The War Wagon

I love westerns. I love heist movies. They're two of my favorite genres. So what happens when you combine the two? And throw in two of my all-time favorite actors? Oh, no.....it's a movie nerd alert!!! With just an air of fun hanging over the whole story and production, it's hard not to get on-board and truly enjoy the 1967 western The War Wagon.

Fresh out of jail after serving a three-year sentence for a crime he didn't commit, former rancher Taw Jackson (John Wayne) heads home with revenge on his mind. Framed by a local businessman and landowner, Pierce (Bruce Cabot), Jackson wants to exact revenge where it hurts most...Pierce's gold mine. The attempt would seem suicidal though, Pierce paying for an armor-plated wagon outfitted with a Gatling gun and guarded by 33 outriders that transports the gold from the mine to the train station that would prove to be a major deterrent to any would-be robbers. Jackson isn't about to give up though, but he does need some help, including an unlikely partnership with a hired gun named Lomax (Kirk Douglas) with whom he's had a deadly rivalry in the past and has the bullet wounds to prove it. With a small team of fellow crooks, Taw puts his plan into action to rob the armor-plated wagon, the War Wagon. But just how in hell is he going to pull this off successfully without getting shot full of holes?

This is a movie that's just hard not to like. It was a staple on AMC and TNT growing up so I saw it many times, and it's one I always look forward to revisiting every so often. This last time, well, it had been quite awhile. From tough guy director (and a Wayne favorite) Burt Kennedy, 'War' is one of those perfectly straightforward westerns with no pretensions about the changing times or a revisionist view. It's F-U-N, plain and simple, mixing so effortlessly that western setting with a heist story. Put a crew together, give them a crazy, no way in hell this works mission, and let things fall where they may. Not the best, but one of the most purely entertaining westerns to come out of the decade.

So John Wayne and...Kirk Douglas. Please and THANK YOU. The duo had worked previously together in 1965's In Harm's Way and 1966's Cast a Giant Shadow, but this is the best pairing because it just lets these two pros go to work. Yeah, the heist is fun throughout, but you watch this movie for any and all scenes between Wayne and Douglas. The dialogue crackles between them, a rivalry that treads that fine line between joking and deadly serious. There's some genuine menace in the chemistry, but you just sit back and watch things develop. The best part? They're clearly having a blast. An underrated comedic actor to begin with, Wayne gets to show off his funny chops with some great line deliveries, and Douglas is the perfect foil as Lomax, a hired gun who's a bit of a dandy but takes his job supremely seriously, especially with so much potential money on the line. You couldn't ask for a better star duo to lead the adventure film.

Any good heist needs a good heist team so who to look out for? Certainly a motley crew of crooks, including the very white Howard Keel as Levi Walking Bear, Keenan Wynn as Wes, an employee of Pierce's, and Robert Walker Jr. as Billy, an explosives expert with a drinking problem. A Wayne friend and favorite, Cabot looks to be having a ball as Pierce, the sneering, menacing crook with a whole bunch of power. Also cool to see background player Don Collier get a more visible part as Pierce's right-hand man. Also look for Joanna Barnes, Valora Noland, Bruce Dern, Chuck Roberson (Wayne's stunt double), Emilio Fernandez, and Gene Evans rounding out the cast.

'Wagon' has a lot of little things going for it that combined make for a significantly better flick. Durango, Mexico was one of Wayne's favorite filming locations including Sons of Katie Elder, The Train Robbers, Chisum and here with 'Wagon.' The Mexican mountains and wilderness provide an intimidating, authentic backdrop to the story. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is a gem, big and booming, perfect for an adventure story and one that instantly screams 'Oh, yeah, that's Tiomkin music.' Lastly, an oh so perfectly bad theme song that you can listen to HERE. It's awful, but my goodness, is it ever catchy. I defy you to watch the movie and not to be humming along to the theme days later.

But, ah yes, the heist. There's hints along the way of what Taw, Lomax and Co. are up to, but nothing too specific. So like the best heist movies, as the caper develops, we're in the dark to the exact details, all of that adding a sense of mystery to the proceedings. Nothing too crazy here other than a matter of split-second timing, some dumb luck, and one rather prominent plot hole if you ask me. But there's no point in ripping it to pieces too hard. This is a movie that's meant to be a hell of a lot of fun, and it succeeds throughout on that premise. Wayne and Douglas are pitch perfect together and look to be having a ball.

