What a beautiful movie!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Four brothers reunite in Clearwater, Texas to attend the funeral of their mother--Katie Elder. None of them has been very attentive to her needs, but their neglect has not been intentional. They are all wanderers. When they return to Clearwater, they discover how little they know of Katie's recent circumstances.John Elder (John Wayne) is a renowned gunfighter and the father figure to his younger brothers. Tom (Dean Martin) is an inveterate gambler who likes to manipulate the odds. Earl Holliman plays Matt, next to youngest. And Michael Anderson, Jr. is Bud, the youngest--a reluctant student who is always ready to prove his mettle.As the sons visit local merchants and the town bank, hoping to settle Katie's accounts, they find that the townspeople knew her better than they did. One woman, Mary Gordon (Martha Hyer), plays the good neighbor while they are in town, just as she had promised Katie.Two mysteries arise: Why had Katie moved from the family homestead? And who had killed their father? In the first part of the film, the men investigate, unable to let go. The rest of the film is a series of actions sequences.John Wayne plays his usual cowboy self--forceful and determined. Earl Holliman is solid as Matt. Martin and Anderson are less natural in their portrayals. Martha Hyer plays Mary in a wonderfully understated fashion. The remainder of the cast includes a delightful collection of character actors who add color and are fun to recognize.The musical score feels forced and reminiscent of other, larger films. When the insistent strains of the orchestra back up a scene on horseback where the action is sedate, it feels inappropriate. I blame the director, not composer Elmer Bernstein.I really enjoyed the way the story develops in the first half of the film--with subtlety and sophistication. The second half is your standard shoot 'em up.

Though I enjoyed the picture well enough, I kept getting sidetracked by events in the story that managed to distract. The main one had to do with the ages of the Elder Brothers, particularly John (John Wayne). The family Bible had a notation that Katie Elder married in 1850, so even if she were pregnant with her oldest son at the time, and John Wayne looking every bit of his fifty seven years, the story would have taken place around 1907!That certainly wouldn't have been the case, so let's say John Elder was in his forties. A reference was made by youngest son Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.) about the Dalton Gang, saying he wanted to ride with brother John and become famous just like them. John's response was intended to give Bud pause, stating that the Dalton's were hung. But that wasn't correct either - Grath and Bob Dalton were killed during an attempted bank holdup in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892 (another hint about when this story took place). Emmett Dalton was captured and sentenced to life in prison, though he was pardoned after fifteen years in 1907 (about the time John Wayne's character would have been fifty seven). So again, some simple math works against the picture if one wants to get technical.Be that as it may, there's something to be said about the basic premise of the picture. The recently departed Katie Elder must have been a saint of a woman as every resident of Clearwater, Texas held her in the highest regard. On the flip side, three of her four sons wound up on the questionable side of the law, and Bud was headed that way if his siblings didn't send him back to college. But first, things have to be set right regarding the death of Bass Elder and the loss of the Elder ranch to Morgan Hastings (James Gregory).What one might not expect in a film like this is the number of scenes written for humorous effect. The argument the brothers had about the Katie Monument was pretty comical, and Dean Martin's glass eye raffle was a hoot. It seemed only appropriate that Strother Martin would be the winner.Probably the film's biggest missed opportunity came when gunman Curley (George Kennedy) was killed in the ambush at the bridge. His character was introduced as the antidote to gunfighter John Elder's presence in Clearwater, hired by Morgan Hastings in case the brothers got too close to the truth about their father's death and the ranch's new ownership. So the expected showdown that was suggested never became a reality. On top of that, Curley wasn't curly, and if I had to guess, a screen writer who saw this movie might have been inspired to give the same name to the Jack Palance character in "City Slickers".

