The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw

Here's an odd formula for you. A very British actor, a busty bombshell, a British western (British?!?) and filming locations that would go onto bigger and better things within five years. What does all that add up to? A mostly entertaining, often fascinating 1960 western, The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw.

The son of the owner of a firearms company based in England, Jonathan Tibbs (Kenneth More) is looking for something to do. He doesn't feel quite at home in his father's company and is more comfortable building all sorts of crazy gadgets and contraptions. It doesn't take Tibbs too long to figure out a solution. Reading the newspaper one day, he reads a story about the violent wilds of the American west...where guns are quite prevalent. His rationalization? Where there's violence...there's guns so Tibbs packs up and heads to the American west in hopes of expanding his father's business. After plenty of travel, he ends up in the lawless town of Fractured Jaw where sheriffs can't seem to stick around too long. Well, they've got a new one. Through a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications, Tibbs becomes the new sheriff and the key to getting through it? A tough saloon owner, Kate (Jayne Mansfield), who takes a liking to the semi-clueless Brit. 

Go figure. This oddball, schizophrenic formula....it kinda works. In one of his last films, director Raoul Walsh helms this goofy, off the wall western. He was past his heyday back in Hollywood's Golden Age, working often with swashbuckling star Errol Flynn, but it's just one more choice you'd think wouldn't work but ends up working quite well. I'll watch anything western but a British western? It wouldn't/shouldn't seem to fit. Look, this isn't a classic. Far from it, things falling apart nicely in the last 30 minutes. When it does work, it's a pleasant change of pace, an entertaining mess. Oh, and those filming locations? 'Fractured' films on-location in Almeria, Spain where in about four years hundreds of spaghetti westerns were filmed. Makes sense, don't it?

Okay, let's cast a male and female lead, two actors who you'd never think would star in a British comedy western together. Hmm, and they're going to have to show off some lovey-dovey chemistry? How about Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield? DONE! But once again, 'Fractured' gets the last laugh. More is by far the best thing the movie has to offer. A character development that depends on misunderstandings sounds tenuous at best, but More just commits. He plays it all straight and never seems to be going really hard at getting the laughs. He just gets them. The fish out of water routine -- the gentlemanly Brit in the rough and tumble west -- works over and over again. More's Tibbs is a gentleman, polite and trying to make friends and in the process never seems to realize he's doing everything in about the exact wrong way you're supposed to do it. An example? Indians attack the stagecoach he's on so naturally he tries to approach them peaceably to tell them to stop. Oh, by the way. His plan works.

Because More is so good, the chemistry with Mansfield works. One of the biggest sex symbols of the 1950s and into the 1960s, Mansfield isn't a great actress but she makes a go of it. She's here to look sexy, wear very tight dresses and let her natural endowments do the rest. She also sings three different songs, but she's dubbed so that's not her real singing voice. Instead, we're left to consider how anyone could actually be built like that. She's a real-life Barbie doll!

Who else to look for? Some familiar western faces to help ease viewers into...GASP...a British western!!! Henry Hull gets the most screentime as Masters, the Mayor of Fractured Jaw who likes Tibbs immediately, even if he has no idea that his new sheriff can barely handle a gun, much less live up to a reputation of a hardened fast draw. Also look for Bruce Cabot as a rancher who wants to test Tibbs, William Campbell as the real deal, a real fast draw and gunfighter, and Robert Morley as Tibbs' uncle.

So 'Fractured' runs about 103 minutes and for 60 minutes or so, it's really good. Then it takes a detour it never really recovers from. More's Tibbs gets caught up in a sticky situation with two warring ranches and their armies of gunslingers as well as an Indian tribe looking to stir up some trouble. The fish out of water bit wears a little thin as things are stretched out to fill that running time. Still, the first hour is really fun, and I enjoyed it a lot. So in the end, it's an enjoyable mess with some surprisingly good performances. Yep, a British comedy western actually works. I would have bet big money against that thought!

