1974 - THE CASTAWAY COWBOY, another mediocre live action Disney film

Another live action Disney film made after the death of Walt.  I really don't understand these live action films they are just so poorly conceived and executed.  It's like the Disney organization needed to keep the movie pipeline going.  For the most part they put very little thought into the screenplays of these films.  The actual film making is at best dull. 

 

The Castaway Cowboy is just so typical of these films.  James Garner is what else, a castaway cowboy. Garner washes up on the Hawaiian island of Kauai where he ends up on the farm of widow Vera Miles.  Naturally Miles has a son badly in need of a male authority figure.  Garner uses his cowboy skills to round up cattle for Miles who is going to lose the farm to evil businessman Robert Culp.  The sale of the cattle will help her pay off the mortgage on the farm.

As you can tell, this film has a fairly decent cast.  It was filmed on location in Hawaii but the plot is just so lame.  Garner has to train a bunch of natives to be cowboys and there's a cattle drive you have to sit through.  This whole film could have been set in Texas instead of Hawaii but then the actors wouldn't have had a nice vacation in Hawaii.

 

This film was directed by Vincent McEveety a proficient and for the most part decent television director.  However his feature films are mostly forgettable in particular his Disney films.  Disney live action films were always considered safe entertainment for the entire family.  However what kid ever wanted to go see boring family films with their parents?

The film was written by Don Tait, the running time is 91 minutes.  

1967 - CHUKA, typical Western with an unusual cast.

Set in the American West it's the old story where the fort is surrounded by some savage Native Americans who the U.S. Army has decided to let starve to death.  Understandably the Native Americans are pissed.  Into this mess comes gunfighter Chuka and a whole bunch of other characters with lots of subplots to wade through.

Chuka has an eclectic cast to put it mildly.  He-Man Australian actor Rod Taylor is the gunfighter Chuka.  British actor John Mills is the weakling Colonel in charge of the fort.  Ernest Borgnine who was in a lot of films and TV shows (this guy liked to work) is the sadistic Army Sergeant.  Michael Cole the future "Pete" from The Mod Squad is a treacherous soldier.  Another busy actor James Whitmore is an alcoholic scout for the Army.

 

Well it gets better, Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi plays a Mexican Senora.  Paluzzi played Fiona Volpe a SPECTRE assassin in Thunderball which kind of typecast her.  Playing Paluzzi's niece is American model Victoria Vetri who would star as a scantly clad cave woman in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

 

Chuka is a film that has a fairly sympathetic view of the Arapaho Indians but that doesn't seem to slow down the number of Indians that Chuka shots with his trusty six shooter.  The film was directed by Gordon Douglas who had a long career it not a particularly distinguished one as a filmmaker.  Rod Taylor has a producer credit on this film.  Chuka is kind of the same old Western film stuff for the most part, been there done that.

The film was written by Richard Jessup who authored the original story, the running time is 95 minutes.

1974 - ZANDY'S BRIDE, a western and a love story (maybe)

In the old west rancher Zandy Allen has decided he wants to marry.  He places an ad in a newspaper and Hannah Lund agrees to be his mail order bride.  It turns out that Zandy is a real misogynist and treats his new bride like a piece of crap as he looks at her like she's a breed mare.  It's battle of the sexes time as Hannah fights to earn respect from Zandy. 

The leads are played by Gene Hackman as Zandy Allen and Hannah Lund played be Liv Ullmann.  However I would have to say that Hackman is playing one of the most repellent characters I have ever seen in film.  Watching this film it's impossible to understand why the Liv Ullmann character would ever stick around to be mentally and physically abused by this guy.

 

The other issue with the film is the storytelling. With the exception of Hackman's larger than life asshole of a character this film is mighty low key storytelling. The director Jan Troell is a Swedish filmmaker trying to blend his  European filmmaker sensibility onto a simple American western.  Troell gets some very mixed results.  I suspect the American  settings might have been a little beyond his ability to get a handle on this Hollywood production.

