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This is a fairly disappointing John Wayne feature that suffers from a dull screenplay and unimaginative direction from Burt Kennedy. The whole movie feels like it was rushed and slapped together. And it's a shame because the cast is pretty good:
* John Wayne
* Ann-Margret
* Rod Taylor
* Ben Johnson
* Christopher George
* Ricardo Montalbon
* And even singer Bobby Vinton!
Ann-Margret plays a woman who knows the location of a $500,000 shipment of stolen gold. Wayne and the boys (being honest men) decide to help her get the gold and bring it back to the railroad company from which it was robbed. They will then collect the $50,000 reward from the railroad company. Unfortunately, a gang of thieves is hot on their trail.
In a nutshell, what you get here is scenes of Wayne and the boys riding their horses across the frontier and every once in a while they have a shootout with the bad guys. There isn't even a really good villain involved. Just a bunch of run-of-the-mill cowboys.
I guess even John wayne can have a bad day.
I agree, one of his way lesser efforts.
I like this one a lot. I love the shootout in and around the abandoned train in the desert. Plus Ann-Margret is smoking hot! Not his best, but still a good time waster IMO.
Ah......This is the only color John Wayne film I haven't seen yet. It dosn't come of TV as far as I can tell and hard to find a rental. Netflix has it, so I have to wait till another time. It's been on my list for a long time.
I haven't disliked a John Wayne movie this much since I saw BIG JAKE about 22 years ago. Although, I do owe it to myself to watch BIG JAKE again. A lot of people really enjoy that one, but I thought it was pretty dumb.
Sounds pretty much like most of The Duke output in the 70s, although this time Andrew V. McLaglen is not at the helm. I tend to dislike most of his later stuff, but at least those films are entertaining. The only one I really hated was "McQ". Man, the Duke (and his wig) never looked more out of place.
At least he left on a high note with "The Shootist". That's a film that should get more credit than it does, at least for inspiring "Unforgiven".
Despite multiple efforts I've never made it through this one, I just always lose interest. I like many of Wayne's later films when he was kind of riding on his image, some are great like "The Shootist", "Big Jake", and "The Cowboys", others just bore me to tears like "Chisum" and "Rooster Cogburn", some like "Rio Lobo" (even if it just Howard Hawks remaking "Rio Bravo" yet again and recycling the same characters and dialogue over and over like he during his last several films) and "The Undefeated" are okay but don't enthuse me to watch them often. Of his modern cops thrillers, I like "Brannigan" for it's attitude, mild wit, and the final car vs. revolver duel (all it needs is the right music to be a parody of a bullfight); but "McQ" never seems to go anywhere and Wayne looks so tired and unwell through it. Another waste of a great cast including the great and gone too soon Al Lettieri.
I really like BIG JAKE too. "I thought you was dead."
"Not hardly......."
Towards the end of his life, Wayne liked to make films. He liked to make films with his friends. And they liked him, and they liked to make films with him. And that is why you saw his films. It usually wasn't for the story. It usuallly wasn't for the director. It was usually because of the fun they were having making the film, came through in the film.
And while I agree with Burgo's assessment, that this is one of Wayne's lesser efforts, I can think of several of his later westerns, that I liked less than this one.
And he did--occasionally-- tried to do something different, such as "Brannigan" and "McQ." Of those two, like most posters on this board, I think I prefer "Brannigan." If for no other reason then seeing "the Duke" and Sir Richard Attenborough mix it up with a group of local yokels at the neighborhood pub. That bar brawl (IMHO) rivals anything seen in any American film.