This 1972 CinemaScope production* should have been a thrilling ride. As it is, it comes across as cardboard people filmed in front of some fairly stunning scenery, on horseback, travelling right to left for the first part of the picture and then left to right later on for the home stretch.
It might have looked okay in a first run theatre, (let's face it, the picture was never intended to be shown on home video the medium didn't exist in the early 1970s), but any film has to have more than dazzle to capture the imagination. In this case, we have a poorly plotted film featuring an ageing John Wayne doing what he does best: wandering about showing us when an all American male may and may not break the rules. He breaks no rules with his co-star, Ann-Margret. In fact there is no chemistry at work at all between them at all. The most stunning thing about Ann-Margret is the way she always has her hair and eyeliner perfect, regardless of how long she's been on the dusty trail. She never, apparently, needs to comb or wash it, and the one outfit she wears for most the movie never gets dirty. Nothing ever happens to make any of the characters come alive, despite some earnest "buddy talk" once in a while.
I'd wanted to like the film, but it is a caricature of John Wayne's true self. It's the type of sloppy and soppy movie that was somewhat of a hallmark in the late 1960s and 1970s. The music is diabolical irritating to the point of wanting to turn the sound off altogether. The dialogue is little better it might have been better being a silent movie.
Is it funny? Not when it is intended to be. The funniest part of the film is when the gang is searching for a rail-road track in a sand storm, and off to the right of the picture behind them, we get a clear view of the camera dolly track right out there in the desert! The director's signature, perhaps? More likely, just forgot just how wide widescreen can be!
The film is interesting only to see how John Wayne was milked mercilessly for his type-cast roles during his later career. He gives the appearance in this outing that he doesn't really care if the picture ever makes the big screen or not. It doesn't work as a "road" movie; it fails as a "quest" film, and it doesn't even get off the starting grid as a "buddie picture". It's a pity director Burt Kennedy didn't fire the scriptwriter but then it was his own script. Producer was John Wayne's son, Michael Wayne - maybe as a living memorial to him. But it is a film that would have been better dead and buried before it ever got past the storyboarding stage.
It would stand up to a John Wayne retrospective if shown on a large-enough screen, although "Brannigan" (1975) is more interesting way of viewing an ageing Duke, since at least he ends up in London in that one. (I reserve further comment on "Branigan" as the first and only time I've watched it was on its first theatrical release. "The Train Robbers" I watched - on video widescreen - yesterday). But in any case, neither film comes near to a masterpiece such as "The Searchers" (1956).
My rating: 3 out of 10 and that's generous. *Seems to be a difference of opinion regarding year of release.
It might have looked okay in a first run theatre, (let's face it, the picture was never intended to be shown on home video the medium didn't exist in the early 1970s), but any film has to have more than dazzle to capture the imagination. In this case, we have a poorly plotted film featuring an ageing John Wayne doing what he does best: wandering about showing us when an all American male may and may not break the rules. He breaks no rules with his co-star, Ann-Margret. In fact there is no chemistry at work at all between them at all. The most stunning thing about Ann-Margret is the way she always has her hair and eyeliner perfect, regardless of how long she's been on the dusty trail. She never, apparently, needs to comb or wash it, and the one outfit she wears for most the movie never gets dirty. Nothing ever happens to make any of the characters come alive, despite some earnest "buddy talk" once in a while.
I'd wanted to like the film, but it is a caricature of John Wayne's true self. It's the type of sloppy and soppy movie that was somewhat of a hallmark in the late 1960s and 1970s. The music is diabolical irritating to the point of wanting to turn the sound off altogether. The dialogue is little better it might have been better being a silent movie.
Is it funny? Not when it is intended to be. The funniest part of the film is when the gang is searching for a rail-road track in a sand storm, and off to the right of the picture behind them, we get a clear view of the camera dolly track right out there in the desert! The director's signature, perhaps? More likely, just forgot just how wide widescreen can be!
The film is interesting only to see how John Wayne was milked mercilessly for his type-cast roles during his later career. He gives the appearance in this outing that he doesn't really care if the picture ever makes the big screen or not. It doesn't work as a "road" movie; it fails as a "quest" film, and it doesn't even get off the starting grid as a "buddie picture". It's a pity director Burt Kennedy didn't fire the scriptwriter but then it was his own script. Producer was John Wayne's son, Michael Wayne - maybe as a living memorial to him. But it is a film that would have been better dead and buried before it ever got past the storyboarding stage.
It would stand up to a John Wayne retrospective if shown on a large-enough screen, although "Brannigan" (1975) is more interesting way of viewing an ageing Duke, since at least he ends up in London in that one. (I reserve further comment on "Branigan" as the first and only time I've watched it was on its first theatrical release. "The Train Robbers" I watched - on video widescreen - yesterday). But in any case, neither film comes near to a masterpiece such as "The Searchers" (1956).
My rating: 3 out of 10 and that's generous. *Seems to be a difference of opinion regarding year of release.