PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Jackals 1967

Vincent Price stars as a South African miner in The Jackals. It came out in 1967 and Robert D Webb is the director. It's based on a 1948 film called Yellow Sky which was based on an unpublished novel of the same name by W R Burnett. Lamar Trotti wrote the screenplay to the 1848 film and Harold Medford wrote the screenplay to the 1967 film. I'd like to see Yellow Sky.

It's pretty much a straight up western, other than the bits where the Zulu like tribesmen come calling. Some bank robbers drop in on Vincent and his granddaughter Willie. They sniff out the old man's gold and it becomes a rather tense situation. It all ends pretty well, except for a few of the bank robbers.

I liked Vincent, Willie was fun too, she's played by Diana Ivarson, and I liked some of the South African touches. There's a bit of gun play and some comedy. Enjoyable. You can see it on YouTube, find the link above.

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I watched Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter today and enjoyed them all over again. I had copies I had recorded off of Turner Classic Movies and thought I would upgrade them to real DVDs. They do look a lot better.

Support Your Local Sheriff came out in 1969 and I went to see it in the theater. I'd been a big James Garner fan from watching the Maverick series on TV. I recently picked up a set of Maverick and I'm slowly watching the first season.

James Garner is a guy who wanders into a small town. He says he's on the way to Australia but he gets talked into taking the sheriff's job. His first act is to arrest Bruce Dern, the son of the local bad rancher, played by Walter Brennan. Walter and his son's have they way int he town and Walter collects a large fee to protect the gold that gets shipped across his land.

Joan Hackett plays the romantic interest and Harry Morgan is her father and the town mayor. It's a town struggling with the lawlessness of the local gold miners, on top of being under Walter's thumb.

James makes Jack Elam his deputy and they proceed to clean up the town. There's plenty of jokes, some of that mushy stuff, and a good bit of fighting and gun play. The script was written by William Bowers and Burt Kennedy was the director. William has written some good screenplays since starting in 1942 and going on until 1980. I've seen The Gunfighter, Mrs O'Malley and Mr Malone, Cry Danger and Alias Jesse James, enjoyed them all. Burt started directing in 1961 and he worked until 2000. One of my other favorites of his work is the 1976 film adaptation of the Jim Thompson novel The Killer Inside Me.

Support Your Local Gunfighter came out in 1971 and a few of the previous cast return. James is a different guy, he's a conman who arrives in the jerkwater mining town of Purgatory. Suzanne Pleshette plays the wacky romantic interest. I've never cared that much for her. I've seen her in a lot of Disney movies. Henry Morgan is her dad. Henry and John Denher are both digging for the mother load of gold. It's a heated rivalry and there's sabotage involved.

Jack Elam gets tricked into playing a known gunslinger by James. There's several other good character actors in the mix, Marie Windsor, Dub Taylor, Joan Blondell, Ellen Corby, Kathleen Freeman, Henry Jones, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez and Chuck Conners.

I might not have enjoyed the second movie quite as much as the first but it was still entertaining. I gave them both a 7 but I couldn't really give the second movie a 6, it's bit better than that. Burt Kennedy returns as the director and he co-wrote the script (uncredited) with James Edward Grant. Grant started in the movie biz in 1935 when his story was adapted for a movie, he had his own screenplays the following year. He's written a few of John Wayne movies, I know I've seen Angel And The Badman, Flying Leathernecks, The Alamo, McLintock! and Circus World for sure.

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I got this four pack of Westerns and watched it today. It's called Western Classics, though they aren't, and all four are Italian Spaghetti Westerns from the late 60s and early 70s. It's from Echo Bridge Entertainment and all four movies are on the same disk. All but one are widescreen and they don't look too bad.

Life Is Tough, Eh Providence 1972 Here's a fun comedy that has a goofy sense of humor. A bounty hunter catches a criminal, turns him in for the reward, then helps him escape so he can catch him again and turn him into the next town's sheriff. They get mixed up with some other criminals and have an adventure. Not all the jokes were good, some were embarrassing. I occasionally laughed out loud, once because it was a funny joke. American Gregg Palmer plays the poor criminal forced to run behind the bounty hunters wagon as they travel between towns. It's the best of the lot and one I would watch again.

