Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, March 5, 2012

BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE (1958)

This film is the odd-man-out in the run of seven  (really six . . . don't ask) Western Moral Fables Randolph Scott made under Budd Boetticher’s steady hand. In general, the films are remarkably well-balanced little dramas that set the broad Western landscape & Scott’s laconic acting style against a festering personal loss he’s riding away from and an unforeseen violent crisis he accidentally rides into. Working out the acute situation helps the chronic one . . . Fade Out.  Only here, Scott plays, of all things, a happy-go-lucky fellow who rides into Agry City, the West’s least friendly town, owned & operated by the corrupt & corpulent Agry Brothers. Befriending a young Mexican (Manuel Rojas) who claims a revenge for his outraged sister by shooting the youngest of the loathsome Agry clan, Scott finds himself thrown in jail with his new bud on a murder charge. It’s a fine set-up, but the dark, bleakly comic tone the story asks for, seems to be outside Boetticher's range; and the switch from the great outdoors to city streets & stark interiors (along with some seriously sub-par acting) emphasizes a budget that’s two sizes too small for the job. Still, the storyline is a neat bit of work and there’s a tremendous sick gag ending where a series of bad guys can’t stop themselves from trying to grab a bag of loot that’s landed in No-Man’s-Land between warring parties. A decidedly venal construct worthy of early Sergio Leone.

DOUBLE-BILL: This plays much better if you’ve already seen a couple of the stronger entries in the series; try THE TALL T/’57 or RIDE LONESOME/’59.

No comments: