Right from the opening credits, showing an Arizona desert landscape, the patchy and faded quality of the film, and the credits' lettering style synonymous with early-1970's Westerns, it's clear that September Gun is a low-budget, made-for-TV movie. Though laced with a charming humour and good-natured American-values, the protagonist characters could've come out of a just-add-water-and-stir sachet, and the bad-guys are equally clichéd. Each character follows a role that's almost formulaic, and a made-for-TV copy of similar roles from more memorable movies.
The story essentially revolves around nun Sister Dulcina's attempts to relocate Apache children to Columbine, a ne'er-do-well town, where the church has been turned into a "licquor-house" and the corrupt mayor (played by Christopher Lloyd - "Doc" from Back To The Future) is the law. They're escorted by Ben Sunday, an aged gunslinger, who dispenses truisms and witty observations to his nephew.
The Apache children are a caricature of Apache-ness, like those encountered on an episode of the High Chaperal, essentially playing the role of the hated redskins whose lands were stolen and in desperate need of education. (None of which can be disputed, despite the movie's cheesiness.) The plot unfolds prosaically. Rather predictably, Sister Dulcina is a feisty little lady in a habit, and Ben Sunday is a wizened mischievous old gunslinger whose humanitarian conscience hinges more on the dollar-cost of bullets than concern for human life. Ben Sunday and Sister Dulcina start off in disagreement and, by the end of the movie, come to appreciate the value in each other. The prostitutes give up their lives of ill-gotten gain with laughable readiness. And Jack Brian, the corrupt mayor, winds up injured in a shootout with Ben Sunday. Nicely and neatly, the town is cleaned up and put on the right tracks, and all within a 90-minute script.
September Gun is a poor-man's version of movies such as True Grit, Rooster Cogburn, The Searchers, and others.
Despite its overtly 1970's production-values, it came as a complete surprise to discover in the end credits that 1983 was the year of the movie's production, which is about the same time as the A-Team, V, Automan and Blue Thunder were televised, which makes September Gun's impoverished script and quality even more surprising.
The story essentially revolves around nun Sister Dulcina's attempts to relocate Apache children to Columbine, a ne'er-do-well town, where the church has been turned into a "licquor-house" and the corrupt mayor (played by Christopher Lloyd - "Doc" from Back To The Future) is the law. They're escorted by Ben Sunday, an aged gunslinger, who dispenses truisms and witty observations to his nephew.
The Apache children are a caricature of Apache-ness, like those encountered on an episode of the High Chaperal, essentially playing the role of the hated redskins whose lands were stolen and in desperate need of education. (None of which can be disputed, despite the movie's cheesiness.) The plot unfolds prosaically. Rather predictably, Sister Dulcina is a feisty little lady in a habit, and Ben Sunday is a wizened mischievous old gunslinger whose humanitarian conscience hinges more on the dollar-cost of bullets than concern for human life. Ben Sunday and Sister Dulcina start off in disagreement and, by the end of the movie, come to appreciate the value in each other. The prostitutes give up their lives of ill-gotten gain with laughable readiness. And Jack Brian, the corrupt mayor, winds up injured in a shootout with Ben Sunday. Nicely and neatly, the town is cleaned up and put on the right tracks, and all within a 90-minute script.
September Gun is a poor-man's version of movies such as True Grit, Rooster Cogburn, The Searchers, and others.
Despite its overtly 1970's production-values, it came as a complete surprise to discover in the end credits that 1983 was the year of the movie's production, which is about the same time as the A-Team, V, Automan and Blue Thunder were televised, which makes September Gun's impoverished script and quality even more surprising.