TONY PORCO’S MOVIE NEWSLETTER–WESTERN ROUNDUP ISSUE

As you may have guessed by now, I recently rediscovered my love of Western movies, so here is a newsletter full of Western reviews. As always, I’m curious what everyone thinks, and if there is enough interest, I may make this an annual special issue (or I might just include Western reviews more often in the regular newsletter). By the way, if you’re dying to read a review of a non-Western, I recently added several new ones to the short review page (http://www.geocities.com/museumcataloging/unreviewed.htm), including Luther and Primary Colors; When We Were Kings and Bend It Like Beckham are soon to come. Also, don’t forget that all back issues of the newsletter can be read at http://www.geocities.com/museumcataloging/movierev.html. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these....

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: This is one of the most famous Hollywood Westerns, and that is the way it should be, because there's very little it doesn't get right. The story, about seven gunfighters of varying personalities, pasts, and motives hired to protect a poor Mexican village from a gang of bandits, is earnest and moving. There's a lot of great, well-filmed gunfighting action, and a plot that takes surprising turns and never loses interest. There's even a terrific Elmer Bernstein theme song that everybody can hum or sing, even people who have never seen the movie ("duh-DUH-duh-duh, duh-duh-duhDUH-duh," followed by that great sweeping phrase that evokes so well the great sweeping West, "duh-DUUUUH, de do DUUUUHH-dah....") That said, my favorite thing about the movie is the (sorry) magnificent and varied performances. Everybody knows Yul Brenner as the hard-bitten leader of the gang, and Steve McQueen as his laconic assistant, but I also loved Charles Bronson's complex character (a role more than a little reminiscent of the one he played in The Great Escape, another widely-respected movie), Brad Dexter's Han-Solo-ish in-it-for-the-money-or-is-he character, and young Horst Buchholz playing a young Mexican who, like so many Young, Impetuous Men before him, has to Prove Himself. Eli Wallach played the villain (as he did in many other movies), and was just about perfectly cast as well. This is very worth seeing, but above all should be seen on a big screen, with that moving and gorgeous theme blasting all around you. (Lastly, I should mention that the movie is based on Kurosawa’s film The Severn Samurai, which I haven’t seen yet, but which is also supposed to be one of the best films of all time.) RATING: 10.

THE LONG RIDERS: Actor brothers Stacy and James Keach had an interesting idea–make a movie about Jesse James and his gang, who terrorized Missouri in the late 1860's, using real-life acting siblings to play the various family members in the gang. Thus, James and Stacy play Jesse and Frank James, the Carradine brothers play their associates the Youngers, Randy and Dennis Quaid play the Millers, and comedian Christopher Guest and his brother Nicholas (I didn’t even know that Christopher Guest had a brother) play the Fords, the nerdy rejects and resentful enemies of the gang. The movie could have been full of itself and this clever idea, but fortunately, it avoids that pitfall, and we quickly forget that these are real-life brothers. The film has so many other things going for it as well–some good performances, a fantastic soundtrack by musicologist Ry Cooder (who more recently did the score for Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?), a great opening sequence, and cinematography that manages to be both realistic and beautiful–that I hate to report that I still found it all a bit disappointing. It’s partly because the script wants us to show every gritty detail of the James Gang’s chosen profession (including those trite shots of people getting shot up in slow motion that Sam Peckinpah made popular), but also wants us to admire them, just as they were admired by many of their fellow Missourians in the old days.  The film even wants us to admire them for being on the Southern side in the Civil War, something that is troubling at best in a post-civil-rights-movement era.  (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a much better movie, did a better job of making its less-than-admirable subjects likable and interesting, although it was also paradoxically more honest about what they were.) What’s even worse is that the movie wants us to admire Jesse most of all, and yet he comes across as a bit of an enigma; the only thing we really learn about him is that he loved his family and was protective of it. (I would mention that for a man who loved his family, he didn’t seem too squeamish about killing fathers of other people’s families and taking other families’ money, but that’s the kind of thinking that this film really doesn’t want us to be doing.) Part of this is the script’s fault, but another part may be James Keach’s just-kind-of-average acting. He’s outshined by his brother, who plays a complicated Frank James, and by Keith Carradine, who is excellent as a brash, cynical Cole Younger. (Pamela Reed also turns in a good performance as a prostitute/girlfriend who repeatedly tussles with Cole, and would have been his equal in a less sexist time and place.) Maybe the (deservedly?) more famous Stacy Keach could have played Jesse James instead of Frank, and maybe this is all just another demonstration that, even among family members, good casting matters. RATING: 6.

HANG ‘EM HIGH: A stoic, solid former lawman (Clint Eastwood, of course) is framed for cattle rustling and murder by a group of cowboys, who lynch him and leave him for dead. The trouble is that he’s not dead, and is rescued by the local sheriff soon afterward; then, after enduring jail and proving his innocence, he is hired as a marshal by the fair-but-stern hanging judge of the Oklahoma Territory (Pat Hingle). While often violent and cynical, the story is still involving, raising tough questions about the choice between following the law and seeking revenge, and about the consequences of vigilante action that may disturb the many people who admire it. Eastwood may not be the world’s most versatile actor, but he’s just about perfect for certain roles, especially this one (Million Dollar Baby was another role suited to him), and his character and Hingle’s play off each other very well. The climactic scene is disturbing and hard to watch, but is also just about perfectly acted, scripted and filmed. If there’s a major problem with the movie, it’s the music, which is catchy and marches dramatically along with the action much of the time, but sometimes goes a bit overboard on the drama. The plot also depends on coincidences more than I like. That said, this is still a worthy addition to any Western fan’s collection. RATING: 8.