Movie Review: Quigley Down Under (1990)... John Brown loves westerns...

Quigley Down Under is a decent western. On any other day, it ranks 3 cowboys on my 5 cowboy scale. Today, though, it gets 5. Because sometimes it's nice to remember things like cold nights in warm theaters when you have so much less past than future with Tom Selleck looming 10 feet tall, rolling his own and Laura San Giacomo's breasts heaving.


Quigley Down Under (1990)

I smoked Marlboros in the movie theater with a bottle of Miller High Life in the cup holder of my seat.

It was 1990 and there were only four of us in the place. We knew the girls who made part-time money running the old downtown theater on weeknights. They bought pot from the projectionist, got hammered on Night Train while leaning on the popcorn machine, and didn't give a flying fuck if we smoked during the movie if we were the only ones there.

This wasn't the last time my college roommate and I would spend a few hours watching free flicks with the girls on a Wednesday night, but it was the first. I was 21 years old and the movie was Quigley Down Under.

Quigley Down Under is a smoking movie. I haven't seen it for awhile, but I remember Tom Selleck, playing the title role of Matthew Quigley, rolling his own. I think his co-star, Laura San Giacomo smoked in the movie, too. I smoked in the theater. Silver S patterns drifted up toward an unused balcony.

Smoking was already on its way out. The shopping malls that had recently played host to roving packs of smoking would-be tough guys and puffing high school girls who (sometimes successfully) tried to look a little older and sexier than they were had recently implemented bans. Non-smoking areas were taking up more space in restaurants.

The stand-up ashtrays that once rested at the end of every aisle in discount stores were already historical relics, but every Taco Tico and Burger King still had a stack of gold foil disposable ashtrays at the condiment rack. Slowly, but surely, smoking was drifting up and away like a memory.

I probably smoked a pack during Quigley Down Under. The allure of smoking in one of the true tobacco forbidden zones, the theater, was too great to resist. That's why Quigley Down Under tastes like smoke and ash. That's why this Australia-based western has the smell of a fresh Marlboro. It leaves flecks of dried tobacco on my jeans.

Quigley Down Under feels like breasts. Soft, big, hanging, whiter-than-white-even-in-the-dark breasts. Laura San Giacomo's breasts, attached to a college girl who doesn't even know they aren't her own. It was about halfway through Quigley and a pack of Marlboros that I decided I was going to have sex with Amy. That was Laura San Giacomo's fault. Crazy Cora of Quigley Down Under, sweat-dirty and running around the Australian outback with Tom Selleck, convinced me to call Amy that night.

I've never been a fan of Laura San Giacomo. The eyebrows bother me. Her smile is somehow intimidating, her triangular face has never seemed inviting. When you're slamming Miller High Lifes during Quigley Down Under, however, she is pure inspiration. More specifically, I suppose, her breasts are inspiration. They star with Tom Selleck's mustache and the harsh landscape of the outback. Quigley Down Under, starring Laura San Giacomo's tits. They should've won an Oscar.

I absorbed enough of Matthew Quigley to bed my own Crazy Cora that night. I didn't have Tom Selleck's mustache, height or laconic western star charm, but I did have just enough cowboy hero in me to make things happen. Amy didn't have the hoop skirt or delusions, but she was willing and had Laura San Giacomo's chest (or, at least, a tolerable replica).

Though set in 1870s Australia, Quigley is 1990. It's Alan Rickman playing Hans Gruber from Die Hard, the quintessential movie villain of the era, with a different name. His Elliot Marston is a one-century-before version of the sneering Bruce Willis foe. Rickman would do it again a year later, as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood. He had one helluva bad guy streak going and Quigley is its mid-point.

Quigley Down Under is a traditional western, with a few 90s updates. The story has been moved to the land down under and has been injected with a Hollywood version of a new politically correct sensibility. The Aborigines are heroic and magical in a way Comanche, Sioux and Apache usually aren't.

Tom Selleck isn't Magnum, PI. Laura San Giacomo is one year removed from Sex, Lies and Videotape and is six years away from sit-com semi-stardom. Slobodan Milosevic is the new President of Serbia and people are still driving Yugos around town. We are gearing up for the first Gulf War and Saddam Hussein doesn't seem worried. Tim Berners-Lee is building the tools that would eventually make the Internet work and we have no fucking clue.