The Bounty Killer 1966 Originally called The Ugly Ones. A fairly descent story, the bounty guy after the criminal. They meet up at a hacienda where the locals turn against the bounty hunter, then the criminal's gang show up. They're fucked after that. Eventually the bounty hunter gets a jump on the criminal and nearly saves some of the locals. They deserved it. Not a bad movie, enjoyed it for the most part. British actor Richard Wyler is the foreign actor in the mix. He's alright as the bounty killer and so is main Italian lead Tomas Milan as the criminal. Good locals too. 

The Price Of Power 1969 The story is about a Pinkerton agent who discovers a plot to kill President James Garfield. It's 1881 and the place is Dallas Texas. That's not the only reference to the Kennedy assassination in the movie. It's kind of a weird plot element, not sure it's needed, certainly doesn't do anything for me. I did like the social commentary element about the ex-slave guy. There are three Americans in the cast, Fernando Rey, Warren Vanders and Ray Saunders. Generally it was noisy and there was a fair bit of action. I might watch it again, I might never see it again. Who knows.

Sundance Cassidy And Butch The Kid 1969 Here's another Western Comedy that's listed under Alive Or Preferably Dead on the IMDb, it's US release was under Sundance And The Kid. Two brothers have to fill a request in the will of their deceased father. They have to live together for 6 months. They aren't pals and that request causes some great mayhem around the country. Somehow they brothers turn to bank robbing and the like.

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The Naked Spur is a 1953 Jimmy Stewart Western. It's directed by Anthony Mann and the screenplay is by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom. Anthony directed 42 films in a career that started in 1939 and ended in 1968. His first movie was The Streets Of New York and it was a TV movie. It's was his only one.  A lot of his movies were Westerns. Sam Rolfe on the other hand wrote mostly for TV, he developed The Man From Uncle and wrote an episode. Harold wrote a lot of TV also, some of which I've probably seen.

Jimmy is a bounty hunter looking for dirty criminal Robert Ryan. Ralph Meeker is a dishonorably discharged Union soldier he meets on the trail. Millard Mitchell is an old prospector that gets dragged into the story and Janet Leigh is hanging with Robert for some reason. Ralph helps capture Robert and invites himself in for a third of the $5000 reward. He offers another third to Millard, who helped. Jimmy wants the whole reward to buy his ranch back and Ralph wants the whole reward for himself 'cause he's a snake in the grass. Millard is just stupid and he pays for that later. I enjoyed the ride as the group tries to get to Abilene. The $5K causes a lot of problems and it hardly ends well for anyone. Good movie and one I went and ordered now that I've seen it. You can often find a few good bargains on eBay.

The Scalphunters is a 1968 Western comedy with Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas and Dabney Coleman. It's written by William W Norton and directed by Sydney Pollack. Burt is a trapper who gets his furs traded for Ossie by some Kiowas. He follows and see the Indians killed by Telly and his gang of scalphunters. They kill any Indians they see for the $25 bounty on their scalps. Telly is the leader and Shelley is his gal. They take Ossie and plan to sell him in Houston for $1500. They have the furs and Burt is right on their trail, worrying them, picking them off one or two at a time. Eventually it all sorts itself out and the movie ends with Burt and Ossie just one step behind the Kiowas and those furs. Not a bad bit of fun, but not one I would bother buying.

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I thought I'd watch as many of my massive stock of Western DVDs as I could today. First up She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, a 1949 Western directed by John Ford and the screenplay is by Frank Nugent and Laurence Stallings. Ford is well know for his Westerns, they stand out among the rest. Frank wrote several films for Ford and John Wayne, Fort Apache, 3 Godfathers, The Quiet Man, Donovan's Reef and The Searchers. He also wrote the screenplay to Mister Roberts. I always liked that movie, I read the book before I saw the movie. Laurence's output isn't something I'm familiar with, I see he wrote this and 3 Godfathers with Frank but nothing else.

It's 1876 and it's a short time after the battle of Little Big Horn. The battle and the death of Custer have emboldened the young men of the local Apache, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. They are off the reservation and attacking white men. John Wayne plays Captain Brittles, who's got a week to go before he retires. He gets an order to take a troop out and deliver the wife and daughter of his commander to the stagecoach line. They have Indian trouble along the way and find the station attacked and the stage burned. Brittles devises a plan to stop the braves from fighting and it works. He retires and rides off into the sunset.

Don't worry the Army isn't done with Captain Brittles. John was 41 at the time the movie was made and he plays a man in his 60s. He does a great job and it's one of the many movies that really show how good an actor he can be. It's one of John's favorite roles. There's a good cast; Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr, Victor McLaglen and Mildred Natwick were the ones I knew. There's plenty of gorgeous scenery in Monument Valley. It's a good entertaining story that's worth seeing.