 

The film was shot on location in the Big Sur area of California so the locations are mighty impressive to look at.  Jan Troell was always a very strong visual director particularly in his Scandinavian films..  The scenery is probably the best thing in this film but most film goers usually don't watch movies for the pretty pictures.  

The film was written by Marc Norman, the running time is 97 minutes. 

1963 - WINNETOU aka Apache Gold

An odd bird of a western film.  This is in many way a typical "Cowboys vs Indians" movie from an original story by a German writer author named Karl May.  It was filmed on spectacular locations in Croatia in wide screen and with gorgeous color photography, this film looks really good.  When one thinks of European westerns what comes to mind are the Leone Italian "spaghetti" westerns, however in this case these German movies are I guess "sauerkraut" westerns or something.

Winnetou is a native American who is trying to make peace between the "white man" and the Indian.  This is the first in a series of seven films featuring this character and the character is played by what else, a French actor named Pierre Brice and is he ever a noble "red man" he just oozes nobility. 

American actor Lex Barker is Winnetou's white guy friend.  Barker had played Tarzan in five films and eventually ended up in Europe where he showed up in Fellini's La Dolce Vita and about 40 other European films.  He turned out to be a very popular performer in Europe.  In the Winnetou series he's a character called Old Shatterhand because he's a good fist fighter.  Well anyway Winnetou and Old Shatterhand gallop around Crotia righting wrongs.

 

For an odd ball of a western this film is surprisingly well made.  The action scenes are exciting and it was clearly produced on a large budget.  It's a well told story and doesn't have a lot of slow spots.  Sure everyone speaks in the German language for a film set in the American west which is a little weird.  But I've watched plenty of films from England and between the regional accents and all the slang the "Limeys" utter in that country, believe me subtitled European films are a lot easier to follow.   

The film was written by Harald G. Petersson, the running time is 101 minutes. 

1960 - THE SUNDOWNERS, a "Meat Pie Western."

A well made but almost plot free film set in the outback of Australia around the 1920's.  The story concerns a roving family of sheepherders moving flocks of sheep from one location to another. The mother wants a place to call home but the father is a free spirit who doesn't want to be tied down and that's about it for a plot.

The entertainment value comes from the director Fred Zinneman one of Hollywood's best storytellers and the excellent cast.  Robert Mitchum is the father and he does a decent job with his Aussie accent.  The mother is played by Deborah Kerr and their son is Michael Anderson Jr. the son of unsurprisingly the director Michael Anderson.  Kerr was one of Mitchum's favorite people to work with and he amusingly said "she was the only leading lady I never slept with."  

 

Zinnemann was a very meticulous filmmaker he carefully cast the supporting cast with some excellent actors.  Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns and an actual Australian actor Chips Rafferty who I think showed up in about every Australian film I've seen.

 For a story with an almost nonexistent plot Fred Zinnemann's story telling skill was so good The Sundowners is a very entertaining film.  Some of Zinnemann's other films worth checking out, High Noon, Act of Violence, The Seventh Cross, The Search and The Nun's Story.  

The film was written by Isobel Lennart, the running time is 133 minutes.

1976 - THE SHOOTIST, John Wayne's final film

The Shootist's reputation as John Wayne's final film is a decent enough final film for this legendary performer.   It's now well known that Wayne who was suffering from cancer and in poor health had quite a few challenges getting through the filming.  Probably because he wasn't feeling well Wayne apparently had a lot of conflict with the director Don Siegel who was a fairly feisty guy as well.

 

This story is extremely downbeat.  Wayne plays an aging gunfighter dying of cancer who has decided to spend his remaining days living in a boarding house run by Lauren Becall.  However Wayne's reputation has made him a magnet for a lot of people looking to exploit him for a buck.  This all inevitably draws Wayne into one last gunfight.

 

This is a real old timer's film loaded with lots veteran actors.  Besides Becall, there's Harry Morgan, Scatman Crothers, Hugh O' Brian, Richard Boone, John Carradine, and Sheree North.  There's also a somewhat miscast Ron Howard as the young kid Wayne befriends.  Howard does a decent job with his role but at this point in his career he was so identified with his "Richie Cunningham" role from Happy Days it was difficult to see him in anything else.  James Stewart is also in the film and he gives a very good performance in a relatively small part.