Jenny and Diane are drinking Night Train and we are drinking High Life because slumming is funny and old-school crap makes you cool. We are smoking because smoking is cooler than drinking Night Train and High Life. We are all away from moms and dads for the first time.

The boys want to be Matthew Quigley: fierce fighters, deadly shots, rolling our own, killing Gruber/Marston and getting the big-titted woman in the end. I don't know if the girls want to be Crazy Cora, but they probably wouldn't mind a little Tom Selleck in their lives.

Westerns aren't cool in 1990. They aren't that cool now, but they certainly aren't cool in 1990. Maybe we're watching because it's ironic, just like the cheap swill. Maybe we're there because there's nothing else to do on a Wednesday night. I don't remember. I remember Quigley Down Under, though. I see it through whisps of burning tobacco. I watch it with a feeling of anticipation about Amy sharing space with the smoke in my chest.

Now we don't smoke anywhere. Maybe in a strip bar or a casino. Some of both have even banned the practice. The idea of ordering a burrito at Taco Bell with a Winston hanging out of your mouth is almost impossible to hold in your mind. Now we smoke in the designated areas, far away from the hyper-sensitive lungs of others, hopefully out of the range of their critical eyes. No one gives away disposable foil ashtrays.

The girls sell ad space. They litigate multi-million dollar cases in faraway jursidictions. Rehab and rich parents make things happen. Amy probably had a breast reduction surgery, moved to another state and married an architect just like the one in that Gordon Lightfoot song they play every winter. My friend disappeared into a desert, re-emerged, went to the iciest parts of Canada and disappeared again. I'm here. I'm living a relatively normal life that's free of Night Train and very rarely involves Miller High Life. I have a mustache now, but it has nothing to do with Matthew Quigley. I swear. Besides, it's not nearly as impressive as Selleck's. I still want to bang Laura San Giacomo even though I really don't think she's that hot. It's a weird thing.

Before Tom Selleck smoked as Quigley, he was a poster boy for Salem cigarettes. Later, he'd shave the 'stache and the hair to play Kansas' own Dwight D. Eisenhower. He started smoking in earnest to get the part down pat. He didn't like it. Made him sick. In my mind, Tom Selleck was a cigarette smoker. When I learned about his experience playing Ike it made me a little sad. I felt a little cheated.

I've now learned that he is a cigar smoker and that he, like me, wishes we could go back to a time when fast food joints could make their own decisions about who should smoke where. If I had a disposable foil ashtray, I'd write a note on it and send it to him in solidarity. I don't know if we'd agree on anything else, although I suspect we might both have fond regard for his Quigley co-star's twin orbs.

Speaking of which, does Laura San Giacomo smoke? I don't know. There's evidence to suggest she might. An interview with the LA Times and her performance in Quigley Down Under sort of point to "yes". Who knows?

Quigley Down Under has a spectacular score. It's true western movie music and you'll be humming or whistling it against your will. Simon Wincer has an eye for the outback and does his best to duplicate John Ford's gift for making a character out of landscape. Wincer gives us a great tour of the outback and its decidedly harsh beauty.

The plot is sort of clever and deviates just enough from standard expectations to be fun without being challenging. There's enough action to satisfy the bloodlust of the average western watcher and the flick moves along at a just-about-right pace.

Everyone overacts, the Aborigine issue is handled earnestly but with a ham fist and the recapturing of Crazy Cora's sanity is silly but still engaging. Quigley Down Under has a fistful of flaws, but it's still a very likable western.

Quigley Down Under is a decent movie. On any other day, it ranks 3 cowboys on my 5 cowboy scale. Today, though, it gets 5. Because sometimes it's nice to remember things like cold nights in warm theaters when you have so much less past than future with Tom Selleck looming 10 feet tall, rolling his own and Laura San Giacomo's breasts heaving.


FINAL RATING:





(5/5 Singing Cowboys)

Other Quigley stuff...

A few continuity errors...
Lamenting Encore's love of Quigley (with video!)...
The Write Snark can watch Quigley 200 times...
Thai Nights appreciates Quigley's score...
Bobdeloyd digs himself some Quigley!




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Movie Review: The Rare Breed (1966)... John Brown loves westerns...

The Rare Breed (1966)

Jimmy Stewart. Maureen O'Hara. Brian Keith. A Technnicolor western. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything. Almost.

