits roll? Oh I’ve come over all faint!

This 1955 effort was a remake of a film from the 1930s - God knows what the bar room sluts looked like in that! Here they were a gaudy technicoloured bunch of hefty hoofers but no less fun for all that. Clearly no one could look nicer than Anne Baxter who shined in every scene - mostly due to intense lighting and a costume budget that would match King Kong’s.

The film skirted a thin line between comedy and drama with the drunken yokel and drunken maid playing it for laughs that never came against some pretty nasty schemes and murders. There was of course no doubt that right would prevail but I have to admit being wrong footed when the judge was revealed to be bent - can’t trust anyone these days!

The sets and costumes were as you’d expect with the location work kept to a minimum. There was a horse shit free main street and a basic mine set but you could tell the western was on the way out when the whole bar set was smashed up at the end in a scene reminiscent of ‘Blazing Saddles’.

It’s clearly an unsophisticated film made for simpler times with goodies versus baddies and no one catching syphilis. I quite enjoyed it for the most part but I doubt it’s one that I’ll ever revisit or even remember after this beer. Cheers!

The Tag Line : Not Authentic - It’s twoo, it’s twoo   57%

No.107 : The Undefeated (1969)

The Undefeated at the IMDb

 John Wayne and Rock Hudson star as two Civil War officers trying to adjust to peace. The film opens with Wayne leading a cavalry charge against a Confederate position. He wins the day with plenty of rebels killed by sword and gun. As they are clearing up a messenger arrives to tell Wayne that General Lee surrendered three days before. The Duke surveys the carnage and sees what a waste of life has just occurred. Damned internet - hurry up and be invented!

Wayne meets more Southerners who advise them they intend to fight on as they see the Union soldiers as trespassers. Wayne is thoroughly cheesed off and decides to resign his post and go and round up stray horses along with the remnants of his battalion.

Meanwhile Southern Officer Rock Hudson is counting the cost of defeat. His backing of the south has left him broke and he has to set free all his slaves. At least he gives one his watch to show he’s a stand up dude. Rather than surrender his house to carpet baggers he torches it and heads south to a new life in Mexico - and he’s taking the same route as John Wayne!

Wayne and his men are now out of uniform and have rounded up 3000 wild horses. He planned to sell them to the army but when he gets stiffed on the deal he agrees to sell them to the Mexicans instead. Wayne has an adopted Indian tracker son and he advises that he can see two sets of tracks ahead - one is Hudson’s group of men, women and children and the other some stinkin’ banditos. Wayne rides ahead to tell Hudson of the menace that is stalking them and, despite their differences, they join together to see off the threat.

After some mild peril the two groups get together and soon learn that they are not so different after all. Can this mixed group of lost souls bond and show America how to heal its wounds?

This was a decent western but it didn’t have nearly as much to say about the aftermath of the Civil War as I’d have thought. Given the set up I thought Wayne and Hudson would be at loggerheads from the off but after ten seconds of sizing each other up they were swigging bourbon like old pals. Of course the mutual respect for a fellow soldier is fair enough but without any conflict what was the point? There were minor scuffles down the cast list as old scores were settled but no one, apart from the Mexicans, were brutal or untrustworthy.

Wayne put in his standard ten gallon hat performance and you can’t criticise him for that. He did have some decent lines and I liked him bopping the corrupt army buyer on the nose “I ain’t done nothin’” / “Well ya should have done”. Hudson was less of a presence and generally just stood back and let Wayne do the heavy lifting. There were a few laughs sprinkled about with a fun ‘getting to know you’ punch up serving to clear the air and allow Wayne to do his rolled eyes when punched manoeuvre.

The locations were impressive as was the massive herd of horses which would have been a tough ask given the film pre-dates CGI. There were some decent gun fights but it was all PG blood free stuff. The healing and distrust was a bit overdone but every challenge was answered with virtue and goodwill and no doubt the film played as well in the south as in the north.

Personally I like my westerns a bit grittier than this and with more a story to tell, but it was undemanding and visually impressive stuff.