Sit back, enjoy and let that fun take over from there.

The War Wagon (1967): ***/****
Rewrite of February 2009 review

Nevada Smith

Just a few weeks ago, I watched and reviewed 1964's The Carpetbaggers, the story of a business mogul expanding his empire in the 1920s and 1930s. A minor character in the story? An aging cowboy turned western movie star, Nevada Smith. His backstory is explained but not shown. That's for a prequel made two years later, 1966's Nevada Smith.

Working at his father's played-out mine that has recently produced some gold deposits, a young half-breed Max Sand (Steve McQueen) is away from the house when three outlaws (Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy, Martin Landau) ride up looking for that gold. Max is too late to help though, arriving at the house to find the tortured, mutilated corpses of his parents. The outlaws are nowhere to be found, but their trail is easy enough to follow. Max's biggest problem though? He's capable of caring for himself on the trail, but he has little money and no real experience with guns, especially when it comes to actually using a pistol or rifle on a human being. Desperate and with no supplies left, Max tries to rob a man on the trail. Instead, the man, Jonas Cord (Brian Keith), an experienced trailsman and capable shot, teaches Max all he can in his quest for revenge. His biggest advice though? Abandon his quest for revenge and move on with his life, but Max isn't hearing it.

It had been years since I watched this 1966 western from director Henry Hathaway (a solid western director, True Grit, Sons of Katie Elder). My biggest takeaway? It isn't as good as I remembered. Still good, still enjoyable, but not as good. There's still positives to take away though. 'Nevada' was filmed on-location in Inyo National Forest and the Owens Valley in the Sierra Mountains. Visually, it is a stunningly good-looking film with the mountains as a backdrop to the revenge story. The score from composer Alfred Newman is solid -- especially the main theme -- but isn't necessarily used enough. The best thing going is the revenge motive, a pretty gruesome story at times. Not graphic, just really violent because we know what's happening. Stabbings, drownings, choking, beating, systematic shooting of an unarmed man. It can be pretty rough at times.

So if you watch this 1966 western and come away a little confused, there's a good reason. The Max Sand character is young, really young. I'm assuming a teenager, maybe approaching 20. When the movie was made in 1965, McQueen was...35. And he's a half-breed with a white father and Kiowa mother. So yeah, he doesn't really look like a teenage half-breed (with his blonde hair too) in a pretty obvious case of miscasting. Still, McQueen makes the most of it. With the revenge motive, it is a fascinating character. Max -- later dubbing himself Nevada Smith -- becomes obsessed with killing his parents' murderers no matter what the cost on those who are helping him. McQueen does a good job in a physically demanding part, doing his own stunts while also adding a dimension of pure physicality to the performance. It's not often spoken words, just a sad look here, a drop of his shoulders there. Not ideal casting, but McQueen makes the most of it.

But the rest of the cast? The rest of the cast?!? It's pretty great. Brian Keith has always been one of my favorites, but I think this is one of his bests. His Jonas Cord is only in the movie for about 20-25 minutes but steals every scene he's in. His chemistry with McQueen is pretty perfect, and their scenes together crackle, an experienced hand with a gun trying to teach the younger Max all he can through good and bad. The Jonas/Max dynamic has always been my favorite, the movie's strongest point. With the episodic story, Malden, Kennedy and Landau make the most of their screentime, three particularly nasty villains you can't wait to see get their due. Raf Vallone is good too as Father Zaacardi, a priest who comes across Max and helps him in a time of need. Also look for familiar western faces Gene Evans, Paul Fix, Pat Hingle, John Doucette, Lyle Bettger, Howard Da Silva and Strother Martin in supporting parts.

Where does 'Nevada' go a little off the tracks then? At 130 minutes, it drifts too much with some extremely slow portions involving the episodic story. There just isn't a ton of energy at times. Two semi-love interests are added, Janet Margolin as an Indian dance hall girl and Suzanne Pleshette as a Cajun girl, are meant to show Max's obsession over a possible future with either, but they become repetitive and tedious. Just not a ton happens. The performances are good, the locations cool, but it's missing that special something. Good but not great.

