You won't be disappointed!

i must have seen a different film!!

good back-story, and good acting

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

They say that your best writing comes from experience. This is not the case by the ending of this dreadful 1975 film. The N.Y.C. film critics gave its best supporting actor award to Alan Arkin, who portrayed Bert Kessler, the director. With his high-pitched tone when he was angry, Arkin, as Kessler, utters the Yiddish phrase-"Ver Gerharget," meaning getting killed as he throws someone out of his office.With his boyish good looks, Jeff Bridges was a natural to play Lewis Tater, the young lad who sets out west as he feels that he is a western writer. Instead, he gets side tracked to making movies as he flees the guys who tried to fleece him into going to a writer's college in Nevada that really never existed.The film takes place in 1933, at the heart of the depression. Yet, we see little to no proof of this occurring. In fact, we're subjected to a party where smoked salmon and sturgeon are being served.With its dull color to reflect the period, the film is really a first-class stinker. Andy Griffith co-stars as Howard, a movie man who puts one over on Lewis, but saves him at picture's end. Sorry, but he couldn't save this film.

The mid-70's saw a misguided false nostalgia for early Hollywood. I'd like to think it was on account of the last few octogenarian (and up) moguls dying off (Samuel Goldwyn died at 94 in '74, Jack L. Warner passed in the fall of '78 at 86, Darryl F. Zanuck, ill with Alzheimer's, dying in '79) and that the younger turks sensed something. Unfortunately what spewed forth was mostly crap: Gable and Lombard, W.C. Fields and Me, the dull interpretations of The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, and the cinematic nadir: Won Ton Ton the Dog that Saved Hollywood... a film so utterly awful that they must've thought Rin Tin Tin would sue. Nickelodeon belongs in there somewhere too. But along the way there were a few minor gems, namely, underrated The Day of the Locust (particularly for Burgess Meredith's performance) and Hearts of the West, which I saw in a theater in Portland it's brief release. I don't think it rated a week's screen time. Inarguably, the plot's thin stuff, but Jeff Bridges' Lewis Tater ranks as his best pre-Starman turn as an actor. He took naiveté to an entirely new plateau. Andy Griffith delivers a nice performance as an amiable, if duplicitous character actor who's descended into a life in poverty row oaters. The then-50-year old Griffith had just recovered from a serious medical condition and hadn't been seen in a feature film since a 1969 flop, Angel in My Pocket. Griffith here is far, far removed from anyone's image of Sheriff Andy Taylor. The supporting cast is superb, especially Alan Arkin who captures the essential cheapness of a Gower Gulch producer/director... he seems to be based on Mascot's Nat Levine. Don't look for the picture to go much of anywhere, just enjoy the ride. I liken the experience very similar to 1982's Cannery Row; you know you've seen better pictures, but you never somehow enjoyed one more and you don't exactly know why.

I saw this movie years ago but didn't catch the title at the time. It took several years to locate the title and to see it again. I thought this was a very funny and well done movie. Lewis Tater has has an innocent enthusiasm that makes him instantly likable. His Overacting in the gunfighter scenes and cracking the invisible whip in the lobby of the boarding house were hilarious. It reminded me of Myself in my younger years. This movie is loaded with fun and there is a certain nostalgic atmosphere about it that just leaves you smiling. Very underrated movie. For a just plain feel good fun movie I highly recommend it.

In "Hearts of the West" Jeff Bridges is an aspiring western pulp-novel writer. He worships Zane Grey and lands what is for him a fantasy-come-true job as a stunt man in Hollywood B-westerns in the 1930s. There he works with a crew of losers under Alan Arkin. Bridges has some good comic stunts and spends much of the time eluding con-men pursuers. Andy Griffith all but steals the show as a wily former star who first befriends him and then cheats him. Blythe Danner is good as the female production manager who takes a liking to Bridges. Howard Zieff, recalled for his "Slither," directed this very likable piece.