Saturday, October 24, 2015

1968 - BANDOLERO, a mighty lame western

Mediocrity reigns supreme in this stupid western.  First, lets consider the cast.  Dean Martin and James Stewart are outlaws brothers.  That throws most of your credibility out the window to begin with.  Since this film was made at 20th Century Fox, the studios contract sex symbol who never could act Raquel Welch is cast as the female lead.  Finish off the fun with everyone's favorite character actor George Kennedy who at least is trying to give a credible performance.


The script is by one of John Wayne's favorite hack writers, James Lee Barrett who had credits on The Green Berets, Something Big and the Cheyenne Social Club.  The director is the poor man's John Ford, Andrew McLaglen.  For a guy who was an assistant director to John Ford and William Wellman he sure didn't absorb much in the way of directing films competently from those gentlemen.


Raquel Welch is used about the way you would expect she would be used, as a tease.  Her love story with Dean Martin is completely ridiculous and never even remotely believable.  Martin and Stewart fallback on their charm and movie star charisma but even that is in short supply.


McLaglen directs the shootouts and action scenes in such a pedestrian manner, he manages to squeeze all of the excitement out of them.  The whole movie is forgettable.

106 minutes.

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