Stewart is too old, thin, lanky and personable for the role of Bulldog. I mean, really, can you even imagine calling James Stewart "Bulldog" if you weren't being ironic? Ohara's part is severely limited by the script and after the first ten minutes, she is more prop than person. Brian Keith? When you hear the Scottish accent and witness the giant fake red beard he sports, you'll be forever scarred. Oh, and the unbilled co-star is a hornless Hereford bull named Vindicator who settles down and behaves when you whistle "God Save the Queen".

The plot? O'Hara is an English widow who goes to the livestock show in St. Louis to sell the family's prized Hereford bull, which she believes will successfully mate with longhorn stock. A bidding war ensues and vindicator is eventually purchased by an agent of a Texas cattleman (Keith). The agent is more interested in getting under O'Hara's petticoats than he is in the bull. Jimmy Stewart is hired to escort the bull to Texas. He makes an underhanded deal with the losing bidder to "lose" the bull, which is foiled when O'Hara and her daughter decide to tag along for the ride. Eventually, the double-cross is resolved, everyone ends up in Texas, Keith tries to romance O'Hara, but she eventually falls for Stewart who has fallen in love with her and the potential for better livestock offered by Vindicator.

Does that sound bad? It is. And I'm leaving a lot of other really bad parts out of the story. The movie is part western and part unaware parody of western. It's almost a complete disaster. Almost.

I keep saying "almost" for a reason. The movie has a saving grace. Her name is Juliet Mills and she plays Hilary Price, daughter of Maureen O'Hara. She's blond, beautiful, and utterly unforgettable.

Here's what I know about Juliet Mills. She's not as famous as her sister, Hayley. Her movie career hasn't been tht extensive, although she's made a name for herself on television. Apparently, she's still working, playing the role of an older "good witch" in some magic-related series. I'll be honest, though, I intentionally cut my research on Juliet Mills short. I realized I didn't want to know too much about her. I wanted to keep her, in my mind, as Hilary Price.

If you're looking for passionate scenes, revealing outfits, raw sexuality, or a series of opportunities to ogle a young blond, The Rare Breed will disappoint you. The Rare Breed is more Disney than Cinemax late night and Juliet Mills, if I remember correctly, is always wearing an ankle-length skirt. Her dress may actually be consistent with Sharia in that she's usually wearing a hat, too.

Her light English accent is entrancing. Her charm is irresistible. She plays a loyal daughter, an able cattlewoman, and a smarter-than-she-should-be young lady with an earnestness and honesty that deserves a much better movie.

It's hard to steal a movie from James Stewart, but somehow, Mills does it for me. She became every young woman with whom I fell in love. I can't explain it and I'm willing to bet that most viewers of The Rare Breed won't even feel the same way.

Nonetheless, Juliet Mills increases the John Brown rating for The Rare Breed from 1/2 singing cowboy to a solid 2.

FINAL RATING:





(2/5 Singing Cowboys)

P.S. Juliet Mills did get a TV show about 5 years after The Rare Breed. I don't think The Nanny & the Professor was a hit, but this little clip of the opening credits gives you a picture of Juliet Mills, although her look here just isn't the same as in The Rare Breed.









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Movie Review: Gun Street (1961)... John Brown loves westerns...

The sheriff is pissed off at the town. Years ago, he apprehended a killer. The jury of locals handed down a prison sentence instead of an invitation to the gallows. Now, the bad guy is on the loose and headed back to town for more. The lawman wishes they would've killed the criminal when they had a chance.

The people are terrified. They don't seem interested in taking responsibility for letting the bad man live. They don't seem excited at the prospect of helping the sheriff and his loyal deputy this time around, either. They expect the lawmen to handle the problem. They just want to be safe.

Most of Gun Street involves the sheriff, played by James Brown, doing western detective work. We get to meet the various county cowards as he tries to find the killer. Gun Street devolves into a B-grade High Noon rip-off wherein Brown eventually gets a posse put together to handle the killer.

Gun Street was one of over 100 movies directed by Eddie Cahn. Cahn was a B-movie king, known for producing better-than-average second-rate flicks in an era where a constant stream of low-dollar features were needed to feed an insatiable public appetite. He handled everything from sci-fi to early rock 'n' roll exploitation topics with what's been described as a "hyper-efficient" hand.

Cahn made passable movies in 10 days or less. It kept him busy and it kept matinee-goers occupied. Some of the work, like Gun Street, doesn't hold up very well. Gun Street doesn't look dirt cheap, but it certainly isn't textured. Gun Street doesn't feature bottom-of-the-barrel talent, but James Brown and Jean Willes aren't what you'd call "engaging on-screen presences" in this one. Gun Street is a quick-fix western with a shitty ending that will leave you emptier than expected.

