William Bendix – The Magnificent 60s

I’m rescuing another low-budget western from critical oblivion. While this can’t boast existentialism to boost its credentials or claim to belong to the cult fraternity and, technically, doesn’t belong to the revisionist sub-genre which was beginning to gather pace, and while you won’t go to this for visual style or striking composition, there is more than enough going on for it to be worthy of reassessment.

For a start it majors on remorse. You might come across a western hero who bitterly regrets the woman cast aside or the family abandoned (though more likely such actions will sit lightly), but you’ll virtually never find anyone who regrets using the gun, whether for righteous reasons or not. But here you’ve got the two main characters, one on the side of the law and the other of a criminal disposition, who both show remorse for their actions. And had the director been more disposed to the visual he would have made a great deal more of the scene where the black-garbed widows arrive in town, victims of both gunslingers who killed their husbands and of the judges who pronounced the death sentence on their gunslinging husbands.

And there’s considerable pause to imagine what happens to such widows. Unless they can find a benefactor, perhaps an older unmarried rancher or a widower, they are going to end up working in saloons and selling their bodies. On top of that we have a cracker of a courtroom drama where the exceptionally clever lawyer can twist the facts to suit his client.

This could also have been another kind of western altogether, the one where the hero is constantly beset by a variety of enemies, and the narrative therefore one of tension. But Judge Clem Rogers (Dale Robertson) has four separate outfits baying for his blood and still director William F. Claxton manages to also fit in all these ideas about remorse, the law, widows, conniving lawyers, the entitled of that era, and failed romance.

Rogers is in town for the trial of former friend Pete (John Agar), son of Tom (Barton McClane) the biggest rancher around, for killing someone in cold blood. Tom, a piece of work, has various plans to tilt the odds in his favor, first planning to blackmail Rogers over being caught in a honeytrap with Pete’s fiancée Ellie Irish (Yvonne DeCarlo) and whichever way the trial goes he has hired gunslinger Joe Rile (Bruce Cabot) at a fee of $10,000 to kill the judge. Rile and Clem have history, the gunslinger killed the judge’s father. And it’s Tom who hits on the scheme of embarrassing the judge by flooding the town with widows, many of whom are widows thanks to Rogers.

And there are four other dudes, three brothers and an outsider, also intent on killing Rogers. While Sheriff Ed Tanner (Wiliam Bendix) isn’t inept he lacks the force of personality to keep the bad guys in check and when he’s wounded his inexperienced deputy Tim (Rod Lauren) foolishly steps up to the plate.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Ellie, forced to play the part of the lure to dupe Rogers, especially when it’s clear she has more feelings for him than she does for Pete, whom she admits she doesn’t love but needs his security. There’s an interesting power struggle between Tom and Rile with the gunslinger refusing to kowtow to his employer. The court case is riveting because it turns on various twists. And climax is a knockout that you won’t see coming.

This isn’t one like The Shooting (1966), rescued from oblivion by critics and cultists – Paramount issued it as a second feature so it’s not unseen – and it’s not trying to rewrite the Hollywood history of Native Americans, and as I said it’s not distinguished visually, but it does pack an awfully thoughtful punch, tackling areas that the bulk of western film directors have ignored.

Dale Robertson (Coast of Skeletons, 1965) heads a good B-picture cast with veterans William Bendix (Oscar-nominated for Wake Island, 1943), Yvonne De Carlo (career revived by The Munsters, 1964-1966), Lon Chaney Jr (The Wolf Man, 1941) and Bruce Cabot (King Kong, 1933).

William F. Claxton (Desire in the Dust, 1960) is to be commended for cramming in so much interest. Script by Steve Fisher (Rogue’s Gallery, 1968).

An unexpected treat.

Kirk Douglas (The Brotherhood, 1968) had been so intent on establishing his dramatic credentials as a Hollywood high flier that he hadn’t appeared in a comedy in six years when he was second-billed to Susan Hayward in Top Secret Affair (1957).

So after all the sturm und drang of heavyweight numbers like Strangers When We Meet (1960), Spartacus (1961), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962) it was always going to be interesting to see if he could drop the commanding persona long enough to hit the laugh button. He’s helped by a screenplay that while suggesting he is in control shows him run ragged by a quartet of females.

Millionaire widowed mother Chloe (Thelma Ritter) hires singleton lawyer Deke (Kirk Douglas) for $100,000 – enough to pay off his debts – as some kind of matchmaker, not given the task of finding suitable husbands for her daughters, but to make sure that trio of spoiled women get hitched to men chosen by her.

The plan is for the Kate (Mitzi Gaynor), the most organized, to marry rich playboy Sonny (Gig Young), health nut Bonnie (Julie Newmar) to take up with child love Harvey (Richard Sargent) and hippie art lover Jan (Leslie Parrish) to be landed with dull taxman Sam (William Windom). Sonny is Deke’s best friend, they share a yacht.

Nothing tuns out the way it should in part because Deke is more attractive than any of the other males on offer and in part because the heiresses are disinclined to do what anyone tells them. Deke spends all his time getting into hot water, dashing into another room to take phone calls that inevitably create further confusion, while manfully trying to ensure that the male suitors present their most attractive sides to their potential brides.

There’s not a great deal to it. It’s not exactly farce, but given the daughters live on top of each other, quite easy for Deke to race from one apartment to another, and say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The juggling act is never going to work out, especially as Kate is love struck by Deke, though if she could see how easily he flirts with her siblings she might be less keen. There’s finale on a boat or, should I say, in falling off a boat.

I wouldn’t say it’s a hoot but it’s an excellent lightweight concoction that comes to life by inspired casting. None of the women is your typical Hollywood fluff, all present interesting characters, leaders in their own ways, and with a lifetime of standing up to their domineering mother unlikely to fall over at the sight of any decent male.

Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) is easily the pick. The six-time Oscar nominee, generally seen in dowdy parts as a maid or similar, is dressed to the heavens, all glammed up as the millionairess without losing any of her trademark snippiness or drollery. Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958), in her final screen role, has a well-written part as an efficient businesswoman and proves more than a match for Deke.

Julie Newmar (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) is a delight as the health nut whose physical demeanor is proof of her regime while Leslie Parrish (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) bounces along with a coterie of artists. Gig Young (Strange Bedfellows, 1965) can do this kind of role in his sleep but he’s no less effective for having acquired that skill of the guy who never gets the girl. And there’s a rare sighting of Hollywood tough guy William Bendix (The Blue Dahlia, 1946) in a comedy.

But none of this would work without Kirk Douglas. And it works because he plays it straight. He doesn’t give in to the temptation of mugging to the camera, eye-rolling and pratfalls. You could easily get the idea the actor thought he was in a drama, especially as he’s the one in the kind of quandary that we’ve seen him ignore before, when ambition trumps morality or romance, as with Ace in the Hole (1951) or Strangers When We Meet. In some senses, the casting relies on audiences being aware of that sneaky side of his screen persona, the one where he doesn’t always do the right thing. And here, you could easily see him opting for the loot over the girl.

Director Michael Gordon (Texas Across the River, 1966) is adept at winkling out the comedic moments in stories that are played straight. The team of Larry Markes and Michael Morris (Wild and Wonderful, 1964) wrote the screenplay with the emphasis on situation comedy rather than farce.

Good, clean fun and great performances.

Tag: William Bendix

Law of the Lawless (1964) ***

For Love or Money (1963) ***