Even John Wayne couldn’t avoid the customary post-Oscar® slump after TRUE GRIT/’69 brought the little man his way. Eleven films to go before he was thru, all disappointing (or worse) other than THE COWBOYS.* Wayne, hoping to buck tradition, tried with Howard Hawks, John Sturges & Don Siegel, but all three directors seriously off-form. While here, in the fourth of five films with the reprehensibly coarse Andrew L. McLaglen, he’s not even trying. A big production, too: handsome locations, lots of horse & cattle flesh, a bevy of second-tier ‘names’ in support. But in dialogue, acting, bald-faced exposition, dramatic construction, use of ‘with-it’ fast zoom shots as exclamation points, indigestible title song repeating like a bad radish, two Bob Mitchum sons, risibly mean villains and a stunt double for the ages for our aging lead, this tussle over land & cattle may be the worst of Wayne’s later vehicles. And to appease the youth market, Billy the Kid's on hand. Alas, with the ‘wrong’ Deuel brother hired to play him; pixie-ish Geoffrey instead of talented, tragic brother Peter.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Pamela McMyler, shockingly bad as Wayne’s niece/Billy-the-Kid’s g’friend, got her start in AMBLIN’/’68, the short film that landed a 22-yr-old Steven Spielberg an agent. No dialogue on that near silent, so maybe she’s a little better.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Normally Mark Rydell can give McLaglen a run for his money in lousy direction (see ON GOLDEN POND/’81). But he's on his best behavior for THE COWBOYS/'72. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-cowboys-1972.html
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