Three more reasons not to watch Gun Street:

1. THE TELEPHONE

The Sheriff has a phone in his office. So do some of the townspeople. Look, I understand that there was a period in history where people still got around on horseback AND had phones, but it's really creepy to see people dialing each other up in a western.

It makes Gun Street look and feel more like a gangster flick than a western to me. Some people might not have a problem with old west telephony, but it's a distraction for me.

2. THE DEATH PENALTY

The movie feels like a macho advertisement for capital punishment. Now, I understand that left-wing politics and old westerns are unlikely to be a good match, but Gun Street is a little over the top. James Brown is downright pissed off that the bad guy didn't get the necktie of doom and he spouts off about it a few times. The movie itself seems to reinforce the notion that all these people had to do was hang the guy in the first place and everything would be alright. The argument is too simplistic and subtle like a sledgehammer. Another issue for me, a guy who doesn't dig capital punishment, that might not bother you, I suppose.

3. THE ENDING

There are rules within genres. You can break those rules, but only if you have a good reason to do. Good reasons include (a) making a damn good movie, (b) making a movie more interesting or rewarding and (c) intentionally testing the limits of genre and expectation for effect or principle. You don't get to fuck with the rules if you're filming a short, B-grade matinee western. The ending of Gun Street doesn't offer the expected payoff.

I can tolerate a bad western because it creates a comfort zone of expectation. I can appreciate a good western that changes the contours of that zone. I can't abide by a piece of crap western that breaks the rules. This one does and that's a major problem. SPOILER (just in case you might be thinking about watching this on On-Demand in a few minutes no matter what I say): The bad guy dies, but no one involved in the movie is responsible. No shootout. No sheriff. No nothing. It's bullshit.

I'm giving Gun Street 1.5 singing cowboys. I would've given it a mere 1/2 Autry, but I realize that some of my criticism isn't universal in nature.

FINAL RATING:





(1.5/5 Singing Cowboys)





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Movie Review: The Dalton Girls (1957)... John Brown loves westerns...

The Dalton Girls (1957)

This is the second time I've tried to review The Dalton Girls.

After I watched the movie, I found an interesting commentary about it by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster in Captive Bodies: Postcolonial Subjectivity in Cinema. Foster spent more time on The Dalton Girls than anyone else I've found and I was interested by her arguments. That led to an incredibly insightful piece of absolute genius. Using Foster as a springboard, I set out to create a lengthy meta-examination of film criticism. The first portion of this masterpiece simultaneously attacked and embraced the notion of academic film study as the intersection of the shiniest brilliance and the dingiest stupidity. I was making firing off arguments at a pace that would make the Gatlin gun from Josey Wales jealous.

That's when I realized three things. First, I wasn't really THAT interested (or, I must humbly admit, qualified) to write what might become a book on film criticism. I'd only scratched the surface and things were already starting to bore me. In order to finish what I'd started, I'd have to surrender all outside interests for a long, long time. Not happening. Second, The Dalton Girls disappeared after the first few paragraphs. My true intent was to share some thoughts on the movie and I didn't want to abandon that. Third, it was boring. That was my fault. Though I could blame it on too many half-assed trips through graduate programs, I blame myself for labyrinthine, dry writing spurts.

So, here we are. My second review of The Dalton Girls, a standard-issue 1950s B-western with a twist.

The twist? The villain protagonists are women. They rob trains, banks and stage coaches. They live life on the run. They're pursued by a Pinkerton-style detective. They ride horses at high speed, shoot/kill people and end up in a showdown. They do all of the usual "guy" stuff--but with better hair and makeup.

The brief synopsis:

When the infamous Dalton brothers are brought to justice by the bullet, two of their sisters go to identify the corpses. The mortician gets a little handsy with one of the gals and ends up with a shovel to the cranium. He keels over. The Dalton sisters know that their family's reputation will prevent them from getting a fair shake from the authorities, so they take off as outlaws. The movie fast-forwards to a few years later. The younger sisters are out of school (the elders paid their way through boarding school with ill-gotten gains) and the brood gets to work right away, robbing a stage coach.