Also worth mentioning is a western nerd moment. Any western fan who's seen any number of 1960s westerns will recognize Chuck Roberson, Chuck Hayward and Jerry Gatlin as background players and supporting parts. 'Nevada' takes that to new levels. Watch closely and you see them all playing multiple parts. In one scene, Roberson is part of Malden's gang, and the next he's Paul Fix's deputy. It's a little much and a little lazy, something Hathaway also did in Sons of Katie Elder. Thus ends this rant.

Nevada Smith (1966): ** 1/2 /****

Force of Arms

Yuck, here we are again. War movies that aren't content to just be war movies. What else gets added to the formula? A love story, two tortured souls brought together because, God bless it, the universe just wants it to happen! Those crazy kids, they just belong together even if the war will do its best to keep them apart. Today's entry is 1951's Force of Arms.

It's 1943 and the fighting in Italy is intensifying all along the front. After weeks and months on the line, an infantry platoon commanded by Sgt. Joe Peterson (William Holden) is tasked with one more objective. Though it costs heavy casualties, the platoon retakes an important position from the Germans. The entire unit is awarded five days of leave far removed from the muddy, cold front lines, Peterson meets a WAC, Lt. Eleanor MacKay (Nancy Olson), who he starts off on a rocky path almost immediately. Still, as they argue and test each other back and forth, both Joe and Eleanor can't deny their attraction to each other. The clock is ticking though as the soldier and the WAC must decide where to go next before Joe returns to the front line fighting. Can they come to terms with how they feel about each other in time?

Gag me, I hate when I have to write plot descriptions like this. Don't get me wrong. If there's a good romance war story out there, I'll give it a fair shot. Also, I don't really count Casablanca. I'm talking war stories, men on the front lines when the story takes a detour for some loving away from the front. Director Michael Curtiz's flick has a ton of potential because the portions focusing on the fighting, on Peterson taking a leadership role, of the platoon both in action and resting, that is 'Force' at its strongest. Too much time is spent on the budding relationship between Holden and Olson in the process. 'Force' is filmed in black and white with some cool location shooting, California filling in surprisingly well for Italy. It has a gritty, worn look, but dang, enough with the love story.

Holden is one of my favorites, and Olson has more than held her own in Sunset Blvd., Battle Cry and several other flicks. They have some decent chemistry together, but this script does them absolutely no favors. They meet in a military cemetery in the dead of the night and at no point does Holden's Peterson ever think "Hmm, I wonder what she's doing here? Maybe someone she knew...died?" From there, we get to know two folks working through some stuff -- Peterson the war wearing him down day to day, Eleanor trying to overcome a lost love -- with death hanging in the air. They wonder aloud what love really is, question if they truly can love, take dreamy walks on the Italian countryside, and share tons of scandalous hugs where they rub faces. A love story is one thing. One that moves this sluggishly with not enough of a payoff? Yeah, not good.

At times, 'Force' reminded me of 1959's Never so Few, a WWII story that is at its strongest when it focuses on the war, on the soldiers, on the combat. That's 'Force' in a nutshell. The story starts at its strongest as Peterson's platoon is tasked with retaking a German-held position on a rocky hill. This isn't large scale warfare but a small unit of soldiers going toe to toe against another small unit of soldiers. The violence isn't graphic, but it's startling and quick just the same. That's most of the action/combat scenes, including the platoon moving into position under heavy German guns and later navigating an Italian town with winding streets and German shells and mortars raining down on them. As quick as these segments are over, the script jumps right back to the love story. Oh, joy.

Beyond Holden in the soldier department, look for Frank Lovejoy as Major Bradford, the unit's commanding officer and an old friend of Peterson's from back home. Commanding officer and one of his trusted officers but also friends with a past. In Peterson's platoon, look for Gene Evans as McFee, worried what his wife is up to back home, Dick Wesson as Kleiner, a capable soldier and a capable smartass, Paul Picerni as Sheridan, the smooth Italian (similar to the part he played in To Hell and Back), Ross Ford as Hooker, the southern farmer, Ron Hagerthy as Minto, Peterson's runner, and a young Don Gordon in one of his first speaking parts as Sgt. Webber. I like the group dynamic, their friendships, their arguments. It feels natural, and I just wish there was more of it.