THE Tag Line  - Undefeated - Unless you watch ‘The Rounders’, ‘The Professionals’ ‘The Kentuckian’ and ‘The Bravados’.

60%

No.92 : The Marauders (1955)

The Marauders at the IMDb

Low key western action now in ‘The Marauders’  from 1955, a film with the distinction of starring no one I’ve ever heard of.

We open with a man stopping at a remote ranch looking for water. This is grudgingly given before he’s told to bugger off. Clearly this is a ranch owned by a social misfit or by a rancher experiencing troubles from the local cattle baron. It turned out to be the latter.

Our man is a homesteader who has the rights to settle where he likes. This is against the wishes of the poor sod who actually owns the place and understandably he wants the squatter out. He enlists the help of ‘the general’ a Confederate officer who now works as a bookkeeper and has illusions of being a great military tactician. They plot to take the ranch but meanwhile the rancher is showing his usual hospitality to a thirsty family. Sadly for them they don’t bugger off in time and they are soon holed up in the ranch as the bad guys make their play.

Luckily the ranch is at the bottom of a steep cliff and is easy to defend. The cattle baron is quickly dispatched but his nutty bookkeeper decides to rally his motley band of marauders to take the homestead. Fortunately the sheltering family all turn out to be solid shorts and soon they are assisting the defence so much so that the marauders think there is an army hiding in the small shack.

The bad guys plot like Wylie Coyote on acid but, like their inspiration, they are doomed to fail as they are outsmarted at each turn. The bookkeeper isn’t happy with developments and destroys the water supply meaning his men must secure the cabin or die of thirst. Can they get what’s rightfully theirs or will the squatter’s law of the jungle win the day? Will the precocious child survive and will the loss of Daddy mean the end of the rancher’s lonely nights?

This was a totally forgettable western that probably took a little longer than its 80 minutes running time to actually shoot. The characters were thinly drawn with the baddie bookkeeper with the English accent the only one with any colour. Sadly this colour was mostly brown as his sneering and conniving didn’t convince and he was as hammy as a bacon sandwich. The rest of the ‘Marauders’ were faceless nobodies although at least they kept the tradition of having one of them being a Mexican with a big sombrero.

The central relationship between the rancher and the wife was also thinly drawn with her largely unaffected when her husband ran off leaving her and her boy with their kidnapper. Although she gives him a small wound she’s quickly in line doing the womanly stuff like cooking the dinner and loading the guns. The boy wasn’t as bad as some but he grated all the same and sadly missed out on a grisly death.

If there was any subtext intended about the ideas of freedom or liberty I missed them as this just came across as a lazy script bashed out by someone who had a loan of some horses and cowboy hats for the weekend. Even the usual saving graces of great settings or elaborate gun fights were missing and the whole enterprise was instantly forgettable.

THE Tag Line : 80 minute eviction - Western Style  45%

No.89 : The Kentuckian (1955)

The Kentuckian at the IMDb

Burt Lancaster starred and directed this 1955 undemanding but overlong western.

He plays Big Eli, a frontiersman who feels civilisation has encroached too much onto his world and takes his son off on a quest to make a life in Texas where land is measured by your eye, not a rope and chain. Sadly this is easier said than done as low cost airlines are still some time away. Burt has saved up $215 to pay his passage and to secure some land. His boy is at the precocious age of being most annoying and Burt tells him he won’t be a man until he can blow a horn - don’t ask.

The pair soon encounter some small minded townsfolk who dislike Burt’s penchant for dog fighting. They slam him in the jail and he has to rely on a nice local lass for vitals. The girl, Hannah, is a kind of slave who is in servitude to her boss, who happens to be an abusive dick. She manages to free Burt, but his faithful dog leads the baddies to their campfire. Burt agrees to spend his whole bankroll on freeing the woman but even then still it seems cheap!

Burt arrives at his brother in law’s home and not surprisingly his hosts aren’t too impressed with his new purchase. The brother in law dislikes Burt’s lifestyle and presumably the coonskin cap he’s wearing, that no doubt stinks to high heaven. He tries to talk Burt out of his Texan dream and sets him up in a fancy suit and tries to teach him his tobacco selling business.

