Return of the Seven (1966)

Aka Return of the Magnificent Seven. We got to stand along side of ’em so that someday they can stand alone. Fifty gunmen force all the men in a small Mexican village to ride off with them into the desert. Among the captured farmers is love-smitten Chico (Julián Mateos), who three years before was one of seven hired gunslingers responsible for ridding the village of the tyrannical bandit, Calvera. Chico’s wife, Petra (Elisa Montés), looks for the only other members of the band to survive: Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Robert Fuller). She begs them to save the village once again. To replace the deceased members of the group, Chris buys the release of a brooding gunman Frank (Claude Akins) and famous bandit Luis (Virgilio Teixeira), held in the local jail, and recruits two more: sharpshooting ladies’ man Colbee (Warren Oates) and young cockfighter Manuel (Jordan Christopher). The men discover that the missing villagers are being used as slave labor to rebuild a desert village and church as a memorial to the dead sons of wealthy and psychotic rancher Francisco Lorca (Emilio Fernándes). In a surprise attack, the six gunmen force Lorca’s men to leave and prepare for a counterattack with Chico. The cowed farmers offer no help but the seven defenders successfully repel Lorca’s initial attack. Lorca then gathers all the men on his land to rout the seven men. The situation seems bleak until Manuel discovers a supply of dynamite which the seven use in a counteroffensive… Sure Chico is a friend of mine. But, hell, I don’t even know his last name. The first sequel to The Magnificent Seven is written by one (future) auteur, Larry Cohen and directed by another, Burt Kennedy, who already had form with a series of superb screenplays starting the previous decade.  This is his fourth film as director and unfortunately he does not marshal the drama in the exciting way you’d hope. Part of the miracle of the legendary first film was the spot-on casting but only Brynner makes the cut here, and despite more or less the same premise and setting, with location shooting in Spain, Fernando Rey as the priest, and a rousing score – a re-recorded version of the original from Elmer Bernstein – this never hits the same notes of empathy or sheer bravado even with a wealth of decent banter and action. The avengers may have reassembled, but Fuller is no Steve McQueen and Mateos is no substitute for Horst Buchholz.  What they really need is Eli Wallach to return as the consummate bad guy. In all the years I made my way with a gun, I never once shot a man just to see him fall

6 Black Horses (1962)

A man needs a purpose to ride this country. Ben Lane (Audie Murphy) is breaking a horse in the desert that he believes to be stray. He is caught by farmers who believe he is a horse thief when he is saved from hanging by Frank Jesse (Dan Duryea). Lane and Jesse are hired by Kelly (Joan O’Brien) who pays them to take her to a town to be with her husband. Ben is dreaming of buying a ranch and the $1,000 Kelly promises would help him achieve his goal. In reality, Kelly has an ulterior motive:  she is setting up Jesse because he killed her husband in a shootout. En route to their destination they have to deal with the Apaches and Frank is thinking of a different conclusion to proceedings … I’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long time. Burt Kennedy’s original script is typically lean, angular, witty and expressive and Murphy proves his usual scrupulous right-doing protagonist. It’s a straightforward revenge narrative with nice shooting (in Utah’s Snow Canyon, St George and Leeds), good performances, a neat backstory and a great collie who gets to ride with Murphy on a pack horse of his own. Directed by Harry Keller. There are some things a man can’t ride around

Comanche Station (1960)

A man does one thing, one thing in his life he could look back on… go proud. That’s enough. Anyway, that’s what my pa used to say. When solitary cowboy Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott) hears tales of a white woman living as a captive of the Comanche tribe, he rides deep into the tribe’s territory to exchange goods for her freedom. As Cody escorts the captive woman away, he learns that she is Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates), and that there is a sizable reward offered by her husband for her return. Cody and Mrs. Lowe must brave ruthless bounty hunters led by Ben Lane (Claude Akins) greedy for the reward, as well as the now-warring Comanches, to make it to safety but the reward for Mrs Lowe is ‘dead or alive’ … If they cut our track, it’s gonna put us between a rock and a hard place. The final collaboration between director Budd Boetticher with writer Burt Kennedy and star Scott, this has all the tropes of their previous work, including the marvellous setting of Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills in California. Scott is taciturn, the action is confined and taut, the mountainous locale expressive, the jeopardy well maintained and there’s a marvellous final twist in this particularly twisty tale about very different men who think they can change their lives if only one financial element is altered. The final film in the Ranown cycle. A lot of money has a way of making a man all greed inside

