That was one of her better roles. Many will like her girl-against-the-world persona as Mattie Ross in
True Grit. The only time this worked for me was when she was trying to get her money back from the horse trader, Col. G. Stonehill, played by Strother Martin. It’s a fair scene. And this was the one bit of character acting (by Martin) in
True Grit that hit its mark, otherwise this is a Disneyesque film dressed up as a Western.
The worst of it is the scene where they finally corner Tom Chaney (perhaps the only other character of any quality….I wasn’t rooting for the bad guys, but close). Glen Campbell and Darby disarm him. Campbell takes Chaney’s gun and throws it over behind a rock and tells the murderous Tom Cheney to “Stay there.” No ropes. No bindings.
Campbell and Darby then run over to a nearby ridge where they watch the climatic scene of Rooster Cogburn meeting the four outlaws in a suicide charge on horse across the meadow.
Cogburn, having successfully shot up the bad guys (with some help from the sharp-shooting Campbell), Campbell and Darby then walk back to where they left Chaney under some kind of Western “honor system” form of arrest. Chaney, not playing by Disney’s rules at the moment, is hiding behind a bush and whacks Campbell over the head with a rock. No, I did not cheer. I think.
It gets worse. Then Chaney scuffles with Darby and Darby ends up in a pit with rattlesnakes. I don’t cheer here either. That would be in bad taste. After all, this is a John Wayne film and he must be shown some respect. And, in fact, the only bit of quality acting that Darby does is down in the pit where she is screaming for her life. She’s good at that.
The Duke comes and rescues her. He climbs down into the pit but not before the rattlesnake bites Darby. And can you blame the snake? Not me. Duke calls for Campbell to come help. Campbell ties a rope onto the pommel of his horse and drags them both out of the pit.
Now the really silly part. Campbell dies in the midst of riding his horse while pulling then out of the pit. Did I cheer when Glen Campbell was dead? No, because I didn’t remember that part and figured he was only mostly dead and would wake up. But he ever did.
And why Campbell was even in this picture is a mystery. Aside from the opening theme song, he doesn’t do anything useful such as sing a song as did Ricky Nelson (along with Dean Martin) in
Rio Bravo. Deano is terrific in this and Nelson equates himself well. And to the extent that he is a little unpolished as an actor, he contributes wonderfully in a song or two.
But we get nothing from Campbell. It’s unclear why his character is even needed. Nice hair, I guess.
I had mentioned the flat cinematography in this. But there was one very good scene that shows Wayne and company on horseback coming up to the cabin where they meet Dennis Hopper. And this is cause for another truly awful moment.
Hopper and his partner are put in handcuffs by Wayne. Meanwhile, he sits them both at a table, gives them a large knife and the turkey that Campbell had shot earlier, and tells them to prepare the turkey for dinner.
Having the bad guys handcuffed instead of using the honor system for arrest as Darby and Campbell did with Tom Chaney is a step up. But soon Dennis Hopper gets in an argument with his partner and his partner stabs him with the knife. Not only do we lose the Easy Rider but presumably they then did not have turkey for dinner.
I had to cleanse my cinematic palate after watching this. I found
The Searchers on a new channel called ROW8. It’s just another movie rental channel, although one with an interesting feature that lets you opt out of a movie you are renting in the first 30 minutes and switch to another. For first-time renters they had $2.00 off so I watch
The Searchers for $2.00.
This is a much more serious and gritty movie. And John Wayne is openly terrific in this one. Of course, we have Wayne’s buddy, Ward Bond. What Wayne film would be complete without him? We also have Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) as Martin Pawley, the token yute.
But Hunter is pretty good in this. Had
Star Trek been meant to be a more serious and gritty series, Hunter was by far the better choice as captain over Shatner. But they went in another direction and the rest is history.
I’d forgotten how politically incorrect this film is. There are (shock of shocks) some really bad Indians in this. And “woke’ movie goers will be shocked to learn that Ethan Edwards thinks it would be a mercy to put a bullet in the brain of Natalie Wood (some would, some wouldn’t) rather than leave her to live as a Comanche.
The cinematography in this one is unquestionably superb, one of the films to take best advantage of the picturesque Monument Valley. I don’t think the plot is always woven together as seamlessly as it might be. At times this looks like a miniseries that was cut down to a two-hour film. There are gaps.
But overall it works. I have my doubts about German-born Henry Brandon playing Scar, the Comanche. But such was the practice of Old Hollywood. Usually they would grab an Italian and make him up to be an Indian. For this central role, the use of a real Native American would have been better. Scar was so obviously not a Comanche. This is what scar should have looked like:
