LAWMAN (1971) - Good Western starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, J. Lee Cobb, and Robert Duvall. The film was interesting as the director tried something different with the look and feel for this heavy Western. The story is interesting and the showdown at the end is rather well done and surprising. Lancaster made a few very good Westerns about the same time period like VALDEZ IS COMING, THE SCALPHUNTERS, ULZANA'S RAID, and THE PROFESSIONALS.
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ZACHARIAH (1971) - A strange Western co-starring Don Johnson. The film starts out with a young man getting a gun and a modern rock band (with electric guitars!) playing in the desert. He joins the rockin bandits called THE CRACKERS as he comes up with an idea to rob banks. While the band plays at one end of town they rob the local bank. It's a comedy of a Western I suppose, but it has it's good moments also. I thought it was suppose to be the EASY RIDER of the Western genre, but it isn't. It is better than Don Johnsons other 70's film A BOY AND HIS DOG.
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Post Edited (03-06-05 20:49)
I haven't seen the second one, but I have seen the first one, and for my money, it is both memorable and underrated. If for no other reason then the cast, which includes such western stalwarts as Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Albert Salmi, and Wilford Brimley, who plays a corpse in this one. The cast also includes Robert Duvall, Sheree North, Joseph Wiseman, J. D. Cannon, Richard Jordan, John McGiver, Ralph Waite, and John Hillerman. You can't go wrong with a cast like that. And all four of those westerns starring Burt Lancaster are great westerns.
I saw Lawman back in the 70's while I was in the service, and the one thing that really stuck out was the machine like cold bloodedness of Lancaster's character. He was sort of like the Terminator, he wasn't going to stop until he got everyone involved with old man's killing.
The director Michael Winner did a lot of good movies in the 70's. Among them several with Charles Bronson. He directed Chato's Land, The Stone Killer , The Mechanic, Death Wish, The Sentinel, and The Big Sleep (with Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe).
I really liked LAWMAN and will be seeing CHATO'S LAND and THE SENTINAL within the next couple months. In the film LAWMAN it was interesting how the bossman and Duvall really didn't want to turn themselves in for simple business reasons and not because they are real bad men. I had the rewatch the opening event of the film to remember who was responsible for the death of that towns citizen.
Post Edited (03-13-05 18:47)