"Cahill U.S. Marshal" came towards the end of John Wayne's long career; he was to make only another four movies, the two police dramas "McQ" and "Brannigan" and his two final Westerns, "Rooster Cogburn" and "The Shootist". Here he plays the title character, an ageing widowed lawman with two teenage boys, Danny and Billy. Cahill is dedicated to his job- so much so that he tends to neglect his sons in his obsession with his duties. Seeking excitement, and rebelling against their father's strict "law and order" values, Danny and Billy help a notorious outlaw named Abe Fraser and his gang to escape from jail and to rob a bank.
Fraser promises the boys that nobody will be hurt, but of course that is not how it works out; the town's sheriff is shot and killed during the robbery. Cahill is charged with tracking down the perpetrators, and arrests four suspicious-looking characters who are found to be in possession of large amounts of money. Despite appearances, however, the four are innocent, but nevertheless they are found guilty and sentenced to death. This presents Billy and Danny with a difficult moral dilemma. Do they confess their involvement, thereby implicating Fraser and his associates, or do they let four innocent men hang?
Wayne himself said of the film that it had a good theme but wasn't a well-done picture. I am not so sure about the "good theme". The scriptwriters tried hard to come up for an original idea for a Western, something not so easy in the seventies when the genre, having been worked to death in the preceding decades, seemed to be becoming increasingly derivative. The script, however, rather downplays the moral responsibility of the Cahill boys who are treated as rebellious but basically decent lads and their involvement in a serious crime as a piece of teenage naughtiness on a par with sneaking out to play football rather than doing your homework. The adults involved in that crime, however, are treated as human vermin fit only to be gunned down in the inevitable final shootout with the Marshal, who now has his sons on his side.
Wayne was probably closer to the mark when he said that the film wasn't done well, although it is by no means the worst of his films. It isn't even the worst of his late period films. (That is probably "The Green Berets"). It is a reasonably good Western, reasonably well directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and with some reasonably good acting, especially from George Kennedy as Fraser. Its main problem is that it tries to deal with moral issues but does not really think them through. It is not in the same class as "Chisum", an earlier Wayne collaboration with McLaglen. 6/10
Fraser promises the boys that nobody will be hurt, but of course that is not how it works out; the town's sheriff is shot and killed during the robbery. Cahill is charged with tracking down the perpetrators, and arrests four suspicious-looking characters who are found to be in possession of large amounts of money. Despite appearances, however, the four are innocent, but nevertheless they are found guilty and sentenced to death. This presents Billy and Danny with a difficult moral dilemma. Do they confess their involvement, thereby implicating Fraser and his associates, or do they let four innocent men hang?
Wayne himself said of the film that it had a good theme but wasn't a well-done picture. I am not so sure about the "good theme". The scriptwriters tried hard to come up for an original idea for a Western, something not so easy in the seventies when the genre, having been worked to death in the preceding decades, seemed to be becoming increasingly derivative. The script, however, rather downplays the moral responsibility of the Cahill boys who are treated as rebellious but basically decent lads and their involvement in a serious crime as a piece of teenage naughtiness on a par with sneaking out to play football rather than doing your homework. The adults involved in that crime, however, are treated as human vermin fit only to be gunned down in the inevitable final shootout with the Marshal, who now has his sons on his side.
Wayne was probably closer to the mark when he said that the film wasn't done well, although it is by no means the worst of his films. It isn't even the worst of his late period films. (That is probably "The Green Berets"). It is a reasonably good Western, reasonably well directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and with some reasonably good acting, especially from George Kennedy as Fraser. Its main problem is that it tries to deal with moral issues but does not really think them through. It is not in the same class as "Chisum", an earlier Wayne collaboration with McLaglen. 6/10