One sister, Columbine, falls in love with the gambler Illinois Grey (a passenger on the doomed coach). Grey has that uncanny ability to show up over and over again whenever it might create a good plot complication. He also creates the ever-important romantic storyline. The movie is all about whether any of the gals can or should try to go straight and whether Columbine and Illinois will make a life together. There's a campfire singalong and a big shootout, too!

The Dalton Girls as a movie:

Not so good. It's fun to see women breaking the glass ceiling outlaw life--for awhile. If you take the gender-flip out of the equation, though, The Dalton Girls is standard-issue matinee fare (as well as being the first movie Ann Althouse ever watched). I'm guessing that 1957 audiences might have been more entertained by the idea of female western leads than I am 50 years later, but I'm also willing to bet few of them walked out of The Dalton Girls convinced they'd seen a masterpiece.

Is it worth watching?

Yes. By all means, watch The Dalton Girls. It's not a particularly good movie, but it has a few characteristics that make it worthwhile.

First, it's short. That helps this one, because it probably would start to wear very thin if it lingered. Fortunately, it's a compact little movie, which increases its overall watchability. Plus, you won't feel like you wasted a huge chunk of your life if you hate it. It moves along at a nice clip and, despite its 162 weaknesses, it is pretty entertaining.

Second, the sisters are really attractive. I feel almost guilty making that argument in light of the previously-mentioned Foster analysis of the movie, which is a strong piece of feminist criticism. I can't escape the patriarchy on this one, though. Maybe I'm just being a phallocentric oppressor who can't control his socialized misogyny worth a damn, but the Dalton girls are true hotties in that 50s-black-and-white kind of way.

Whether you prefer demure Columbine or the butchier and more aggressive Rose, you WILL find a Dalton sister to love.

I'm pro-Rose. She's meaner and sexier than the other sisters. Plus, Lisa Davis later did one of the puppy voices in 101 Dalmations and played alongside the miserable performer known as Zsa Zsa Gabor in Queen of Outer Space. Mainly, though, I found myself captivated by her amoral behavior and her not-that-good singing voice. Go Rose!

Third, Boyd "Red" Morgan plays the (very, very, very) limited role of the stagecoach driver. Thus, watching The Dalton Girls is experiencing a Historic Moment. Red played the role of "stagecoach driver" at least 4 times (television and film) between 1956 and 1957. I can't imagine that's happened to anyone else in Hollywood history. By the way, Red played "stagecoach driver" a few other times in his long career, too. He was also a world-class stuntman who doubled for John Wayne repeatedly and once bragged that he'd fallen off 2,000 horses on screen.

Fourth, if you don't watch The Dalton Girls, you won't have as much fun reading Foster's perspective on the movie. I'd tell you why you really should read that, but then I'd be back to writing my first, failed, review. Just do it, okay?

Rose Dalton quotation:
"They tell me he plays women just like he plays poker. Riffle, shuffle, fast cut, big deal, the sky's the limit; and then all of a sudden you're lying there in the discard."

Final Rating:





(2.5/5 Singing Cowboys)





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Movie Review: Texas Lady (1955)... John Brown loves westerns...

Texas Lady (1955)

In 1885, Prudence Webb of New Orleans beats a riverboat gambler out of $50,000, repays her father's debt, and heads off to Texas to run a newspaper. The paper and the town are under the control of a big cattle operation until Prudence and a previously disillusioned drunk of an attorney combine forces with the gambler (smitten by her, he chases her west to Texas) to fight the power. A few people die, everyone pretends that Prudence (played by an aging Claudette Colbert) is hotter than a prairie fire, and the bigwig ranchers finally realize you can't stand in the way progress. The End.

Quite frankly, Texas Lady is not a good movie. There are painful soliloquies, romantic interests that defy even the strained logic of the heart, gowns better suited for formal balls than the operation of a newspaper, and a slew of other irritants. It feels as if director Tim Whelan was more interested in finishing the movie on time and under budget than he was in making an interesting movie. The cobbled-together cast lacks charisma, believability and (in many cases) sufficient talent.

Texas Lady is a disaster, but it's interesting. I don't mean that in a Plan 9 from Outer Space way, either (even though one the evil henchman of the cattle bosses does appear in that notorious film, too). Texas Lady is interesting for at least three other reasons.

Claudette Colbert rides off into the sunset.

