5/10
A farcical and disconcerting comedy-action in which there are laughs , slapstick , noisy action , thrills , entertainment and amusement .
26 November 2023
This is a sort of live-action equivalent of the famous cartoon series. Fun Western parody in which satire goes on and on the same comical premise. The bandit Dingus Mgee (Frank Sinatra) arrives in the town of Yerkey's Hole, where a series of disorder and altercations break out. There he meets an old friend (George Kennedy) with whom he begins a prolonged confrontation to keep a loot. In the town of Yerkey's Hole, Belle Knops (Anne Jackson) is both Mayor and bordello-madam. She appoints Hoke town Sheriff and tries to get him to stir up the Indians so the soldiers at the nearby fort won't go to Little Big Horn, that why the troopers ae the main clients of her prostitutes. Along the way Dingus keeps attempting to save his Indian girlfriend (Michele Carey) and keeps rescuing her . Sinatra plays cowboys and indians for adults! It's kind of a western. He's sort of a cowboy !. It is the fastest fun in the west!

Diverting Western satire in which there are several nutty characters and improbable happenings. This wacky spoof is packed with mayhem, lots of silly laughters and great entertainment and fun . Most of the laughs and sight gags galore work acceptably well ; humor is also bold and intelligent with a myriad of imaginative but well-known sketches . Demystified as well as amiable Western was one of a group of diverse characters changed the concept of this particular genre each bent on disproving a popular myth , yet tinged with humor , spoof and combining with anti-heroes , crazy Indians and anything else. The film is a send-up of "the Code of the West" with a lot of and exaggerated events, embarrasment and ridiculousness. A funny spoof of B Western that is almost live-action Roadrunner/Coyote and his disaster-prone cartoon, a similar experiment was subsequently made by Hal Needham in Cactus Jack (1979) . Here Sinatra plays the inept highwayman Dirty Dingus Magee who faces off his old enemy Hoke Birdsill taking turns at being either lawman or outlaw and being rivals or partners in crime, depending of the circumstances. But incompetent Hoke/George Kennedy mugs his way through a routine series of flops and he repeatedly fails to to get the loot. This comic Western is a kind of live-action similar to Roadrunner and Coyote. This is an enjoyable film but repetitive and director Burt Kennedy, apparently lost in the continuous gags , resorts to hackeyed camera trickery , including a truly silly denouement. The picture is fun enough and agreeable in parts and it has its moments here and there . The great duo of likeable protagonists: Frank Sinatra, George Kennedy are complemented by a nice support cast, such as : Anne Jackson, Lois Nettleton, Michele Carey, John Dehner, Henry Jones, Harry Carey Jr, Paul Fix and Jack Elam steal the show as the alleged criminal, murderer, shooter John Wesley Hardin, a real gunman who murdered a number of victims. The twisted screenplay besides having more than its fair scraps of funny lines ,throws up sympathetic roles. The formula deals to enhance the comic observations of the western originated on the decade 60 , being continued by the following filmmakers : Andrew McLagen and Burt Kennedy with ¨Support your local gunfighter (one of his better spoof Western)¨ , ¨Support your local sheriff¨ (his highpoint) , ¨Dirty Dingus Mcgee¨ and director Michael Gordon with ¨Texas across the river¨ ; a bit later on , Mel Brooks directed the indispensable ¨Blazing saddles¨, a surrealist , extreme and gross-out spoof with the ordinary bunch of loonies and loopies .

This amusing and hilarious Western was regular y professionally directed by Burt Kennedy. He initially was screenwriter , his initial effort, ¨Seven men from now¨ (1956), was a superb western, the first of the esteemed collaboration between director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott. Kennedy wrote most of that series, as well as a number of others for Batjac, although it would be nearly 20 years before Wayne actually appeared in the film of a Kennedy script. In 1960 Kennedy got his first work as a filmmaker on a western, ¨The Canadians¨ (1961), but it was a critical failure . He turned to television where he wrote and directed episodes of "Lawman" (1958), "The Virginian " (1962) and most notably ¨Combat!"(1962). Directing ¨Support you local sheriff¨, ¨Support your local gunfighter¨ ¨War Wagon¨ and ¨ The Good guys and bad guys¨ that resulted to be four of his best Westerns . He returned to films in 1965 with the successful ¨The Canadians¨ (1965), later producing and directing the pilot for the TV series of the same name. The film will appeal to absurd, unruly , wacky Western comedy fans . This raucous Western spoof is a Frank Sinatra/George Kennedy vehicle , if you like their particular performances ,you'll enjoy this one .
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