 

John Wayne brought all of his skill and authority as an actor to his final film but The Shootist is an extremely depressing film and some what of a downer to watch.  Don Siegel another old timer Hollywood guy was known as a director of action films but he did a good job on The Shootist which is primarily a character study.

The film was written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale, the running time is 100 minutes. 

1971 - RED SUN, international cast, mediocre film

Charles Bronson and Alain Delon are the leaders of a gang of outlaws.  Bronson is a bad guy with a few redeeming qualities.  Delon is a bad guy with no redeeming qualities. Anyway the gang pulls off a train robbery loaded with a bunch of gold.  Also on the train is samurai Toshiro Mifune who is on his way to delivery a priceless sword to the President of the United States.  The bad guys steal the priceless sword and Delon double crosses Bronson.  So Bronson and Mifune team up to take down Delon and the gang.

 This is a western set in the United States but filmed in Spain.  It has an international cast. American Charles Bronson, Frenchman Alain Delon, Swiss actor Ursula Andress and from Japan Toshiro Mifune all bundled together in a movie that only a bunch of lawyers and agents could put together.  The film was directed by Englishman Terence Young who wasn't exactly known for filming westerns and probably was available.  

If you think this film might have a rather disjointed and contrived quality to it you would be right.  The film also has a lot of action and for 1971, blood.  If Bronson and Delon aren't shooting someone Mifune is dissecting them with his sword.   

 

Red Sun is for the very discriminating viewer who has caught up on all those old Hopalong Cassidy movies on YouTube which are frankly more entertaining than this poor man's version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  

 

The film was written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, William Roberts and Lawrence Roman, the running time is 112 minutes.

1969 - THE VALLEY OF THE GWANGI, it's cowboys vs. dinosaurs.

This cowboys versus dinosaurs fantasy originated with Willis O'Brien who was never able to get a studio to back his film.  Years later stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen resurrected the property and with his producing partner Charles Schneer filmed this story in Spain.

Initially popular with a series of stop motion science fiction and fantasy films in the 1950's, Harryhausen had always labored with tight budgets as most Hollywood studios looked at special effects films as  poor stepchildren to their usual output.  Relocating to England Harryhausen produced some of this most entertaining films, Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon and One Million B.C. come to mind.

Even though the popularity of traditional special effects fantasy films had diminished by the mid 1960's with the film audience, Harryhausen soldiered on.   Valley of the Gwangi is a very entertaining fantasy film in the classic tradition.  The film has some entertaining sequences particularity the cowboys roping the Tyrannosaurus scene which was one of the most challenging stop motion scenes Harryhausen had ever filmed.  

Valley of the Gwangi was a victim of a studio regime change and was patronized by critics at the time of release.  With the passage of time the reality is that this is a very fun film   The film's reputation has actually continued to grow over time.  Steven Spielberg and his production team obviously took a look at this film before they made Jurassic Park.  One sequence in Spielberg's film was directly lifted from this film.

The film was written by William Bast, Julian More and Willis O'Brien, the film runs 96 minutes.

1973 - PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, Peckinpah's eulogy for the western film

Sam Peckinpah directed yet another one of those "end of the west films" which puts him in good company with John Ford. Don Siegel, Sergio Leone and George Roy Hill.  Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is about the friendship of Garrett and the Kid.  As the frontier ends and civilization i.e. corporate greed takes over Garrett chooses to take the side of corporate interests at the expense of getting rid of his outlaw friend

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid was a difficult production for Peckinpah.  Peckinpah's alcoholism, production overruns and a very hostile relationship with the failing MGM studios resulted in Peckinpah losing control over the final cut of the film.  The history of this film gets even more complicated as the film actually exists in three different versions.  The studio cut, Peckinpah's preview cut and finally a cut that assembled scenes from the studio cut and the preview cut which is called the special edition cut. Confused yet?