A mixed bag unfortunately. When it's good, it's pretty good. When it's bad, love is pretty rough to watch.

Force of Arms (1951): **/****

The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory

In its history, Hollywood continues to go back to the well on certain historical events. The battle of the Alamo has been the focus of major studio productions like John Wayne's The Alamo in 1960 or more recently in the accurate, well-told 2004 version that flopped in theaters. It has even been shown as a background piece in movies focusing on the Texas revolution as a whole. Split the difference in years between the two major movies, and we get a TV movie from 1987, The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory.

It's February 1836 in San Antonio, Texas, and Colonel William Travis (Alec Baldwin) and Jim Bowie (James Arness) command a little over 100 volunteers, all the while awaiting the arrival of the Mexican army under the command of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (Raul Julia). When Santa Anna's army of several thousand men arrives, Travis, Bowie, Davy Crockett (Brian Keith) and their ragtag force retreat into the Alamo, an old Spanish mission, in hopes of stalling the army as long as possible. The fort is in ruins though, and Travis' command is far too small to defend it adequately. The Texans inside wait and wait for help, hoping reinforcements can arrive in time before Santa Anna's soldiers storm the walls.

Made for NBC in 1987, this made-for-TV movie is based off the novel of the same name from author Lon Tinkle. Veteran director Burt Kennedy takes the helm, working with a small budget that limited what he could do with the story. This is not the epic that Wayne made, '13 Days' instead made on a much smaller scale. There's never any sense of an enormous, overwhelming Mexican army waiting outside the walls, just a few extras in Mexican soldiers' uniform. Drawing further comparison to Wayne's version, the miniseries was filmed on location at Alamo Village, the set Wayne built for his 1960 film. It adds some needed realism to the scaled-down story with composer Peter Bernstein's score aiding the cause, especially in the final battle and the main theme.

Watching this since I was a kid, I have a soft spot for '13 Days' but I can still appreciate some of its truly bad, awful moments. Historical accuracy is one thing, but there are some real oddities here whether it be from a lack of budget or just a bad script. We see the same shots over and over again, a cannon being fired, the Alamo defenders firing in a volley, Mexican cavalry riding in front of Santa Anna's tent, just to name a few. There's also moments of mind-blowing stupidity, like Mexican artillery firing a cannon with a ramrod still in the gun's barrel. Other winners? Capt. Dickinson (Jon Lindstrom) tells wife, Susannah (Kathleen York), he'll be back at night to bring her into the Alamo. Oh, by the way, the Mexican army is on the edge of town. Colonel Fannin's relief column consists of about 15 men, a supply wagon and a cannon. Low budget for that one. It's those little things -- like David Ogden Stier's Col. Black, a fictional English officer fighting with the Mexicans -- that strike an odd, out of left field note.My favorite though is Alamo messenger Jim Bonham (Jim Metzler) calling Sam Houston (Lorne Green in a bizarre cameo) a coward. First, no such meeting ever occurred, but it is an unintentionally funny scene.

With such recognizable names as Crockett, Bowie, Travis and Santa Anna, '13 Days' goes 2-for-4 in the casting department. Keith and Arness are just too old to play Crockett and Bowie. Keith was 66 at the time, Arness was 64 while in 1836 Crockett was 50 and Bowie just 40 years old. They give it a valiant effort -- Keith's Crockett a mix of real-life David and legendary Davy, Arness' Bowie an imposing, intimidating figure -- but it never completely clicks. On the other hand, a young Alec Baldwin is a great choice to play Travis, a young, brash officer thrust into a command position, rising to the occasion with his life on the line. His line in the sand speech is one of the best from all the Alamo movies. '13 Days' is also one of the few movies to portray Santa Anna somewhat fairly, Julia doing a great job with the part. He's both an obsessed, possibly lunatic leader and also a president trying to save his country.