Burt however is more keen on Sophie, the local school teacher who is slightly hotter than Hannah but does come with the baggage of a crippled mother whom we only hear from up the stairs; and believe me she sounds a total nightmare. The boy however prefers Hannah and soon his own life is getting tougher as Dad’s mess ups cause him no end of high school hassles. Burt you see, has made a tit of himself as a freshwater pearl he found and sent to the President turns out to be worthless and send the whole town into fits of giggles.

Rather than lose face Burt decides to restore his bankroll and in an almost slapstick scene hustles some river boat gamblers by pretending to be a sucker with a large bag marked ‘$’. With his money now restored Burt has the choice of the ladies and of a life as a tobacco baron or as a Texan rancher. But wait! Walter Matthau and his handy whip may still have a part to play as will the boy’s horn.

This was an OK western but at approaching two hours it didn’t have enough meat on the bones to sustain the journey. Burt is a Daniel Boone type character rallying against the advancements society has made while he’s been rolling about in the dirt. His sage wisdom grated and his annoying son did nothing to help the viewer’s affections towards the pair. The women were mere chattels that Burt could pick and choose while they looked on with pathetic hopefulness. His big choice at the end was based on the burden of the mother in law more than the affection he felt for either woman, which makes him a stand up dude.

I did enjoy some aspects especially Walter Matthau’s character who was a sadistic bastard who was handy with the whip and the riverboat scene was good fun although totally out of kilter with the rest of the film.

All things considered the film wasn’t a hit but it did have enough elements to suggest a look if there’s nothing else on and your DVD player is broken.

THE Tag Line - Whip It Real Good
53%

No.87 : The Revengers (1972)

The Revengers at the IMDb

I’m not sure that ‘revengers’ is a word, and certainly my spellchecker doesn’t think so, but if it is a made up word at least it’s one that tells you what to expect. Yes people seeking, if not always getting, some revenge - western style.

William Holden plays Mr Benedict, an ageing rancher who returns to his family after business away. He’s a firm but fair father and has brought presents for all. Things are looking up as the army has offered his son a place at West Point owing to Benedict being a Civil War hero. As you’d anticipate this five minutes of contented bliss is shattered when bandits kill all his family while he’s away hunting a mountain lion. The bad guys are mostly Indians but they also have two white men in their ranks, one of whom has a distinctive milky eye.

Benedict takes the time to bury the five murdered family members before setting off on a mission to kill all the men who have condemned him to lonely Christmas dinners. He gets some clues and realises that as the bad guys are holed up in a notorious trouble spot that he’ll need to hire some guns. Rather than go to a bar or other desperado hangout he heads to a prison camp where he recruits six colourful characters including Ernest Borgnine (last seen in ‘The Vikings’) and a German and a Frenchman. If this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke you are quicker on the uptake than me!

Our trusting hero kits his now fugitive felons in new clothes and gives them guns and horses. It is no surprise when they all bugger off apart from the loyal black chap, but for no obvious reason they all return the next day having drunk and spunked away all their cash. They are soon ready to launch an assault on the bad guys’ base and manage to infiltrate it with an unlikely ruse regarding empty boxes. They shoot the place up but old Milky Eye gets away.

Not one to give up, Benedict chases after his man and is soon followed by his petulant posse who show an unbelievable streak of loyalty. A montage shows a year passing with all our guys still together - the Milky Eye bandit must be the World Hide and Seek Champion at this rate! Things start to fray and after a shocking bar room showdown they go their separate ways. While Benedict recovers with an Oirish lovely, his men start to catch up over some red eye. Can a new tip lead them to their quarry and will revenge be best served extremely cold?

This was as straightforward a western as you can imagine. Benedict is set up as happy and then revenge driven in the first ten minutes, and after that it’s basically ‘The Fugitive’ in cowboy hats. The locations and cinematography were great but the characterisation was lacking with the main bad guy barely getting a word in during his couple of brief scenes. OK this was an exercise in assessing the benefits of revenge and what it can do to people, but when the final showdown appeared I doubt any watcher was urging Holden to pull the trigger.