Cast A Long Shadow is a 1959 Western with Audie Murphy as a man who inherits a big ranch when the man who might be his father died. It's directed by Thomas Carr and written by Martin Goldsmith and John McGreevey. Walter Mirisch is the producer for a company he owned with Audie Murphy.

John Denher is the foreman of the ranch and he'd been on Audie's trail for 5 weeks when he finds him gambling in a cantina. He brings Audie back to the big ranch so the men that worked there can buy him out and he can go on drinking. Audie meets up with his old girlfriend, played by Terry Moore, and he changes his mind about selling the ranch. Trouble is, they need to get 3000 head of cattle to Santa Fe in a week to make enough money to keep the bank from foreclosing. There's a lot of tension and hard feelings as Audie acts the big cold hearted boss on the trail. It all works itself out in the end, though the third act is like a summary of what happened, Audie regains his humanity in a stampede, literally and figuratively. It was still an OK movie but you sure wasn't as good as the first movie I watched today.

The Alamo is John Wayne's movie, he directed and starred in this 1960 historical Western. I say historical, only in that it's based on something that happened in the past. I read on the Wikipedia that some say there's really nothing much that really happened depicted in the movie but I kind of expect that from a Hollywood historical drama. It was the first movie he directed, The Green Berets was the second, though he has some uncredited directing on three other movies. James Edward Grant wrote the script. It's a long film that used to be longer. The DVD I have is 162 minutes and the original release was 202 minutes, much of that longer time was musical overture, intermission and end music. I don't feel I'm missing anything by not seeing the longer version, even John Wayne said it was too long. It's a movie that only ends badly for everyone at the place. It's not going to be one of my favorites, that's for sure, but it's OK. I'll keep the DVD but I doubt I'll get around to watching it again.

The Proud Ones is a 1956 Robert Ryan Western. He's a sheriff in a small town and he's dating the lovely Virginia Mayo. It's nice to see him as a good guy. Jeffrey Hunter is the son of a man Robert killed in another town. Jeff's dad was a skunk gunfighter working for Robert Middleton, a gambler that run a dirty saloon. Ryan moved away and some time later Middleton has moved to the same town. Ryan's got problems, a scared deputy who quits and dizzy spells that blur his vision. Things get tense but Jeff sides with Ryan and takes a job in the sheriff's office. It's a good story, with a good shoot out in a barn at the end. The script was by Edmund H North and Joseph Petracca. They adapted the novel by Verne Athanas. Robert D Webb is the director. 

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The four pack of Westerns I watched today came from Platinum Disc Corporation and they put four different Westerns on a single disc. The series is called The Great American Western and it's the 11th volume of 30.

Battle Of Chief Pontiac 1962 It's directed by Felix E Feist with a script by Jack DeWitt. Lon Chaney Jr plays Chief Pontiac and Lex Barker is a soldier who goes against the Hessian Colonel who is in favor of killing the natives outright. It's pretty heavy handed but the bitter sweet ending is good. About average for the story. There's a nice score by Elmer Bernstein.

Sitting Bull 1954 Dale Robertson is a Major in the Army, he disagrees with General Custer and sides with Sitting Bull. J Carrol Naish plays Sitting Bull and Iron Eyes Cody plays Crazy Horse. He gets tried and convicted of treason for helping the Indians. Don't worry he'll be saved when Sitting Bull comes to his rescue in a pretty unbelievable scene. Jack DeWitt wrote the screenplay to this movie, he co-wrote the script with director Sidney Salkow.

Against A Crooked Sky 1975 Richard Boone plays a prospector who helps a young man find the Indian tribe that stole his sister. They find her just as she's doomed to die int he morning. The brother has a certain amount of time to beat the sun so he can die in his sisters place. He fails and the sister is shot with an arrow and falls off a cliff. In a kind of bogus made for TV ending she's alive. The daughter of the chief took her place under the strategically placed blanket and fell off the cliff with an arrow in her. The Indian brave who took the sister returns her to the family. It was mostly below average with hardly anything happening for long stretches. Richard Boone was noisy.

The Great Indian Wars is a 1991 documentary that was pretty poorly produced. They use clips from public domain Westerns and re-use them several times in the 96 minute running time. The narration is kind of dull on top of that. I started speeding up after a while. From what I see the documentary I saw is edited from a longer 5 part series. You can see the 3 hour and 40 minute version on YouTube. It looks like a lot of the interviews, and other interesting stuff, was cut out and the narration changed. After watching bits and pieces from the same era it turns out to be a more interesting documentary. I'll download it and get to it in the future.

