Absolutely Fantastic

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

One wonders why James Garner's character here wasn't reprised from the prior film that came out two years earlier - "Support Your Local Sheriff". He's portraying basically the same person except that he's got a more mercenary streak in this flick, but still played in the same laid back manner with a note of sarcasm and self effacing humor. As with the earlier picture, some of the support players wind up here as well, most notably Harry Morgan and Jack Elam, along with a less than conspicuous assist from character actor Gene Evans.As for Jack Elam, the thought that came to mind while watching was how his character Jug May compared with the recurring role he had in the single season TV Western 'The Dakotas' from 1962. As the conflicted J.D. Smith, Elam's lazy eye gave him a bad guy look that contrasted with the good guy image he was meant to portray. Here he utilizes an approach that effectively conveys the image of a town bum looking for his next handout. Just as in the earlier 'Sheriff', Elam sides with Garner's character, but this time to pull off a scam whereby he impersonates a notorious gunslinger. I think I liked him better in the earlier film.As for Chuck Connors portraying the 'real' Swifty Morgan, I had to chuckle a bit, because the only other time I've ever seen him appear as nasty was in a fourth season episode of 'The Rifleman' titled 'The Deadly Image'. All throughout that series, Connor's Lucas McCain wound up killing someone in more than half of the show's episodes. In the particular story mentioned, Connors had a dual role as McCain and a vicious outlaw look-alike, and wouldn't you know it, McCain shoots the baddie and by extension, essentially winds up killing himself! The other thing that seemed kind of funny to me was when Colonel Ames (John Dehner) had a couple of his henchmen blow up the entrance to the mine his men were working to further thwart his local rival Barton Taylor (Harry Morgan). Though I know I've seen a similar scenario play out in other Westerns, this was the first time that it ever occurred to me that here was a case of a shaft getting the shaft.Well as it turns out, everything goes just right for Latigo Smith (Garner), but don't question the idea of the 'I Love Goldie' tattoo simply disappearing in the story's finale. Nor the business of his losing a forty six hundred dollar bet not once, but twice on a losing roulette wheel number. But the best had to be Jack Elam spoofing himself at the very end of the picture. I won't give it away, but that lazy eye still had a long way to go.

Well, a B for effort. It tries hard. Everyone except Garner overplays it in this rip off of "Yojimbo" or "For a Fistful of Dollars." (Take your pick.) Garner is a con man who rides into the town of Purgatory. Two sides are in battle over the contents of a gold mine and they mistake him for the manager of a hired gunslinger. He bilks both sides, meanwhile romancing Suzanne Pleshette.Garner is smooth and transparently phony. He smirks a good deal. But every other character seems to dash about, shout at one another, and shoot guns wildly. The mistaken assumption is that frenzy -- even pointless frenzy -- is in itself funny. The film itself disproves the theorem.For instance, if anyone can find anything amusing about a bar room brawl that breaks out for no reason at all, please let me know so I can send you a personal check for sixteen cents that will bounce. We've all seen a thousand such brawls, with men being pushed through windows, hit over the back with balsam wood chairs, looking cross-eyed when punched, and the bartender is frantically trying to save the mirror. They've been used to far greater comic effect in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and even the unsuccessful "Donovan's Reef." And for dramatic effect nothing equals the fist fight in "Shane." This one could have been written, directed, and edited by a Magic 8 Ball.It was directed by Burt Kennedy, who developed some subtle and witty dialog in the movies he wrote for Randolph Scott in the 1950s. "Ma'am, if you was my woman I'd of come for you, even if I'd of died in the doin' of it." It's almost folk poetry. But, as a director, there's not much he can do with this script, whose funniest dialog runs along the lines of, "Madam, unhinge your jaw and DEPART!"

As with other reviewers, I saw and really liked SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF. A really good story, really good script, very likable characters. Then I saw SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER. Really awful story (if you can call it a story), really terrible script, completely unlikable (and unbelievable) characters. The "heroine" is a psycho who shoots at anybody and everybody for no reason at all. The "hero" is a piece of scum trying to survive by conning women out of their dough. The so-called plot doesn't actually kick in until the end of the movie, and then we are treated to a villain in terrible makeup who seems to struggle just to say his lines. I like really good french toast. If LOCAL SHERIFF is good french toast, then GUNFIGHTER is a piece of soggy molded five-day-old bread crawling with flies. Yuck.

This movie, while funny in many places, pales in comparison to the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff. The first movie, with much of the same cast, is a solid 10 but I can only give this one a 7 at best. All of the actors who were in both movies did a better job in the first one and Joan Hackett was surprisingly better than Suzanne Pleshette.They just aired them back to back and the superiority of Sheriff was glaringly apparent. Sheriff flows along smoothly with great dialog but this one seems to stutter and try too hard. The premise of the first movie is also better and the opening scene sets the tone for the hilarity that follows. Again this one just doesn't do that as well. I always liked Garner and he was brilliant in both movies but maybe they should have quit while they were ahead and never made this one.