 

Peckinpah hired a cast of performers that he had worked with in the past. It's almost a curtain call of western actors,  James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Slim Pickens, Richard Jaeckel, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan, Katie Jurado, Jack Elam, R. G. Armstrong and in some really offbeat casting Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote the score for the film which really displeased Peckinpah.  Peckinpah himself shows up as what else, an undertaker towards the end of the film.

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid's reedited versions are now considered something of a masterpiece.  No question Peckinpah has a great feeling for western landscape.  He's also good with his actors and no one can photograph gunfights like him.  However I though  this film was very choppy and disjointed as the story moved from scene to scene.  I think you can blame this on Peckinpah's tampering with Rudy Wurlitzer's original script.  

In general Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is a good film but it is probably of greater interest to fans of the director.  

The film was written by Rudy Wurlitizer with uncredited rewriting from Sam Peckinpah, the running time is 115 minutes.

1975 - RANCHO DELUXE, western comedy about cattle rustling

This modern day (at least as modern for 1975) comedy is about a couple of cattle rustlers in rural Montana.  They have mostly been rustling from a rich cattle rancher named John Brown, one cow at a time.  The film involves Brown's attempts to catch the rustlers.

Rancho Deluxe is a comedy or to put it another way a very laid back comedy at times almost to laid back.  The film has been well cast with Jeff Bridges as a slacker cowboy, Sam Waterston as his Native American companion the typical white guy actor playing a role he shouldn't.  New York actor Clifton James is the Montana rancher John Brown and Elizabeth Ashley is his wife.  The actor who seems more like a western character than most of the cast in this film is Slim Pickens as a livestock detective.  Pickens is his usual amusing self.

 

There is funny stuff in this film but the humor is very low key.  The film has nice photography from William Fraker who was a top Hollywood cinematographer who excelled at filming in western settings.  The director Frank Perry was not a guy known for his comedic touch.  He had filmed David and Lisa, Doc, and The Swimmer.  Perry was also a director with a couple of camp classics in his filmography, Mommie Dearest and the insane Catholic priest drama, Monsignor two films that are certainly a lot funnier than Rancho Deluxe. 

 

Rancho Deluxe was written by the very quirky screenwriter Thomas McGuane the author of that weird Marlon Brando/Jack Nickelson film The Missouri Breaks. In the end for all of it's strangeness this film just doesn't quite hang together.

The running time is 93 minutes.

1990 - QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, a sort of Western film

Tom Selleck was born to play a western hero, unfortunately for him the western film genre died out when Sam Peckinpah killed it off with the The Wild Bunch which came out in 1969. Still this old school western, Quigley Down Under has a few things to recommend it especially for fans of this genre.

Tom Selleck is Quigley a buffalo hunter with a kick ass rifle who has answered a newspaper advertisement for a hunter in the Australian Outback.  Alan Rickman, repeating his Hans Gruber character from Die Hard, is looking for a sharpshooter to kill off Aboriginal Australians who he believes are harming his ranch.  Naturally Quigley being the western hero of this film turns down Rickman.  This leads to a lot of shooting and fighting as Quigley attempts to stop Rickman's killing spree.  Throw in Laura San Giacomo as a woman from Texas who somehow ended up in Australia and you have a reasonably entertaining film.

 

The plusses for this film are the on location photography in Australia, some decent action and good performances from the main cast.  The director Simon Wincer is probably best known for filming the outstanding TV miniseries Lonesome Dove which this film has a lot in common with.  But when you get down to it most westerns are simple good vs evil morality stories and this film is no exception.

 

Quigley Down Under is an enjoyable film in a genre that had ended 20 years earlier.  

The film runs 119 minutes, it was written by John Hill.

1970 - CHISUM, an average if entertaining western film.

Towards the end of John Wayne's film career the "Duke" was basically keeping the traditional western genre film alive by himself after it had died out.  Chisum will never go down as one of the great western films but it entertains in it's weird old fashioned way.  John Wayne was at the icon phase of his long film career and there's no arguing that he had his "John Wayne" character down.

