I don’t understand gambling and am glad the alure of it eludes me. My favorite quote related to it is from somebody named Canada Bill Jones in the 1800’s. He was informed the poker game he was in was crooked, and he replied, “Sure, but it’s the only game in town.”
James Garner has a similar problem in 1971’s Support Your Local Gunfighter. He rants to Jack Elam about the horrific odds of a completely honest game, and the impossibility of winning what is most certainly a rigged one in the bar where they find themselves. One of the film’s better lines is this exchange between Garner and the croupier: “Do I look dimwitted enough to play that kind of game?” “Uh, it’s against house rules to answer that question.” And yet, Garner abruptly gets up from the bar and lays upon number 23 the princely sum of $4,600, which had to be an astronomical amount of money in the 19th century. The marble lands on number 22.
Because of this, he will have to go through with a ruse of mistaken identity which began when he stepped off the train into this wild west town of Purgatory. You see, some of the town elders, led by Harry Morgan, were waiting for the arrival of a legendary gunfighter who has been hired to take out the bad guys, led by John Dehner, who have overtaken the town. All Garner had been doing when he arrived was trying to get out of an impending marriage to a madam played by Marie Windsor. But he’s the only one who gets off the train that day, so he must be the man.
Extending this scam one degree further, Garner claims Elam is the actual gunfighter for which they are looking. I didn’t see any point in that because, whichever man poses as the assassin, not a single shot has to be fired to momentarily intimidate the bad guys. Instead, just the threat of potential violence does the job. What I was most baffled by was why nobody in town recognizes Elam and realizes he is not the man he claims to be.
There is on occasion some additional work Garner had to do to prevent he or Elam from being shot, and I was shocked by a scene where he knocks out a gunfighter who has challenged him and then breaks the man’s trigger finger on each hand using an iron of the very old school variety, meaning it is actually made of cast iron. Here we have a G-rated film with a scene that immediately brought to my mind the hobbling from Misery.
The film also has the word “ass” in it way more times than I thought possible in a film of that classification. Every occurrence of it applies to a donkey, but is clearly a double entendre to slyly employ the most gentle of swear words. Consider Garner’s stunned disbelief in the office of doctor (but, really, veterinarian) Dub Taylor, which leads to this explanation: “I doctor pack mules, too. Got a pain in your ass, you come to Doc.”
This film is far too sitcom-y and dumbed down than it’s predecessor, 1969’s Support Your Local Sheriff! I found that film unexpectedly charming and quite funny. I would say this 1971 film is a far inferior sequel, except it isn’t a follow-up to that picture. Inexplicably, this has a similar title, and a plot that resembles the other’s rather closely if one squints hard enough. There are even multiple actors carried over from the one film to another, though differently named, which makes their appearance in almost identical roles more than a tad confusing.
Instead of a family gang of outlaws, we get competing mining interests trying to blast their way to the mother lode. The recurring explosions rattling the town are supposed to be endlessly hilarious. It made me miss even more such setups in the previous film as the unbarred holding cell in which Garner holds Bruce Dern. Here, we have such “jokes” as a dog relieving itself on Garner’s leg. Just think, somebody was paid to write that gag.
This picture also had me missing Joan Hackett, though her role in Sheriff was pretty thankless. Still, Suzanne Pleshette fares even worse here as Morgan’s daughter, who is desperate for him to succeed in striking gold, if only so she can get to Miss Hunter’s College on the Hudson River in New York for Young Ladies of Good Family. Though it didn’t once make me laugh, I was still amused by the great many times she says the name of that institution, and in many permutations.
Of course, everything will end happily for the right characters in Support Your Local Gunfighter, a movie so desperate to take the same steps as its predecessor that it also ends with Elam telling the audience the future of the leads beyond the events shown here. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Garner and Pleshette will end up together. This is after they suddenly cling to each other after one of those town explosions. She says in a suggestive manner, “Fire in the hole” and I really started to wonder how much one could get away with in a G-rated picture in the 1970’s.
Dir: Burt Kennedy
Starring James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray