I finally caught this film in its entirety on the Fox MOVIES!!! channel (or whatever they call it), and it has more than its share of compelling moments. Given the personnel and the people behind the production, one might suspect that this was a project aimed at television, except that A) it is apparently intended to be shown in 1.85-to-1 aspect ratio (irrelevant to TV in 1966) and B) it is so violent that it is difficult to believe that it could have gotten on the air without some serious cuts, and there is no way that the makers wouldn't have known this in 1966. But the director and producers were the same people behind the series BRANDED, starring Chuck Connors, which went out of production at just about the time that this movie was released.
Chuck Connors plays Jonas Trapp, a proud but poor laborer in a small western town who -- as we learn from the backstory unfolded in a string of flashbacks -- married the wealthiest young woman in town (Kathryn Hays). Unable to abide the ease of their life together, or to persuade her to join him in building up a fortune of their own, he lights out for the frontier to become a buffalo hunter, and, as the movie opens (following an introductory section set in 1966), he is returning home after 11 years, carrying over a decade's worth of hard-earned cash. Alas, he has the bad luck to chance on a small encampment, seemingly abandoned, and is accused by three riders of trying to rustle the calf that is found bound nearby. The leader of this trio, Coates (Claude Akins), is drunk and a little crazy to start with, and wants to hang Trapp as a rustler; the banker Durham (Michael Rennie), talks him out of that, despite the egging on off sleazy, fancy-dan hanger-on "Johnnsy" (Bill Bixby). So instead, they put a large branded "T" on his chest and leave him for dead, and one of the trio takes Trapp's money before abandoning him. He doesn't die, however, partly through the intervention of seemingly kindly farmer Hanley (Paul Fix), who chances along to find him.
Realizing what has happened to him, and seething with rage, Trapp goes into town, where all three of his attackers live. His own wife, not knowing who he is after 11 years absence, rejects him violently. But he manages to track down his attackers, one by one, over the next 24 hours, and takes revenge on each of them. But more difficult than vengeance will be any possibility of putting his life back together, not only in the wake of his maiming but also the 11 years dividing him from his wife. And complicating matters further is the fact that she was preparing to marry Durham.
There's a pretty good pacing to this picture, despite having at least one foot in old-style Hollywood story-telling. And the violence, when it comes, is rather startling to see, given the vintage of this picture (could it have been intended for overseas distribution?). And director Andre Fennady has a good handle on action and narrative, so that not a huge amount of time is wasted.
But -- and this is a big caveat -- the movie falls short in many ways. It's all well and good to have startling images and convincingly nasty villains of all types. But this is still a fairly flat western compared either to the Italian-financed oaters that were making their way across the Atlantic (most notably those made by Sergio Leone starring Clint Eastwood, natch). Fennady has no sense of the over-the-top dramatic nuance that made not only Leone's westerns, but also those of Sergio Sollima and other filmmakers of the era, so indelible to the viewer. The action here is just that, action, with no dramatic artistry. And Richard Markowitz, try and he might, never does come up with a sufficiently memorable soundtrack to underscore that action.
This is a good try at something different in the genre -- and kind of remarkable, coming from Goodson-Todman Productions (yes, the game show guys) -- but I'd rather watch A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS or THE BIG GUNDOWN. On a more positive note, it is entertaining to see these actors in something this jarring in its viciousness, and the supporting players populating the screen: Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame (in too short an appearance), Gary Merrill, Frank Gorshin, and Buddy Baer, along with a youngish Jamie Farr; and, in the framing sequences, James MacArthur and Arthur O'Connell.
Chuck Connors plays Jonas Trapp, a proud but poor laborer in a small western town who -- as we learn from the backstory unfolded in a string of flashbacks -- married the wealthiest young woman in town (Kathryn Hays). Unable to abide the ease of their life together, or to persuade her to join him in building up a fortune of their own, he lights out for the frontier to become a buffalo hunter, and, as the movie opens (following an introductory section set in 1966), he is returning home after 11 years, carrying over a decade's worth of hard-earned cash. Alas, he has the bad luck to chance on a small encampment, seemingly abandoned, and is accused by three riders of trying to rustle the calf that is found bound nearby. The leader of this trio, Coates (Claude Akins), is drunk and a little crazy to start with, and wants to hang Trapp as a rustler; the banker Durham (Michael Rennie), talks him out of that, despite the egging on off sleazy, fancy-dan hanger-on "Johnnsy" (Bill Bixby). So instead, they put a large branded "T" on his chest and leave him for dead, and one of the trio takes Trapp's money before abandoning him. He doesn't die, however, partly through the intervention of seemingly kindly farmer Hanley (Paul Fix), who chances along to find him.
Realizing what has happened to him, and seething with rage, Trapp goes into town, where all three of his attackers live. His own wife, not knowing who he is after 11 years absence, rejects him violently. But he manages to track down his attackers, one by one, over the next 24 hours, and takes revenge on each of them. But more difficult than vengeance will be any possibility of putting his life back together, not only in the wake of his maiming but also the 11 years dividing him from his wife. And complicating matters further is the fact that she was preparing to marry Durham.
There's a pretty good pacing to this picture, despite having at least one foot in old-style Hollywood story-telling. And the violence, when it comes, is rather startling to see, given the vintage of this picture (could it have been intended for overseas distribution?). And director Andre Fennady has a good handle on action and narrative, so that not a huge amount of time is wasted.
But -- and this is a big caveat -- the movie falls short in many ways. It's all well and good to have startling images and convincingly nasty villains of all types. But this is still a fairly flat western compared either to the Italian-financed oaters that were making their way across the Atlantic (most notably those made by Sergio Leone starring Clint Eastwood, natch). Fennady has no sense of the over-the-top dramatic nuance that made not only Leone's westerns, but also those of Sergio Sollima and other filmmakers of the era, so indelible to the viewer. The action here is just that, action, with no dramatic artistry. And Richard Markowitz, try and he might, never does come up with a sufficiently memorable soundtrack to underscore that action.
This is a good try at something different in the genre -- and kind of remarkable, coming from Goodson-Todman Productions (yes, the game show guys) -- but I'd rather watch A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS or THE BIG GUNDOWN. On a more positive note, it is entertaining to see these actors in something this jarring in its viciousness, and the supporting players populating the screen: Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame (in too short an appearance), Gary Merrill, Frank Gorshin, and Buddy Baer, along with a youngish Jamie Farr; and, in the framing sequences, James MacArthur and Arthur O'Connell.