Return of the Gunfighter (1967) (TVM)

The odds were 6 to 1 against him! Ben Wyatt (Robert Taylor) is an ageing gunfighter who has grown weary of his lifestyle and is looking for a quiet time after being released from a five-year prison sentence. But when an old friend, Luis Domingo (Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.), asks for help defending his land, Ben can’t say no. Unfortunately, he arrives too late, finding Luis and his entire family except daughter Anisa (Ana Martín) murdered. Ben is determined to get revenge against the killers, and in pursuing them reluctantly enlists  a younger wounded gunfighter, Lee Sutton (Chad Everett). Anisa is recognised in Lordsburg  by the killers – even while wearing men’s clothes – and Ben needs to step up to save her from the men who destroyed her family but they turn out to be Sutton’s brothers … With a screenplay by Burt Kennedy and Robert Buckner this has pretty impeccable credentials. There’s a clarity (even simplicity) about the gunslingers versus hombres setup that is reflected in the glossy cinematography by Ellsworth Fredericks on location in Arizona. However Taylor’s star was on the wane and it serves as a footnote to his long career, released on ABC TV with cinema distribution only outside the US. It’s interesting as an introduction to Butch Cassidy (John Crawford) and the Sundance Kid (John Davis Chandler) but there are no real surprises although it’s nice to observe the byplay between Taylor and Everett as the older man confronts his mortality.  It took me a while to even recognise him:  this is the ageing process in living colour but he would die of lung cancer within two years of filming. This was his final western and third last film and he gives a fascinating performance.  He hosted the TV anthology series Death Valley Days from 1966-69.  Directed by James Neilson.

Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)

I’m slow – but you’re slower!   Travelling con man Latigo Smith (James Garner) drifts into a small Western gold rush town called Purgatory, he decides to take advantage of a local rivalry between gold-mining factions. Recruiting the shifty Jug May (Jack Elam) to pose as a notorious gunfighter, Smith sets his scheme in motion, while also taking time to romance the lovely Patience Barton (Suzanne Pleshette) who likes nothing better than to shoot up the town. However, after his ruse is uncovered, Smith incurs the wrath of the real hired gun (Chuck Connors) among others, leading to a big shoot-out and his inability to ride a horse is artfully exposed:  or is it? …  This unofficial ‘sequel’ to Support Your Local Sheriff features a variation on the conman/trickster persona of Garner (playing a different character) and while James Edward Grant gets the screenplay credit it had an uncredited rewrite by director Burt Kennedy who came to make a speciality of the comedy western following his early genre work in the Scott/Boetticher cycle. This isn’t quite as sharply parodic as the earlier film and it doesn’t possess its coherence rather a series of amusing vignettes including explosions and a bar-room brawl but it has great work by Elam as the oafish sidekick whom Garner identifies to the locals as sharpshooter Swifty Morgan, nice characterisation as the bawdy madam by Joan Blondell, sporting a chihuahua (and she has a visit by fellow proprietress Marie Windsor!) and lovely support by Pleshette as the blast-happy daughter of Harry Morgan who masquerades as a prostitute but is the real love interest. Garner is great, as ever!

Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)

I’ve never made any secret of the fact that basically I’m on my way to Australia. Calendar Colorado is a lawless town rich on the proceeds of a gold find during a funeral and it needs someone to pull it into shape. A sharpshooting chancer Jason McCullough (James Garner) claiming to be on his way to Oz takes a well-paid job to clean up as sheriff, hired by mayor Olly Perkins (Harry Morgan). That involves putting the Danby family in line so he imprisons idiot son Joe (Bruce Dern) in a jail without bars by dint of a chalk line and some red paint … This sendup of western tropes gets by on its good nature and pure charm with Garner backed up by a hilarious Joan Hackett as the accident-prone Prudy Perkins whose attractions are still visible even when she sets her own bustle alight. Jack Elam parodies his earlier roles as the tough guy seconded as deputy while Walter Brennan leads the dastardly Danbys, hellbent on making money from the guys mining the gold before it can be shipped out. Written and produced by William Bowers and directed by Burt Kennedy, that expert at a comic take on the genre whose serious side he had exploited in collaboration with Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott the previous decade. Bright and funny entertainment from Garner’s own production company, Cherokee.