Thanks to Tinkle's novel, the TV miniseries also tries to turn the spotlight on some of the other Alamo defenders including Metzler's Bonham and Lindstrom and York as the Dickensons. York especially represents herself well as Susannah Dickinson, the strongest portrayal of the real life woman yet committed to the screen in an Alamo movie. There's also Travis' slave, Joe (Hinton Battle), Juan Seguin (Michael Wren), the Alamo messenger, and Eloy Casados as Gregorio Esparza, one of the Tejanos fighting in the Alamo. Other defenders include Tom Schanley as Danny Cloud, a Tennessean engaged to a local girl (shrill Laura Fabian), Tony Becker and Ethan Wayne (the Duke's son) as the Taylor brothers, George and Edward, Buck Taylor and Stan Ivar as Colorado Smith and Doc Sutherland, two more messengers, along with Gene Evans, Grainger Hines, Tom Everett, Jerry Potter and Jay Baker. With so many characters, most aren't given much development, just enough to introduce them and be somewhat interested in them.

With a few slower segments over its almost three-hour run-time, '13 Days' picks up in the final hour as reality sets in that no help is coming for the beleaguered defenders. It sets the tone well for men awaiting their death, wind whipping around the fort, silence hanging in the air. For its small scale and reliance on re-using shots repeatedly for action sequences, the final assault on the Alamo on March 6 is a surprisingly effective battle scene. You can watch the final attack HERE at Youtube. For the "big" shots, footage from 1955's The Last Command was used, some obvious editing showing how different the Alamo looked in the two films. The battle is easily the high point of the movie, making up for some of those slower portions. The defenders finally being overwhelmed supply some surprisingly emotional moments, again aided by the music.

Faults aside -- and there's a-plenty -- '13 Days' works fairly well because like most Alamo movies, it gets the message right. Outnumbered against an army of thousands and surrounded on all sides, less than 200 men decided to stick it out and fight, knowing death awaited them with that decision. When it would have been easy to surrender, they fought on. So even through the cheesiness, the bad casting, the general low budget feel, '13 Days' is still well worth a watch, especially for Alamo buffs.

The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory (1987): ***/****

Gold of the Seven Saints

For better or worse, when I hear the name Roger Moore, I think of James Bond. To be fair, I do that with all the actors to play 007. Unfortunately typecast -- like Connery, Dalton and possibly Craig -- for one part, it's easy to forget that Moore was a solid actor before and after his Bond days. As a fan of Moore no matter the part, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a western he starred in, 1961's Gold of the Seven Saints.

Partners in trapping furs for three-plus years, Jim Rainbolt (Clint Walker) and Shawn Garrett (Moore) have hit it big, finding a gold vein in a creek that produced over 250 pounds of gold dust and nuggets. Trying to get the gold to a town, the partners are in trouble. Shawn gets caught stealing a horse to help carry the gold and is forced to buy that horse...with a gold nugget. Now people in this little western town know gold is in the area. Racing across the desert, Jim and Shawn must keep ahead of a murdering gang led by McCracken (Gene Evans). They pick up a third partner along the way, a drunken doctor, Gates (Chill Wills), and find themselves with little water and supplies, the gang drawing ever closer.

Thanks to Turner Classic Movies I found this western by accident recently, and am I glad I did. From underrated director Gordon Douglas, 'Gold' is a hidden gem lost in a sea of bad westerns from the 1950s and 1960s. It is shot on location in Dead Horse Point State Park (along the Colorado River), Arches National Park, and Red Rock Canyon State Park and offers some of the most stunning views I've ever seen in a western. Filmed in black and white, it looks amazing, but I can't help but wonder what it would have looked like in color. The story though is what sets it apart, and not for the reasons you'd think. For all the twisting and turning so many movies offer, 'Gold' is on the straight and narrow, good vs. bad to a point but more so survival and greed.

Throw large amounts of gold into any equation, and you can sit back and watch the fireworks go off. Treasure of the Sierra Madre showed that the best, greed can make men do a lot of bad things. 'Gold' early on though is as simplistic as they come (and for the better), an extended chase as Jim and Shawn desperately try to make a getaway with their hard-earned treasure. Evans' McCracken is a particularly nasty opponent, willing to dispatch anyone in his way, and even Jim's old friend, Gondora (Robert Middleton), a bandit turned "respectable" rancher, has his eyes set on the gold. There isn't anything flashy about the story and how it develops, we know eventually Jim and Shawn will have to defend their gold, but getting there can be a lot of fun. It isn't just good and bad as I mentioned before. 'Gold' has just enough of a darker, more cynical side to help it rise above the rest.