A lot can be said about what John Wayne was becoming in the 1960s: old-fashioned; rampant, unquestioning patriot; militant right-winger, etc., etc. But there was something else that he still was: a Hollywood presence like few others before, and even fewer since. He was also undergoing a stark change in his life, one that can be seen to some extent in the film he made early in 1965 with old friend Henry Hathaway (NORTH TO ALASKA) in the director's seat—namely THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER.Wayne, Dean Martin (reuniting with The Duke from RIO BRAVO), and relative greenhorns Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson Jr. are four brothers who have returned to their former hometown of Clearwater, Texas to pay their respects to their mother Katie Elder, only to find that their family's ranch has been bought off under mighty peculiar circumstances, namely (and supposedly) a card game that their father lost, and was shot and killed for. The four brothers' reputations as overgrown juvenile reprobates (even Wayne), however, precede them; nobody's talking, not even the local sheriff (Paul Fix, of "Rifleman" and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD fame); and Fix's deputy (Jeremy Slate) has a lot against them. Then the four have it out with the man (James Gregory, who had played the manipulated politician in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) who bought their family's ranch out in that suspicious way that he has, along with a beefy gunslinger (George Kennedy), and Gregory's vicious but none-too-sharp kid (Dennis Hopper).What was notable about KATIE ELDER was that it was the first film Wayne had done after having had one of his lungs removed (in late 1964) because of all the smoking and boozing he had done throughout his life. This required him to carry an oxygen tank with him on the set; and he had to use it a lot since he not only did a fair amount of his own stunts, but also because much of KATIE ELDER was filmed in the rarefied high-altitude air of Durango, Mexico. It didn't seem to affect his performance adversely, though; he was still doing his particular thing, being The Duke as he would be for practically every Western he did from this point forward (even in his Oscar-winning role as Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT in 1969). He also was so taken with the scenery in Durango (and the cheap Mexican labor there) that a lot of the Westerns he made between this one and 1973's THE TRAIN ROBBERRS would be made in that locale.Even with Wayne's stoic presence here, he doesn't overshadow his co-stars too much. Martin, looking fairly sober, does his turn as the card-shark brother; and Gregory, Kennedy, and Hopper make for a trio of nasty villains. There is also the reassuring presence of Strother Martin in one of his many character roles; the great cinematography of Lucien Ballard; and a rousing score by Elmer Bernstein, with the title song done by the legendary Man In Black himself, Johnny Cash.While both the film and its Big Star may seem quite dated in a lot of ways, as an old-fashioned, traditional Western opus, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER delivers the goods in ways that you would expect any John Wayne film, especially one directed by Hathaway, to do. No one will mistake it for the more radical films that would soon alter the Western (THE WILD BUNCH; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST; BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID); but for what it is and what it intends to do, one could do far, far worse.

Four sons join together to get revenge for the murder of their drunk, habitual gambler father on the wake of the death of their beloved frontier mother, Katie Elder (never seen, but her presence is felt throughout the film anyway; how her memory always returns establishes her importance in the plot). John Wayne, Dean Martin, Earl Holliman (The Forbidden Planet), and Michael Anderson Jr. are the Elder sons who return to their mother's funeral, finding a town who wants no part of them. Wayne, as John Elder, is a known gunfighter while Martin's Tom has a warrant out for his arrest after an incident with a bartender in another town. The Elders are set up for the murder of Clearwater, Texas sheriff, Billy Wilson (Paul Fix, veteran of television), by a conniving, sneaky, no-good gun store owner, Morgan Hastings (character actor James Gregory, a veteran of television, particularly Barney Miller). Hastings is the one responsible for the murder of patriarch Bass Elder, resulting in the loss of land which left Katie without her home. The Elder sons attempt to right the wrongs orchestrated by Hastings.I admit that "The Sons of Katie Elder" isn't one of my favorite John Wayne westerns, certainly, in regards to his pairing with Dean Martin, not a patch to "Rio Bravo". That said, I found it entertaining for what it was: a story about four men trying to do right by their maw after a life of muddying the name Elder, especially John who is known for the bloodshed as a reputed gunfighter. Katie, a pacifist, loved John, but hated violence, and this provides motivation to try and do something (forcing youngster Bud (Anderson Jr.) to return to school and do Katie's memory justice) that would make her proud.Katie had a plan to raise cattle, so the Elders attempt to ride them to miners in the Rockies, but this plan is interrupted by Billy's "replacement", the green deputy Ben (Jeremy Slate) who believes they were behind the sheriff's murder, even though this is hogwash considering the Elders were in Pecos receiving the cattle. George Kennedy has a memorable part as Gregory's hired gun, black hat and rattlesnake grin, who will help Hastings in his plan to snuff out the Elders as they are carried, bound in chains, by stagecoach across a bridge. This film also has an early role for Dennis Hopper as Hastings' nervy, sniveling son, Dave. Curiously, the film is absent a lot of action, except two sequences at the end, including a bridge blown apart by dynamite and a gun store exploded, with more emphasis on the Elders attempting to put aside their criminal pasts to restore their family name and allow Katie to have died with some dignity. The film does have a playful brawl between the brothers which erupts when an angered Bud (mad as hell that John didn't draw in a gunfight with Kennedy's Curly in a bar) provokes John inside Katie's old home. I will say that the gunfight at the end, where the Elders must fend off Hastings' men underneath the bridge, is quite thrilling, although, interesting enough, this normally results in the conclusion of the film, but is instead a precursor to the return to town so that John can have one final showdown with Hastings.