Seven Men From Now (1956)

Isn’t that one of the best titles ever?! Burt Kennedy’s first film script was intended for John Wayne – and his company made it – but he did The Searchers instead and it wound up being Randolph Scott’s story:  that of Ben Stride, a sheriff who blames himself for his wife’s death during a Wells Fargo robbery who sets out to avenge her death, tracking down each of the men responsible. He hitches a ride with a married couple whose wagon is stuck in the mud and becomes intrigued by the husband’s story (Greer, played by Walter Reed) while falling for the wife Annie (Gail Russell). They encounter Stride’s former nemesis Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and his sidekick Clete (Don Barry) who decide to make off with the gold haul from the robbery when Stride has accomplished his mission. There is an encounter with hungry Indians, an ambush and an admission that the haul transported by Greer is the takings from the robbery. Shot in the beautiful landscape of Lone Pine, this is an elemental revenge western. Marvin is a choice, charismatic villain and the tragic Russell is wonderfully vulnerable as Scott’s romantic foil. Scott would perfect this laconic, grimly righteous hero who always finds himself in a shootout in an empty arena at the film’s conclusion. He insisted on Budd Boetticher as director and this became the template for a further six films they would do under Scott’s own production slate with producer Harry Joe Brown. For more on this film you can read my essay on Offscreen:  http://offscreen.com/view/final-showdown.

The Tall T (1957)

I was just thinking – first time I ever been on a honeymoon! This starts almost like a western satire and then it heads into more sinister territory – in every sense. Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) is the independent former ranch foreman who hitches a ride with a stagecoach which is taking a honeymoon couple to their destination. Willard (John Hubbard) doesn’t want a guest but new wife Doretta (Maureen O’Sullivan) insists. Then they arrive at a waypost where everyone has been killed with an outlaw gang ruling the roost. Led by child killer Frank Usher (Richard Boone), Willard bargains with them and suggests that his heiress wife could be held for ransom seeing as this isn’t the regular stage they were expecting to rob … When Usher has Willard shot in the back once the deal is secured a dance of hero/villain controls the drama as Pat appears to be Usher’s opposite but is really the flip side of the same coin.  Their morals are more or less the same – they just express them differently. Pat falls in love with Doretta, saves her from rape and plots their escape from their ruthless captors including Henry Silva and Skip Homeier. Burt Kennedy’s elegant adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Argosy story The Captives has a grindingly compelling rhythm as these men square off in an empty proscenium, that stark setting so beloved of director Budd Boetticher in the Alabama Hills. There’s always a standoff – it’s the brilliance of how it gets there that makes this a defining psychological western. Awesome.

Ride Lonesome (1959)

One of the acclaimed Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher collaborations utilising the amazing writing talent of Burt Kennedy, later to direct some pretty terrific westerns himself. This has Scott as Ben Brigade, a bounty hunter transporting a killer (James Best) but waiting for his brother (Lee van Cleef) to show up to account for an even worse crime. He is stuck at a staging post helping a woman (Karen Steele) whose husband has been killed by Indians and two outlaws help him out. They are played by James Coburn in his debut and Pernell Roberts, who is a very sexy, swaggering, saturnine man – much to my surprise, only knowing him in later years as Trapper John MD but who achieved fame shortly after this by starring in Bonanza on TV. Steele is incredible looking and her assets are a match for the beautiful stark landscape, used as ever by Boetticher to comment on the action, with the burning hanging tree at the conclusion a symbolic form of closure. James Best, the cowardly killer, is immediately recognisable from The Dukes of Hazzard as Sheriff Rosco Coltrane. How cool is that?