Chisum is set during the Lincoln County War which was an actual range war that was fought over land in New Mexico.  The film does feature a number of iconic characters that were involved.  Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Tunsell, Lawrence Murphy and Wayne playing prominent rancher and land owner John Chisum.  As with all these "based on a true story" films the details and actual facts tend to get a little fuzzy. But when did a movie let facts get in the way.  I doubt John Chisum was the straight shooting  patriotic tough guy that Wayne portrayed him as.

 

The film was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen a charter member of this blog.  As I've said before McLaglen had been an assistant director for John Ford, Budd Boetticher and William Wellman so he was definitely familiar with working in the western film genre.  When he moved over to directing,  McLaglen while competent never seemed to have that special touch that a Ford or a Wellman could bring to a  film.  Chisum is fairly typical of his non style. McLaglen gets the job done even if there isn't a whole lot of artistry that he brings to a film.

As with any late period John Wayne film .  It’s loaded up with a lot of his old cronies.  Bruce Cabot, Forrest Tucker, Ben Johnson, Glen Corbett, John Agar and Hank Worden to name a few. These actors would frequently turn up in his 60's and 70's films.  A lot of them were drinking buddies of his.  It's rather comforting to know that these over the hill actors were still getting work thanks to the Duke.

Chisum is what you could call comfort food in movie watching.  There is nothing special about this story or the way it's told but it goes through the motions with it's  familiar fist fights, gun fights and cattle stampedes all of which are strangely entertaining in an odd mellow way. 

The film was written by Andrew J. Fenady, the running time is 111 minutes.

1956 - THE SEARCHERS - on the big screen.

John Ford's The Searchers is back in a new restoration and making the rounds at revival theaters.  This was probably John Ford's best film since The Quiet Man and probably his last masterpiece.

Ford certainly had his high and low points during the 1950's but with this film he finally had his best story in years,  Ford as was his custom loaded up the cast with a lot of his favorite actors, the famous John Ford stock company as it was called.  Ford also had John Wayne as the lead.  Ford and Wayne had been working together since Ford's silent film days.

 

Just as important as the cast was Ford's film crew.  Winton C. Hoch wsa a master technicolor cameraman who had worked on and off with Ford.  At times Hoch and Ford had a fairly stormy relationship since Hoch was a perfectionist when it came to cinematography but the results were certainly worth it.  Writing the screenplay was Frank S. Nugent who had worked with Ford starting in the 1940's.  Most importantly was the producer Meriam C. Cooper who found the property, raised the money for the production and brought Ford into it.  What all these men had in common was their ability to deal with the cantankerous and a times abusive director. not always an easy task.

 

Ford filmed much of The Searchers in Monument Valley Arizona a location he was very familiar with.  By this time in his career he knew every place that would feature the best locations while filming.  The on location photography is certainly spectacular. 

Although The Searchers is a western, the themes of racism, the treatment of Native Americans and miscegenation are present in the film.  In one of the only times in his career John Wayne  played a racist.  This was fairly tough stuff for the 1950's.  In many ways The Searchers was a career peak for John Ford who probably should have retired after this film but continued to work into the 1960's

The Searchers is not a perfect film but it is a great one. The running time is 119 minutes.

1958 - THE LAW AND JAKE WADE, disappointing but okay western

Considering the talent in front and behind the camera, this should have been a much better western.  Reformed bad guy turned sheriff Robert Taylor rides into another town to free his bank robber buddy Richard Widmark playing another psycho killer.    Taylor has seemed to forget the Widmark is a real bad guy,  Widmark takes Taylor prisoner along with Taylor's girlfriend.  The girlfriend seems a rather improbable plot device to get a woman into what is essentially an all male story.  They all set out for an abandoned ghost town to get the loot from the last robbery they pulled together.  It all ends predictably of course.

What this story has going for it is on location shooting in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California This is a favorite place of the director John Sturges.  Sturges has also staged some decent gunfights and encounters with some Native Americans in a ghost town.  Sturges was at his peak as one of the best action directors in Hollywood.

The chief culprit in this film is the writer William Bowers whose best films were spoofs of the western genre in films like Support Your Local Sheriff and The Sheepman, Bowers seems a little out of his element scripting a film that is more a western action drama than a comedy.  Interesting enough Bowers played a Senator in The Godfather Part II.