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The last disc of Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection has 4 more movies and no matter how you add it up the dozen movies on the set don't have anywhere near 10,000 ways to die. Mostly they just get shot. Oh well. It's what is to be expected from Mill Creek Entertainment. The quality of these films is good to poor. MCE isn't a company known for the quality of their products. There's just a lot of stuff in each set. At least this set has only four movies per disc, the discs are single layer and dual sided, there are 2 movies per side. Single layer discs give two movies more bytes, as opposed to putting 4 movies on a dual layer disc which has about a gigabyte less space than the single layer dual sided disc. Some of their current offerings have 5 movies on a dual layer disc. Mind you I still buy these DVD sets when I see them on clearance. It's often the only way to get some of these films.

Beyond The Law 1968 Turns out I had seen this one too. Back in 2010 I had watched a MCE set of Italian Westerns and this was one of 4 or 5 films in this set that were on that set. Mill Creek sure does re-issue the same films often.  Lee Van Cleef is a gunslinger that wants to go straight. He gets a job as a sheriff in a town. His old gang thinks they can use him as a cover for their criminal activities but that won't work out for them so well. Lionel Stander, Gordon Mitchell and Bud Spenser co-star. Best film on the disc but barely above average.

The Great Adventure 1975 Jack Palance and Joan Collins are the big stars in this one. They aren't the main characters, it's that kid and his dog. He gets orphaned and him and his sister hook up with a couple of nice trappers. They wind up in a town where Jack runs the saloon, and lords over the town, and Joan is a dance hall girl. Things get worse before Jack lies in the dirt, a slug in him. It's got a poor script and nothing much else is better. Not worth watching once. They have the film on YouTube but they are asking $1.99 to see it. I didn't pay that for the whole 12 movie set and I couldn't recommend anyone bother with this film.

His Name Was King 1971 Klaus Kinski is a bounty hunter. He kills a guy and the guy's brother kills Klaus's brother and rapes the sister-in-law. Klaus goes on a revenge trip but winds up getting used by a government agent to catch another crooked guy. It's only so-so. 

Jesse And Lester 1972 Jesse is a crook and Lester is a Mormon. Estranged half brothers they are drawn together because of an inheritance. It's the worst looking film in the bunch. The transfer is probably from an old tape. Mill Creek doesn't much care, it's bulk before quality. Besides the poor quality of the film there's a so-so script. Not one worth bothering with.

All done with that set now, not a great set, certainly not for more than a couple of bucks. It's nice that the Italians liked the American Western so much that they continued to make them after Hollywood cut back production on their own oaters, it's just too bad that the Italians were so poor at it. Not every film is as poor as many of these are, there are some great Italian Westerns. Some films had better budgets and better film makers at the helm. Clint Eastwood's Dollar series is worth seeing and Once Upon A Time In The West is out and out brilliant. You can't go wrong with the original Django and the Trinity films, with Terrance Hill and Bud Spenser, are worth a look. After that, your guess is as good as mine.

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Four more Italian Western's today, all from the Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection. Sadly, I had already seen them. I had gotten another Mill Creek Entertainment collection called Spaghetti Westerns and these four were all in that that. None of the other 8 films in the current set I'm watching were in that other collection. Mill Creek makes a lot of different size collections and they mix and match the same films over and over again. A film collector has to watch what they buy when it comes to MCE.

The Grand Duel 1974 Lee Van Cleef is an ex-sheriff who helps a guy framed for murder get away from two brothers who believe he killed their dad. It's a bit better that average and Lee is A-OK. Music from the score is used in Kill Bill Vol 1.

Johnny Yuma 1966 Johnny Yuma, played by Mark Damon, comes to his Uncle's ranch to work, only to find the man dead. Johnny suspects his Uncle's younger wife and her brother. The pair send their henchmen to kill Johnny, he's the heir, but that doesn't work so well. Johnny can take care of himself. Another one that was a bit better than average.

God's Gun 1975 This ones got a hat trick of Western stars; Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance and Richard Boone star in this only barely average Italian Western. The rest of the cast includes Sybil Danning and Lief Garrett. Lee is an ex gunfighter turned priest. Lief is the older version of a young man who was there when Lee was killed by Jack. He grows up and hunts Jack down. Nothing special here.