One of the key character elements to come out of the western maybe more than any other genre is the two partners, the sidekicks, the friends who back each other through thick and thin. Nearing the end of his run on TV's Cheyenne, Walker paired with a very young-looking Moore (he was 34 at the time) is a great pair in the vein of any number of western buddies. Yes, it's the buddy western relationship. At first glance, the pairing of Walker -- built like an NFL linebacker -- and the very-British Moore wouldn't seem to work, but it does. They're partners and friends first and foremost, arguing and talking like two people who have worked together for several years. They bitch and moan at each other, poking fun, but mostly they look out and back each other when the chips are down. And there's just a bit...a bit...of tension to keep things interesting, especially when a woman (curvy Leticia Roman) is involved.

I was a little worried when Middleton's Gondora arrived in the story, but it adds another dimension in the second half of this 88-minute flick. The last half hour is the darker part of the story, all the different individuals coming together to fight it out for many lifetime's worth of gold. The ending has a surprising twist of fate, but not a cruel one, the movie ending on a still positive note. The supporting performances are good, Wills hamming it up as the drunken doctor (he did this part a lot and excelled at it), Middleton the larger than life bandit who loves money, killing and women, and Evans is the sneering, murdering gunslinger. I really liked this movie and came away impressed. It deserves more recognition. Not a classic, but an above average, highly entertaining western.

Gold of the Seven Saints <---Youtube clips (1961): ***/****

Shock Corridor

For a look into a mental institution, one needs only go as far as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  It's a good look to, honest but sympathetic in most ways, well except for Nurse Ratchet that is.  Reading about 1963's Shock Corridor, I thought I was going into a similar story, the inner workings of a mental institution from the perspective of the patients.  When I saw Samuel Fuller directed the film, I was even more excited. That excitement wore off pretty quickly. This movie was bad from the start, dated and campy but not in a good way.  Instead, it ends up being surprisingly funny, but I'd assume for all the wrong reasons.

A movie that tries to explore social dilemmas, problems that should be dealt with, it has to be handled correctly or else the finished product is going to blow up on the launch pad.  I was surprised and not surprised this movie is held in high regard by moviegoers and critics alike.  For a movie released in 1963, it certainly does tackle some issues that were ahead of its time.  But the execution of it on top of the really bad acting and hackneyed dialogue end up crippling any chance of success this movie had. Maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way, but I thought this movie was awful and couldn't wait to get through it.

A highly-regarded newspaper reporter, John Barrett (Peter Breck) has thought of a story idea that he's convinced will win him the Pulitzer Prize.  Recently, an unsolved murder occurred in a local mental institution, but the murderer was never found and the police gave up on the case (apparently). Barrett hopes to get himself committed to the place and piece things together from the inside. He goes through training so he can act like and appreciate what some of the patients will be going through. His girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers), poses as his sister who says her "brother" has made advances on her and has him committed. John goes along with it, feeling things out as he goes through therapy sessions -- some more extreme than the others -- trying to figure out what happened to the murdered patient. But as the clues come together, John begins to descend into his own madness. Can he figure out the murderer before it's too late for him?

I like Fuller as a director, but this was just a weird movie overall. It's off the wall and ridiculous, portraying the patients in such a bizarre way that the movie doesn't serve as a condemnation of mental institutions. Instead, it's more a big joke. One immensely obese patient (Larry Tucker) believes he is Pagliacci, constantly singing opera in the ward.  Some patients do nothing but sit all day in the hallway, "the street" dubbed by the staff where patients who have behaved get to interact and have some sense of freedom. That's where most of the movie takes place, in the hallway, Breck's John doing his best to figure out exactly what's happened. It never works though. The murder mystery is never really established (it's fairly easy to predict who the killer is) and feels like the script needed any excuse to put this respected journalist into an institution.