There was one clumsy scene where an old friend catches up with Benedict a year into his quest and says he’s now a stranger to him. He also is repulsed by a bloodstained bottle and retreats into one of his own. I get it that a bloodlust isn’t necessarily a good thing, but the character’s struggles with his dilemma didn’t convince.

On a more positive note the posse of six prisoners was good fun and they were grotty enough to be a ‘dirty half dozen’. Their motivations were mixed and I liked the self interest of Borgnine’s Mr Hoop, the only one who seemed realistic,. The rest looked like they were hanging about as they’d nothing better to do apart from one who, in a pointless sub plot, thought he might be Benedict’s long lost son.

The final battle was well staged with plenty of explosions and people falling off horses, as you’d expect. The final confrontation didn’t surprise but neither did the film in general so at least it was consistent!

Best Bit : Translator works from Hungarian phrasebook  64%

No.78 : The Rounders (1965)

The Rounders at the IMDb

Gentle cow poke action now as we check out this proto ‘Brokeback Mountain’.

Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford play a couple of ageing cowboy in what would have been the present day when this was made in 1965. The pair work at breaking wild horses and regularly have to postpone their plans and dreams as they inevitably piss away their earning at the saloon or on the ladies.

After breaking a couple of troublesome steeds, ranch owner Jim Love offers them a deal to round up any stray steers or horses for a tempting $7 a head. The guys agree and, after stopping in on their hooch supplier, head off to the hills to their romantic cabin.

The round up goes well and, despite a couple of mild run ins with other cowboys, their prospects look good. They have however rounded up all the fat and lazy strays and will need a fast horse to be able to rope all the lean and quick nags that remain. They have such a horse but it can’t be broken despite their repeated attempts. Winter passes in due course and although their Christmas party is ruined by a drunk horse they are soon ready to claim their cash.

The make a seemingly hefty $700 but as they head into town they have a brainwave - why fritter their cash as always? Why not risk it is a gambling scheme involving their wild horse? Along they way they pick up a couple of stranded strippers (the best kind!) and the plan is set. Will they find happiness or at least keep their cash and will the horse that has blighted their lives save the day?

I didn’t have this film down as a comedy at first as all the ‘laughs’ seemed to be people falling off horses, again and again. It does however gather pace and towards the end it’s like ‘Blazing Saddles’ with a big saloon fight and slide whistle bottom exposures.

The two leads work well together but there is no suggestion that they are in anyway attracted to each other and indeed woman are slotted in occasionally to remind you that these are red blooded men, albeit in double denim. Down the cast there are a lot of character actors mugging away for all they are worth and although not full of laughs, the film does have a good nature and no threat element whatsoever.

The direction is OK but I could have down with out the repeated sharp cuts of various people falling off the same horse - I know it’s a buckin’ horse but they don’t have to show it so buckin’ often! The Arizona locations are great and you do get a sense of the freedom that keeps drawing the cow pokes away to the hills year after year.

There is no attempt to layer the film with any sense of commentary on the nature of man or freedom; it’s more interested in plenty of pratfalls and a brief flash of bum that gets an over prominent showing on the poster above.

At less than 90 minutes the film isn’t asking for much of your time and even less of your analytical skills. It’s gentle feel good fun and a film that I enjoyed without feeling moved or asked to understand any concept or commentary.

THE Tag Line : Well Rounded - and that’s just the bums!   73%

No.76 : The Professionals (1966)

The Professionals at the IMDb

This is gonna be great - a big screen adaptation of the adventures of Bodie, Doyle and that bloke off the Fine Fare ads. What? 1966 western ? Buggeration!

This film had passed me by despite its stellar cast but it is a lot of fun and well worth a look.