 

John Sturges is a couple of years away from his masterpieces, The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, but his talent is very evident even in a rather tired western story like this one.  The film does have nice photography courtesy of old pro Robert Surtees.

The running time is a quick 88 minutes

1994 - LEGENDS OF THE FALL, attempt at an epic Western film

The director Edward Zwick working from a novella by author Jim Harrison a guy who likes to put a lot of macho posturing in the stories I have read of his.  Zwick tells the epic tale of a family with a ranch in Montana fighting off corruption from the authorities while making a complete mess out of their personal lives.

 British actor Anthony Hopkins is the head of the family, Aidan Quinn is the son who wants to get into politics, there's a younger brother whose name escapes me but it doesn't matter anyway since he ends up dying in World War I early in the film.  However the big casting news in this film was Brad Pitt as Tristan a handsome fellow who likes to run around and challenge bears to fist fights as a test of his manliness.  Needless to say all the women swoon over him.

The film has the requisite couple of hot frontier women.  Julia Ormond, another British actor, is married to Quinn but secretly pines for hunky Brad Pitt, that won't end well.  Karina Lombard is the young farmer girl living on the ranch who grows up looking like a hot Vogue model who Tristan ends up with.

The film is well photographed by John Toll on some spectacular Canadian locations, apparently Montana couldn't cut it when it came to location filming for this film.  The director does keep the story moving along although some of the plotting might be a little questionable.  If you are in for a western epic I guess this will do.

The film was written by Susan Shilliday and William D. Wittliff.  As befits an epic film, the running time is 133 minutes.

1971 - DON'T TURN THE OTHER CHEEK aka LONG LIVE YOUR DEATH

This Spaghetti Western wants to be a light hearted action comedy.  It's got three reasonably entertaining leads.  Lynn Redgrave is an Irish revolutionary in Mexico trying to help the revolution.  Mainstay Italian actor Franco Nero ( really hamming it up) is a con man named Orlowsky who may be a deposed Russian prince.  Eli Wallach is also in the film basically recreating his "Tuco" character from The Good The Bad and The Ugly, although this time his name is Max Lozoya.

This is strictly very undemanding action film making.  The actors do what they can with an uninspired script, but the film just plods along until the viewer finally gets to the big battle scene at the end which is kind of entertaining.  The film clearly had a decent budget, the photography isn't bad but the reality is that this has been done before and probably with a lot more inspiration than this director could muster.  Only an okay time killer at best.

The film was written by Masimo De Rita,Gunter Ebert, Dino Maluri and Joan de Orduna.  That's a lot of writers for such an inconsequential film. 

 The running time is 103 minutes. 

1951 - WESTWARD THE WOMEN , unusual but good western film

This film is about the 1851 journey of a group of women on a wagon train to meet prospective husbands in California.  The film's original story was written by Frank Capra who at one time wanted to make it.  Fortunately the film ended up with tough guy William "Wild Bill" Wellman directing.  God knows what kind of sentimental mush Capra would have turned it into.

For a film released in the early 1950's it has an unusual feminist slant which for the most part isn't compromised in the story telling.  The film was photographed in Utah on what looks to be like fairly harsh locations.  William C. Mellor was the cinematographer, he was usually associated with George Stevens. but working with Wellman he went for a very harsh look to the photography.

 

Robert Taylor is the lead and he's very good.  In one scene he dishes out some tough justice to a cowboy who has raped one of the women.  Taylor had started his career as a pretty boy at MGM.  As he got older he grew into more interesting roles.  Still the focus of the film is on the women in a series of interesting vignettes.

 

William Wellman was considered a guy's director, but he had a successful collaboration with Barbara Stanwyck and was the director on the first A Star Is Born film.  Wellman was from the John Ford school of film making.  He had a no nonsense visual style and also didn's put up with a lot of nonsense on his set.  Westward The Women is an exccellent film and one of Wellman's best efforts.

The screenplay was by Charles Schnee, the running time is 118 minutes.