This was Colbert's second-to-last movie and her last starring role. She made Texas Lady while in her 50s. Although she retained a great deal of her good looks and screen charm into middle age, she certainly isn't the head-turner the otherwise male cast pretends she is. It's almost painful to watch one of the top film stars in history go out this way--miscast and unable to carry the movie through no fault of her own.

They say it was hard to watch Willie Mays play baseball in his final seasons. Dressed up in the unfamiliar uniform of the Mets, stumbling toward fly balls he would've caught gracefully and easily only a few years before, trying to catch up with fastballs he could once rocket from the Polo Grounds with a flip of the wrist... They say it was sad. He had once been so great that watching him reduced to mediocrity seemed shameful and dirty somehow. Watching Claudette Colbert in Texas Lady is a similar experience.

Les Paul plays.

The RKO production starts with a cameo pendant of Prudence Webb against a deep red backdrop. The music is a not-so-catchy western ballad that summarizes the flick. "Texas Lady" is performed by Les Paul and Mary Ford. They only do the intro/outro music--the rest of the film is scored with what feels like stock western instrumentals.

I've always felt as though the brilliant Les Paul built his own gallows. The solid-bodied electric guitar he pioneered and the myriad of effects and recording techniques with which he experimented powered the rock 'n' roll revolution that would largely crush his own career as a top-draw performer.

Paul fought, tinkered, obsessed and fretted over his guitar and its sound. He did hard work in basements, soldering, listening, adjusting and innovating. He made portable recording devices. He originated multi-tracking. He experimented with sound like no one else.

He worked his ass off to create techniques and instruments that eventually short-circuited his ride on the top. Others ran with Paul's work and buried him in the process. Then, they forgot him. He made peace with it all in the end, but...

Texas Lady's sympathy for its devils.

The two cattle barons who've long oppressed the tiny Texas town in which Prudence Webb takes a stand are portrayed as mean-spirited fascists who use bribery, force and corruption to maintain their positions of authority. They're bad guys.

Somehow, though, this otherwise lame movie adds some depth to the bastards. They're not just mean--they're protective. They're out to defend what they believe to be their rightful legacy. The evil cattlemen of Texas Lady were once the hard-working men who tamed a wild country. They fought the hardscrabble earth, they fended off Indian attacks, they created the market that gave birth to the town. They did it alone. The cattle barons may be cruel cheats, but they feel they have a legitimate claim to their power and cannot believe that johnny-come-lately townsfolk and newspaper women have the audacity to challenge that claim.

In the end, they relent. They realize that they're fighting a losing battle with progress and change. They won't hold off the railroad. They can't stifle freedoms. They finally surrender their "hard earned" power to representatives of a new government and back to the people. That decision isn't based on a change of heart, it's based purely on the certainty of failure.

Swallowed by success.

Tim Whelan may have thought he was making a movie about a plucky woman in the old west. That story, however, never interested me. What did hold my attention was a movie that both intentionally and unintentionally, explored the concept of change under a certain set of circumstances. What happens when one's talents and hard work create a situation that undermines his or her success?

Claudette Colbert changed. She started young, talented and sexy. She ended up in silly gowns pretending to be young in a second-rate western.

Les Paul changed. "Texas Lady" reached #91 on the "top 100" chart for a few seconds, even though it was a throwaway. A few years after the film's release, Les Paul wouldn't be able to crack the charts with a masterpiece. His hard work set up others to run him out of the recording star business.

The villains changed. Their story parallels my version of Les Paul's tale. They busted their ass and built something that grew so large they could no longer control it. The efforts that created their power set the stage for others to take it away.

We know that Colbert disappeared for awhile after Texas Lady. She showed up in another movie a few years later and then busied herself with stage work. Years later, she took a dramatic turn in television and won a 1988 Golden Globe. Claudette Colbert found a way to handle the change she seems to be resisting in Texas Lady.

Les Paul handled change well, too. He lost his recording stardom but built a reputation as a guitar guru and a masterful technician. He became an elder statesman for his instrument and developed a strong following amongst those who used his instrument to reach heights he never did. Les Paul found a way to handle change masterfully.

We don't know what happened to the cattlemen. They had an epiphany that resistance to change was futile (fueled, in part, by a strange-to-find-in-a-western monologue from the judge character--how often do you get references to Caesar and Charlemagne in preparation for a showdown?). They facilitate the return of $6,000 to Prudence Webb only minutes after one of their hired guns kill her friend. They ride away into the sunset.

FINAL RATING:





(2.5/5 Singing Cowboys)





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