The film opens with small vignettes featuring four characters from the early 20th century wild west. Lee Marvin is making a living demonstrating machine guns to the army, another chap works on a horse ranch and shows he’s a good guy by beating up a horse abuser. Elsewhere a chap who looks like Virgil off the wrestling is collecting a bounty while Burt Lancaster is hopping out of a lady’s bed in his long johns as her husband appears.

They appear unconnected but soon we are in a box car with Lee Marvin who is being offered a contract along side the two who aren’t Burt. Ralph Bellman (the rich guy who isn’t Don Amiche’ off ‘Trading Places’) offers a fat reward if they can return his wife from kidnappers. The Mexican revolutionaries who have her want $100,00 and although Ralph has the cash he doesn’t trust the gringos to return his wife when payment is made.

He’s picked Lee as he used to ride with the revolutionaries and knows their leader Raza (a moustache twirling Jack Palance). He agrees $10k a head and asks for an explosives expert to be hired too. Of course the expert is Burt who, when his bail is paid, has once again lost his clothes.

The guys set off into the badlands of Mexico and within an hour they are at the Mexican’s camp with a cunning plan. Things are complicated when the ‘kidnapped’ wife seems quite happy in Raza’s clutches but they grab her all the same and set off on the long journey home. This is fraught with danger and it’s not clear who’ll survive or what will transpire at the showdown when the rewards are due. They are ‘Professionals’ right? Surely they’ll take the cash from the evil rich guy?

This was a fun two hours with wall to wall recognisable faces. The performances vary but Marvin and Lancaster are true stars who shine in every scene. Lancaster especially exudes charm and is happy to take the less glamorous but easily most fun role of the clothes shy Dolworth. Marvin exudes his usual quiet menace and Palance is fine although most of his dialogue is yelled in Spanish.

The film looks great in HD and is as sharp as something shot yesterday. The familiar red rock of Arizona never looked better and the action scenes are well staged with plenty of blood and bullets flying. The plot is a bit straightforward with the big surprise signalled as soon as the rescued  wife offer to tend someone’s wounds - she’s nice, you see. They do try to tack on some stuff about the morality of a hired gun and your debt to brothers in arms, but ultimately what you remember is loads of Mexicans getting shot off their horses.

The film doesn’t take itself too seriously and although you won’t learn much about the revolution you will have a good couple of hours in the company of some great, long lost talent. You couldn’t see Zac Efron doing this!

THE Tag Line - Professional Job All Round  75%

No.66 : The Bravados (1958)

The Bravados on IMDb

Gregory Peck and Joan Collins are the unlikely stars of this 1958 colour western.

Peck plays Jim Douglas, a rancher with revenge in mind. We open with him approaching a small town and being warned off by a guard - the sheriff don’t want no strangers in town, see. Despite this warm welcome Peck finagles his way in after the sheriff marks him down as a pervert with a thing for hangings. The small town is having a four man hanging event the next day and all they need is the travelling hangman to show up so the show can go ahead.

Peck offers to help out but is soon boozing in the bar with Joan Collins. Collins looking well senior of her actual 25 years at the time of filming is an old flame of Peck's and is disappointed to hear that he’s married with a child. Slowly we learn that our man is a widower and that the four men due to be hung are those he has marked as responsible. With the hangman now arrived things should go smoothly - but wait! While the townsfolk, including a reluctant Peck, are at church the bogus hangman springs the four bad guys and the chase is on.

Peck organises the posse and soon they start to catch up with the felons. The bad guys make the classic mistake of splitting up, and it doesn’t take long for the remorseless Peck to thin their number to one. Can he put to rest his demons, and are his motivations just and indeed correct?

This is an enjoyable western that doesn’t attempt to do anything new with the genre. The jail break and chase are all you’d expect with some brutality from Peck notwithstanding. His moral ambiguity towards the end is in sharp counterpoint to the cheering townsfolk who care little about what exactly the bad guys did just as long as they did something.

Peck is excellent as the driven Douglas and looks to be doing his own stunt riding and lasso work. He cuts a mean figure in black and he’s pretty no nonsense with the pleading bad guys. His mask slips towards the end as the doubts set in but at least he’s rewarded with the lovely Joan who seems very keen.