The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1960): ** 1/2 /****

The Burglar

With a career that spanned three decades, Dan Duryea had quite a career in film and television, racking up over 100 different roles. He never became a huge star, instead becoming one of the best character actors to ever grace the screens in Hollywood. Like most character actors, he did get a crack or two at his own movies, one he could carry himself, and he doesn't disappoint in 1957's The Burglar.

Having grown up as a thief, always improving his skills and ability, Nat Harbin (Duryea) doesn't have many equals. He's a small-time thief though, never gaining much in the way of notoriety over the years. He pulls jobs that net him enough money to get him to the next job while also caring for his step sister, Gladden (Jayne Mansfield), who helps him and two other thieves. With his most recent job, Nat steals a necklace worth $150,000 but much to the dismay of his team, he sits on, waiting for the heat to cool down and the cops to back off. With each passing day though, the heat intensifies, and his two partners get more and more anxious. When Nat senses the cops are closing in, he sends Gladden to Atlantic City to hide out only to find out that a crooked cop (Stewart Bradley) is following her. Now it becomes a race against time to see who can get to her first.

I came away impressed with a lot of things from this Paul Wendkos-directed film noir. It is based on a novel by David Goodis (who also wrote the script), and it is the better for it. The best thing going here is Duryea as the anti-hero thief, a thief with a code of honor. It is the type of character that would pop up more and more in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. He's a criminal, a thief, no doubt about it, but he does operate by a code of sorts. No guns, no betrayals (if possible) and no messing around, just get the job done. His background is explained, showing how he ends up caring for Gladden, how he came to be the man he is. It is a quiet, perfectly understated part that gives Duryea a chance to shake off his bad guy typecasting. With a bit of that doom cloud hanging over his head, it is apparent things may not end well for him, but maybe, just maybe, there's a chance for him to get out clean.

Using Duryea's starring performance as a jumping off point, 'Burglar' manages to rise above the good but not great film noir list with some impressive style decisions. Yes, it is filmed in black and white, bringing to life the shadows and dim lights that populate the criminal underworld, but it's more than that. Wendkos takes what we know of the noir genre and makes it more of an arthouse film, an almost existential film. It is a lonely, isolated world, and Wendkos brings it to life with some startling jump cuts, some odd, off-center camera angles and a solid, appropriately jazzy, unsettling score from composer Sol Kaplan. The pacing can be a tad slow early on with some long, dull monologues, but once things get rolling, it doesn't really slow down, right up until the surprising finale.

While Duryea's performance is noteworthy, I think at least part of this movie's relatively unknown status is because the rest of the cast lacks any name recognition. Building up her sex kitten status, Mansfield shows she doesn't have a ton of acting range, but she's solid. Her looks are dulled down for the first half -- baggy clothes and all -- and then at the halfway point....ta-da! Bathing suit! Martha Vickers plays Della, a middle-aged woman with a checkered past, looking for something new in her life...and maybe with an ace up her sleeves. As the sinister, hovering villain, Bradley is a good counter, a bad guy with greed as his only real motivation and nothing else. Working with Nat as his partners on jobs are Peter Capell as Baylock, an older crook looking to retire and Mickey Shaughnessy as Dohmer, a brutish thug who is always worrying.

Shaking off the somewhat slow start, 'Burglar' picks up the pace when Nat realizes the crooked cop is on their trail. The ending is almost inevitable in its execution, but that doesn't take away from that tension-packed build-up. Nat and Co. head to Atlantic City to find Gladden, but when they run into a motorcycle officer that recognizes them, the plan takes a wicked plan. 'Burglar' films its finale on location in Atlantic City -- a time capsule to the late 1950s -- and it becomes a race against time as Nat, Gladden, cops (crooked and legit) all converge on the Steel Pier. It really finds its noir roots in the finale, a downbeat ending that nonetheless works extremely well. Highly recommended, shaking off a sluggish start. Watch the movie HERE at Youtube.

The Burglar (1957): ***/****