Watching Barrett basically fall apart day by day and week by week, I came to dislike the character more and more until finally I just decided I hated him. Part of that is the character's fault because he just isn't likable. The other part is that Breck delivers a downright bad performance. His stream of conscious narration is hilarious, and his two go-to moves to show he's going crazy is stoned silence with an empty stare or scream like toddler who isn't getting his way. He's so obsessively driven to pull the stunt off and get his story he becomes oblivious to his own issues. You know where it's going almost from the start, and it isn't going to end well for Barrett.  I'll also add this as someone with no medical experience or background. Are mental illnesses contagious? Can you catch some sort of sickness by just acting like you have said sickness? I realize he's basically imbedded himself in a world of crazy, but can that turn you crazy? I wouldn't think so, but the whole movie relies on that ridiculous (to me at least) premise.

Treading the ever so thin line between overacting and just delivering highly dramatic parts are three key supporting characters, the witnesses to the murder Barrett is trying to solve.  They include James Best, Fuller favorite Gene Evans, and Hari Rhodes. All sane men at some point, they all had breakdowns. Best was captured in Korea and brainwashed by the North Koreans and Chinese, returning never quite the same. Evans was a brilliant scientist who just snapped one day, his mind regressing back to his childhood days. Rhodes plays a black student who broke the color barrier at an all-white school, and now thinks he's white, terrorizing the black patients.  Each man is given a scene that delves into their mind (or what's left of it). If I had to recommend anything about this movie, it would be those three extended scenes.  They're intense (if a little overbearing) and feel like the one authentic thing going for this story.  On a sidenote, Barrett doesn't actually "investigate" anything. He talks to them, they rant for awhile, and he finally blurts out "Who killed Sloan?!?!" That's just good detective work there, sir! Good work.

All positives aside, there is much, MUCH more toward the negative. Constance Towers isn't a bad actress, but her character is mind-blowingly stupid. Pretending to be Barrett's sister who he's sexually interested in, she passionately kisses him during one of their visits at the institution.  Yes, I can appreciate she's worried about her boyfriend/fiance, but does she not see the problem in her actions? She flips out then when Barrett pushes her away.  Most of her part has her slinking around (she's a stripper for her day job) in Barrett's nightmares, convincing him that she's hooking up with other men while he's wasting away in the institution.  The moments of clarity patients go through are laughable and border on the pretentious. The breakdowns are laughable when they do happen, and made me laugh more than I was probably supposed to. The best though by far is Barrett accidentally stumbling into a ward for a certain type of female patients. He realizes who and what they are, his first thought via narration...."NYMPHOS!" They proceed to attack him in a truly awful but still funny scene which you can watch HERE.

I really did not know what to make of this movie. At one time effective, others so misplayed that the movie comes across like a camp classic.  Maybe because there was some potential here that the end result is that much more disappointing.  Stretching for a positive is an increased role for Chuck Roberson, John Wayne's stunt double and one of the most talented stunt men in the business.  If you've seen a Wayne movie from the 1960s, I guarantee you've seen Roberson whether you know it or not.  He plays Wilkes, one of the institution's attendants who tries to help Barrett through his struggles.  It's a small part, but one of the bigger ones Roberson had in an impressive career, rivaling his screentime in 1960's The Alamo.  Still, it's a minor positive in a sea of major negatives.

Shock Corridor <---trailer (1963): */****

The Sacketts

In a career that spanned a handful of decades, author Louis L'Amour published over 100 works that included novels, short stories, and even some non-fiction, many of which were turned into TV shows and feature length film adaptations.   Most of these works were westerns, and I started reading them at a young age, starting with The First Fast Draw.   I've enjoyed some more than others, but the ones I've gone back to come from a series of books about the Sackett family.

In the time when miniseries were extremely popular -- better known as the 1970s and 1980s -- two of L'Amour's Sackett novels were turned into a two-part miniseries in 1979 appropriately titled The Sacketts. My first concern was that the two source novels are two separate works about three brothers -- two in one book, and the third in a separate book -- with a very quick crossover.  So how is a miniseries with two vastly different stories expected to work?  Like any adaptation, things were dropped and left by the wayside, but big picture, this miniseries works because of the talent involved.

