Chisum (1970)

[Scott]

CHISUM (1970) - Solid western starring John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, and Ben Johnson. If you like Western or John Wayne then you'll like this one. There are a couple oddities in this film. One the story revolving around Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett was a surprise and two was that they did a couple scenes straight out of HONDO and MCLINTOCK concerning the American Indian. The scene were Wayne give the chief a cigar and the other when Wayne talks about the Indians way of life being a good one. Check this one out and watch for the titanic fight scene with heavy weights John Wayne and Forrest Tucker locked in a fist fight to the finish.

[Neville]

Not a bad movie. I definitely enjoyed it, but I've always had the same feelings about Andrew V. McLaglen films, on one hand that they are competently made (solid, as you say) and very entertaining, but on the other they are quite unimaginative and they rely, perhaps too much, in the carisma of their stars. This said, I liked the tongue-in-cheek tone, with details such as John Wayne going down the hill at the beginning of the movie, kick some ass during the film, and then returning to the hill at the end, as if he was a figure in a painting or in a wax museum. Wayne was on his last years, and admiting that the McLaglen films are something like minor recapitulations on the figure he built during his career, that is, homage films. Admitting that, perhaps I've been too hard on McLaglen, but remember that Don Siegel made a much better film ("The Shootist"), based on a similar premise. The Billy the Kid angle was a bit disappointing, as well.

[The Burgomaster]

I'm a big John Wayne fan, but CHISUM isn't one of my favorites. Then again, I haven't seen it in at least 15 years. Maybe I'll watch it again and see if I change my opinion.

[yaddo42]

Never liked this one much, just seemed like a half-hearted attempt to shoehorn Wayne's screen character onto the Billy the Kid story.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I ejoyed it. For me it was the cast that made the film. How can one not appreciate a film that starrred, besides those named, Christopher Geroge, Glen Corbett, Bruce Cabot, Andrew Prine, Patric Knowles, Richard Jaeckel, Lynda Day George, John Agar, Edward Faulkner, Christopher Mitchum, Geoffrey Deuel, Chuck Roberson, Hank Worden, Pedro Gonazles Gonzales, and Pedro Armendariz, Jr.

[Scott]

Hey, great to hear from you BoyScoutKevin. How you been? CHISM wasn't bad, I liked it. Finished off my western marathon that started last year. See almost every John Wayne film. Even seen part of RIO GRANDE today on TV. Haven't seen that one in years. Good film. The Western is a great genre. Many many fine films.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Thank you. Well. Scott, if you or anyone wants to do something a little different, John Wayne made some films other then westerns and war films. And here are a baker's dozen of them.

Reap the Wild Wind. As a sea captain battling wreckers and a giant squid in the Florida Keys before the Civil War.

Tycoon. Building railroads in South America.

Wake of the Red Witch. As a sea captain diving for sunken treausre in the South Pacific.

Fighting Kentuckian. Wayne and Oliver Hardy protect French exiles from Napoleon's army from landgrabbers at the end of the War of 1812.

Trouble Along the Way. As a football coach at a Catholic university.

Island in the Sky. Wayne's plane crashes in Greenland.

High and the Mighty. Wayne is part of a flight crew that has to land a crippled plane in San Francisco.

Legend of the Lost. Wayne and Sophia Loren search for a lost city in the Sahara Desert.
 
Barbarian and the Geisha. As the first American ambassador to Japan, after Matthew Perry opened up Japan to the West.

Hatari. Wayne captures animals for zoos in Africa.

Circus World. As an American circus owner touring Europe.

McQ. As a Seattle police detective.

Brannigan. As a Chicago police detective in London.

American prefered "McQ." Foreigners prefered "Brannigan." I prefered "Brannigan," if only for the pub brawl, where Wayne and Sir Richard Attenborough mix it up with the locals in a London pub.

Enjoy all of the films.