It Can Be Done Amigo 1973 Bud Spencer and Jack Palance are the names I recognize in this comedy Western. Bud helps a kid get his inheritance and Jack wants Bud to marry his sister. There's a few laughs but not that many. Bud's made better comedy Westerns before. You can check it out, and two of the other titles, on YouTube.

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Four more Westerns, this time they're of the Italian variety, and not surprisingly they're all about average. All of these movies are in a 12 movie set called Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection. It's from our old pals at Mill Creek and it came out in 2010. The movies are paired two a side on three double sided discs. These older Italian Westerns are plentiful and many of them have been collected in these movie packs. I have some other collections I've either watched or will watch. One of these days. The quality of the transfers is often pretty poor. There's a second volume in the series, with another dozen movies. I don't have it but I would pick it up if I see it cheaper than the 7 bucks it's currently listed for on Amazon. Nowadays it's likely that these low budget sets will turn up used, for cheap.

Now They Call Him Sacramento 1972 Michael Forest plays a train robber named Sacramento, he's joined by his brother Big Jim, played by Fernando Bilbao, and his father Old Tequila, played by Luigi Bonos, in robbing a train. Old Tequila runs off in the night. He starts freely spending the money at a cantina. He's robbed soon after That. The sons catch up to him and they all go after the money. It's light hearted with plenty of fights, shoot outs and explosions. In fact, they blow up or burn down most of the town. It's very much like a Terence Hill and Bud Spenser type movie. The most famous films from the two are the Trinity series. Worth checking out and much better than this movie.

Four Dollars Of Revenge 1965 Robert Woods is a Captain in the US Cavalry. He's guarding some Confederate gold coins when the shipment is attacked. He is the only survivor and the military suspects him to have engineered the robbery. He gets put into jail for life. He escapes and finds the guilty party to clear his name. I didn't find it very interesting and my mind wondered. I think it was mostly the characters.

Seven Guns For Timothy 1966 Sean Flynn is the son of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita. He made 10 movies between 1960 and 1969, in 1970 he was in Vietnam as a journalist when he and Dana Stone disappeared near the Cambodian border. They were never seen again. Some say that the Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now loosely based on Flynn but others say it's based on the English photographer Tim Page. Seven Guns For Timothy is about a group of gunslingers that join Timothy to protect his gold mine from a scummy villain. It's got all the usual stuff that you'd expect and I liked the characters. It's like a fun version of The Magnificent Seven but nowhere near as good.

The Last Gun 1964 Cameron Mitchell is a big name gunslinger who gives it up. He settles into a town that eventually has some trouble with baddies and he has to get his guns out. It wasn't that interesting.

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Back at the Westerns again, this time I've got a 4 movie marathon of James Stewart films from Universal. It's a step up in quality compared to the batch of Western's I had been watching. They all had budgets that were in the 1-2 million dollar range. Compared to that the price of the DVD was pretty darn cheap, only a fiver on Amazon. Universal has a whole slew of these Western 4 movie marathons available for about the same price. Well worth it.

Bend of The River is a 1952 Western directed by Anthony Mann and written by Borden Chase. Jimmy is a guide for a wagon train. He used to be a criminal but he's trying to go straight. The train leader, Jay C Flippen, makes a deal with a dealer in Portland to ship food and supplies to their location up river via riverboat. When they don't come Jimmy and Jay head to Portland.

Turns out someone struck gold and the supplies are now much more valuable than when they were bought. Jimmy leaves town with the supplies and he has the fight of his life to get them to the settlement. Arthur Kennedy plays another criminal, Jimmy befriends him, and of course he dies in a hail of bullets when he double crosses his new pal. Rock Hudson plays a gambler who was too soft, to stop some slugs. Julie Adams plays the plucky gal who's just right for Jimmy. There's plenty of other great stars: Chubby Johnson, Harry Morgan, Lori Nelson, Stepin Fetchit, Frances Bavier, Jack Lambert and Royal Dano.

This is the second film that Stewart and Mann worked on together, the first was Winchester '73B in 1950. Jimmy had created a darker character for that film, a man who was edgier,  but still likeable. He's a bit like that here. The story has all the elements one likes in a Western, some horse ridin', gun shootin', train robbin' and it all works well. There's plenty of pretty scenery from around Mount Hood in Oregon. Well worth watching.