Joan’s character is ill defined and it’s not clear if she’s meant to be American or English - or indeed Spanish as she shows up for church in a red flamenco dress. Her acting is consistent throughout - consistently awful that is. She doesn’t convince at any level and looks like a refugee from a make up commercial who wandered on set. Her emotions go from ‘Just let them go’ to ‘Kill them all’ in literally one scene and it’s not hard to see why her career floundered for many years, until she started taking her clothes off.

Of the remaining cast there wasn’t a lot standing out apart from a young Lee Van Cleef who wasn’t quite at his moustache twirling best. The horny escapee didn’t convince nor did their purty hostage who did little more than scream a lot.

The locations were fantastic and used to great effect in some panning shots that showed the difficulties the trackers faced.

The big reveal at the end was signalled from the off but if you watch this as a simple ‘posse’ film you’ll enjoy it, although I doubt it will stay long in the memory.

THE Tag Line - Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out - 68%

No.40 : The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist at the IMDb

This turned out to be John Wayne’s last film and fittingly he plays an aged gun slinger trying to live out his last days as the old west gives way to new fangled inventions and values.

Wayne plays JB Brooks a notorious killing machine who returns home to Carson City for a check up at Jimmy Stewart’s medical practice. After checking his trap door a grim diagnosis is given - he has cancer and a matter of days to live. After being given a bottle of dope by the Doc, Wayne heads off for some digs and manages to find a bed at Lauren Bacall’s B&B.

Becall is your stereotyped western widow with lots of huffing and disapproval of our man’s antics and language. She has an impressionable son in the shape of Ron Howard and quickly worries that the boy’s idolisation of Wayne can’t lead to anything good. Despite of his hopes of lying low, Wayne’s presence hasn’t gone unnoticed and pretty soon every man and his dog is at the door trying to turn a buck off his notoriety.

After booting out a newspaper man and biographer Wayne soon sorts out other conmen in the shape of the undertaker and Scatman Crothers’ horse trader. He realises that other less soft people may be on their way to settle some old scores and readies himself for one last show down. After shooting two night time assassins and wrecking the guest house, all of Becall’s other tenants move out leaving our happy trio a few days together before the inevitable blood bath. As the brigands descend on the town will Wayne get his wish of a quiet death or will he go down all guns blazing?

Most of what I’d heard about this film wasn’t true - Wayne didn’t have cancer throughout shooting (he did die of cancer 3 years later) and the film wasn’t specifically written for him as a swan song to a career in westerns - he was seemingly fifth choice for the lead. This misinformation sits well with the film however which deals with the difference between the legend and the man. Despite the locals all living in fear of Wayne, he is in reality a scared old man waiting to die.

The film opens in black and white with clips of old Wayne films showing him (and his character here) as a young man before dissolving into colour for the present day. The sets are well done with things like the horse drawn trolley car a good indicator that the wild west days are falling away. The film is set in the week following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the ‘end of an era’ feel permeates throughout.

Wayne has never been a favourite of mine but he does well in this role, showing just enough humility beneath his gruff exterior. It was fun to see him paired up with James Stewart although the latter’s performance is little more than a cameo followed by a wordless appearance at the end. Becall is good value as the spirited widow although I didn’t really buy the transformation in her affections for the potty mouthed hell raiser.

Ron Howard was OK as the impressionable lad although you are still thinking ‘Happy Days’ throughout. He didn’t ring true when he was swigging the booze but when he was doing his ‘can I mister, can I?’ routine he was fine. Of the bit parts John Carradine hammed it up big style as the undertaker and Scatman was good fun as the horse trader with an early eye for celebrity memorabilia.

The film runs a pretty straight narrative and there are no real surprises. It is good fun however and great to see some genuine Hollywood legends strut their stuff for one last time. The gun play and action is a bit low key but the characters are great and it’s well worth shooting down the DVD shop for. Or just download it - I don’t care.

THE Tag Line : Bang, Bang - I’m Dead 75%