Based on the novels The Daybreakers and Sackett, the miniseries focuses on three brothers from a Tennessee family heading west in the years following the Civil War.  Tell (Sam Elliott) is the oldest and despite growing up in the South, joined up with a Union infantry regiment during the war.  Once Lee surrenders, Tell heads west, ending up as a drifter/saddle tramp looking for work wherever he can get it.  Too young to join the fight, Orrin (Tom Selleck) is engaged to be married to a local girl, but a long-standing feud interrupts with young brother Tyrel (Jeff Osterhage) killing a man in his brother's defense.   With the local law looking for answers, Orrin and Ty head west to set up a new life.

Riding into Texas, Orrin and Ty sign on with a cattle drive heading north to Abilene.  Along the way, they become more than capable cowpunchers and in the process meet  ramrod and trail driver Tom Sunday (Glenn Ford) and veteran cowboy Cap Rountree (Ben Johnson). Delivering the cattle to a buyer, the quartet sticks together and heads west to Santa Fe only to find a range war brewing between the Mexicans (led by Gilbert Roland) and the Americans (the always evil John Vernon in charge). Further north in the mountains, Tell stumbles upon a gold vein, but that's just the start.  The Bigelow brothers are on his trail looking for vengeance.  And wouldn't you bet, at some point the brothers' trails cross?

Cramming two full books into a 4-hour miniseries had to have been a daunting task for writer Jim Byrnes, and he does a solid job adapting the novels. Both books delved into romantic subplots with the brothers meeting women along the way, but in putting together a story about three brothers -- and not the ladies -- these subplots are just that, subplots in the background.  Byrnes also had to invent basically a new storyline (the brothers meeting up on the trail) and an ending because Daybreakers and Sackett just didn't cross paths.  All in all, props to Byrnes for pulling it off.

Starting with the casting of the Sackett brothers, the actors involved from top to bottom are downright impressive, more so for fans of westerns.  Elliott, Selleck, and Osterhage were not stars when they were chosen to play these brothers.  It's funny that the best character, Tyrel, was played by the actor who for some reason, never became a bigger star.  As L'Amour writes them, Ty was my favorite.  Like Tell, he's quiet and unassuming, but when pushed he pushes back.  Elliott is basically a rougher, older Ty and growls his way through the part, and Selleck gets to be Selleck, a charming, likable personality.  Among the three, there's a definite chemistry which pays off in a big way.

L'Amour's main characters were the prototypical western hero; tough, honorable, and able to shoot their way out of any sticky situation.  These were men of few words who did what was right because they didn't know any other way.  These three actors were all so good there's even an unofficial sequel -- 1982's The Shadow Riders -- where they play a trio of brothers, the Travens this time.  Through all its other flaws in the miniseries, the casting is about as perfect as casting can be.

By 1979, the western had played out its line in terms of moviegoing popularity thanks to the spaghetti westerns and ultra-violent spins the genre took.  So in a way, this is a last hurrah for the western, and the casting represents that.  Tom Sunday is younger in the book, but Ford playing him is just right.  He's a former lawyer, a cowboy, and a gunfighter and serves as a replacement father for the boys.  Johnson as the saddle-sore cowboy who seen it all? Born to play the part.  Roland makes a quick appearance, and Vernon is typically evil.  Ruth Roman is good as Emma, a saloon owner in an outlaw town who knows Cap. The Bigelow brothers include Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, and Gene Evans.  For the cherry on top, throw L.Q. Jones and Paul Koslo in for good measure. It'd be hard to ask for a better cast.

This review is getting a little long so I'll start to wrap this up.   It's hard to complain about a TV miniseries looking like a TV miniseries, but The Sacketts isn't exactly made on a huge scale.  It feels like we see the same town over and over with the same backgrounds once the story requires the brothers to hit the trail.  My biggest complaint though was the music.  A soundtrack doesn't have to be great, it just can't be noticeably bad.  Well, the score here is bad, and in an obvious overdone way.  Overall though, just complaints for a highly entertaining, well-made miniseries that does justice to Louis L'Amour's novels.

The Sacketts (1979): ***/****