The Far Country is a 1954 film that was also directed by Anthony Mann and written by Borden Chase. Jimmy is taking cattle to Dawson City when he ticks off Skagway's powerful Judge Gannon. The judge confiscates Jimmy's cattle but Jimmy steals them back. The Judge hesitates following Jimmy into Canada, he has no power there, but eventually he shows up in Dawson, gunmen trotting along behind him. Gannon's power grab for the town leads to the big showdown at the end of the film.

There's plenty of nice scenery, they shot in Jasper National Park and the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta.

Walter Brennan plays Jimmy's pal, Ruth Roman plays a shrewd business woman who makes all the wrong choices, John McIntire plays Judge Gannon with relish, Jay C Flippen is the broken down Marshal. Others in the cast that I knew are: Harry Morgan, Steve Brodie, Robert J Wilke, Chubby Johnson, Royal Dano, Jack Elam and Kathleen Freeman. Corinne Clavert plays the pretty French gal in between Walter and Jimmy in the above picture. That's Ruth Roman in the sack with Jimmy. He's such a cowboy he leaves his clothes on all the time. The movie was easily as good as the previous one. Either one of these is worth the price of the set, though it's all relative. The single DVDs for these movies cost more than the 4 movie set.

Night Passage is a 1957 film that was directed by James Neilson and written by Borden Chase. Anthony Mann was supposed to be the director but he backed out over casting Audie Murphy. James Neilson directed a lot of TV, shows like Adam-12, Bonanza, Batman, Zorro, The Rifleman, Adventures In Paradise, Walt Disney's Wonderful World and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also directed a few interesting movies, like Dr Syn, Alias The Scarecrow, The Moon-Spinners, Moon Pilot and Bon Voyage! In 1948 Borden had written the Howard Hawks film Red River. If a writer should have been given an award for penning a script it should be Borden for that film. Borden was nominated for an Oscar, and a Writers Guild Of America award, but didn't win either. Night Passage has a score by Dimitri Tiomkin and it's pretty darn good.

Jimmy is joined by Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Diane Foster, Elaine Stewart, Brandon deWilde, Jay C Flippen, Herbert Anderson, Robert J Wilke, Hugh Beaumont, Jack Elam, Paul Fix and Ellen Corby. Jimmy gets a job from his old railroad boss to bring $10,000 to a mining camp. The payrolls been robbed three times already and they haven't caught the bandit.

Jimmy runs into trouble along the way, the train is held up by Dan and a few other baddies. Audie's in the gang and he has a connection to Jimmy. He doesn't quite want to give up the bad life and you know that can't go on like that. The question is does he get smart before he gets dead. There's the usual Western stuff going on as well as some nice stuff between Jimmy and the kid he takes under his wing. The railroad stuff was filmed near Durango Colorado, other outdoor stuff was filmed near Silverton, and more in the Iryo National Forest and Cerro Gordo in California. It's all nice country, but rough, I was glad to see it on TV, as opposed to riding through it on a horse.

The Rare Breed is a 1966 Western that was written by Ric Hardman and directed by Andrew V McLaglen. Ric was mostly a TV writer and mostly westerns of the 1960s. The story in the movie is loosely based on the life of rancher Col William Burgess. Andrew worked on TV shows like Perry Mason, Rawhide, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Virginian and Gunsmoke. He directed a good bunch of films, I think the best known might be John Wayne's McLintock!, I know I saw that but did I see Andrew's Monkeys, Go Home! MST3K fans would be familiar with another of Andrew's films, he directed Mitchell. It was one of John Williams earlier scores and it was OK. His film credit says Johnny Williams, fitting for a Western.

Jimmy meets up with the Price's, a mother and daughter, who have traveled to the US to introduce Hereford cattle to the West. It was her husbands dream but he died on route. She's determined to carry on. She sells Vindicator, the bull above to Scotsman Alexander Bowen, played by Brian Keith, and she goes along to make sure the bull is delivered to his Texas ranch. Maureen O'Hara plays Martha Price and Juliet Mills plays her daughter Hilary. Jimmy is hired to deliver the bull. He takes $1000 from another rancher to steal the bull and then gives that money to an old pal who was screwed over by that same rancher. He doesn't actually hand over the bull, or return the money.

Bowen says the bull must be able to stand on his own out on the range and Vindicator is set in the pasture. Bowen doesn't think he'll survive the winter and there won't be any mixed breed calves. There's a bit of romance mixed in there, some father son noise between the over bearing Bowen and his more normal son, some of the usual Western activity, and more humor than the rest of these films in the set. It's a good natured, light hearted film worth taking a look at.