It's amazing what you'll watch when you've been at sea a while. Like 32 year old westerns. What's even more amazing is how much you enjoy them.
To be honest, I've always been a bit of a fan of the old Horse Opera. There's a lot to be said for good old fashioned, uncomplicated entertainment, especially after a few weeks sitting off the coast of Indonesia staring at geophysical equipment. And this one co-starred an actor who used to give me distinct palpitations of the heart when I was 14 years old, (James Stacy), and I wanted to see if the effect was still there. (It isn't.)
The story is straightforward and opens in a spirited style with a barn burning. Howard Nightingale (Kirk Douglas who also directed and produced) wants to be elected a Senator from the state of Texas. In order to win public support, he takes a train around the state traveling from place to place with a posse and horses, ready to leap out of the train at every stop to round up criminals in general and one notorious gang of train robbers led by Jack Strawhorn (Bruce Dern) in particular. If ever an outlaw felt entitled to utter the phrase "How can I soar like an eagle while I'm surrounded by turkeys", it's poor Strawhorn. His ambition is blighted by a series of dumb and dumber gang cohorts with a rampantly low IQ and a collective sense of loyalty less reliable than a railroad timetable. They betray him, lose his carefully hoarded loot, allow themselves to get carelessly burned to death and generally let him down at every turn, until the inevitable happens and he's caught. With Strawhorn in jail, Nightingale allows himself to be feted by the towns' folk (generally portrayed as good, honest imbeciles) before moving on to Austin, the state capital, and greater things.
Of course Strawhorn escapes by tricking his predictably stupid guards, the plan goes awry, and, besides which, is Nightingale really the honest and upright, baby-kissing political servant he claims to be, on the side of the people? Or is he really just in the pay of the railroad kings, willing to sacrifice the voters for richer masters? Will the disabled but honest newspaper editor (Stacy, in his first movie after losing an arm and a leg in a horrific motorcycle accident) find him out? Will Nightingale's posse seduce every woman in town before the train pulls out? And did someone steal that dramatic scene of the mounted horses leaping out of the railway carriage for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Or from Butch Cassidy? I can't recall which movie is older.
The acting is pretty basic - with the exception of Dern and Stacy - who gives a low key but quite effective performance in a small role which I think was written especially for him - the characters are pretty much stock Western types, and the movie contains just about every Western cliché in the book, and yet I admit to having enjoyed it. It's an uncomplicated, fun melodrama that doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't claim to be especially meaningful. It whiled away an hour and a half quite pleasantly.
One slightly worrying note; some of the stunts using horses looked horribly real, this movie may well have been made in the bad old days when animals were routinely maltreated during movie production and often sacrificed for a good stunt. Horses appear to take crashing falls, leap out of moving trains and tumble off cliffs into rivers with alarming regularity. I hope it wasn't all as real as it looks.
To be honest, I've always been a bit of a fan of the old Horse Opera. There's a lot to be said for good old fashioned, uncomplicated entertainment, especially after a few weeks sitting off the coast of Indonesia staring at geophysical equipment. And this one co-starred an actor who used to give me distinct palpitations of the heart when I was 14 years old, (James Stacy), and I wanted to see if the effect was still there. (It isn't.)
The story is straightforward and opens in a spirited style with a barn burning. Howard Nightingale (Kirk Douglas who also directed and produced) wants to be elected a Senator from the state of Texas. In order to win public support, he takes a train around the state traveling from place to place with a posse and horses, ready to leap out of the train at every stop to round up criminals in general and one notorious gang of train robbers led by Jack Strawhorn (Bruce Dern) in particular. If ever an outlaw felt entitled to utter the phrase "How can I soar like an eagle while I'm surrounded by turkeys", it's poor Strawhorn. His ambition is blighted by a series of dumb and dumber gang cohorts with a rampantly low IQ and a collective sense of loyalty less reliable than a railroad timetable. They betray him, lose his carefully hoarded loot, allow themselves to get carelessly burned to death and generally let him down at every turn, until the inevitable happens and he's caught. With Strawhorn in jail, Nightingale allows himself to be feted by the towns' folk (generally portrayed as good, honest imbeciles) before moving on to Austin, the state capital, and greater things.
Of course Strawhorn escapes by tricking his predictably stupid guards, the plan goes awry, and, besides which, is Nightingale really the honest and upright, baby-kissing political servant he claims to be, on the side of the people? Or is he really just in the pay of the railroad kings, willing to sacrifice the voters for richer masters? Will the disabled but honest newspaper editor (Stacy, in his first movie after losing an arm and a leg in a horrific motorcycle accident) find him out? Will Nightingale's posse seduce every woman in town before the train pulls out? And did someone steal that dramatic scene of the mounted horses leaping out of the railway carriage for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Or from Butch Cassidy? I can't recall which movie is older.
The acting is pretty basic - with the exception of Dern and Stacy - who gives a low key but quite effective performance in a small role which I think was written especially for him - the characters are pretty much stock Western types, and the movie contains just about every Western cliché in the book, and yet I admit to having enjoyed it. It's an uncomplicated, fun melodrama that doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't claim to be especially meaningful. It whiled away an hour and a half quite pleasantly.
One slightly worrying note; some of the stunts using horses looked horribly real, this movie may well have been made in the bad old days when animals were routinely maltreated during movie production and often sacrificed for a good stunt. Horses appear to take crashing falls, leap out of moving trains and tumble off cliffs into rivers with alarming regularity. I hope it wasn't all as real as it looks.