grantss
Uneven but entertaining.An interesting western, directed by the great John Huston. Starts off as a revenge movie, though it is soon obvious that Huston is making more of a comedy than a drama. Some of the scenes that follow are incredibly funny, often in a dark sort of way.However, as the movie develops it starts to take the guise of a social drama, exploring how power corrupts. This, however, is a very short-lived theme.After a point it takes on a sentimental tone and ends with a rush of action. So pretty much every movie genre covered, in less than two hours...This unevenness is quite disconcerting, and unfulfilling. Rather than get a complete moral, we have pieces of many.However, the movie does not lack in entertainment. The first half is great and the ending is very emotional.Not perfect, but it will do.
rconnolly7422
One of those feel good movies that you just have to have in your collection. Much like Trains, Planes and Automobiles or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (can't believe Ian Fleming wrote that as well as James Bond) and another Paul Newman classic Slap Shot. Who cares if they aren't classic Gone with the Wind or Longest Day type movies. They are feel good movies. I can never forget all of the classic scenes in this movie, particularly those that include albino Bad Bob: riding into town, drinking boiling coffee right out of the can from the fire pit and eating an onion straight out of the dirt. Then getting a shotgun hole blown through him from the back in a "fair fight" ha ha. Too many funny memorial scenes. A Newman and cast classic.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
I did not think much of this film when I saw it in the seventies. But at that time what I wanted to see was a traditional western like Hawks or Ford would do it. But John Huston was not a director who made conventional films and I failed to appreciate that. As it starts the film states that this might not be what really happened, but what it should have been. And Huston shows us the Judge, excellently played by Paul Newman as the hero, far different from any other movie about him I remembered seeing. They are all great people, the Judge, his deputies, his mistress (Victoria Principal), his daughter (Jacqueline Bisset). And even though Tab Hunter plays a small part, I would say this is his best performance. An unrecognizable Tony Perkins also shows up as a preacher, and Ava Gardner , beautiful, in a beautiful scene. Huston tells us a great, meaningful story, full of emotion,
moonspinner55
John Milius scripted this farcical western right out of film school. He appears to have been enamored of the "Butch Cassidy" style of western in which modern references and jokes leaven the bloodshed--and in director John Huston, Milius has found that movie partner who relishes the macho aesthetic while underlining everything with self-righteous seriousness (both Johns think alike). Paul Newman, once again playing outlaw, heads up a tiny desert community, appointing himself judge-jury-and-executioner. The western town grows in capacity over the years, and the life there is captured quite vividly, with outré humor and colorful characters who are a lot of fun initially. However, the apparent desire to be profound comes off as masochistic in these joshing circumstances, and as Roy Bean is eventually usurped by the town's growth and progress, one isn't sure how to accept the material. Huston and Milius are like pontificators with a joy buzzer. They've got a good movie here, though it's one that leaves a sour aftertaste behind. **1/2 from ****
AD
