Arnold Laven has never impressed me as a director and it will not start happening with this ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO effort.
Despite having a decent cast to work with, from the outset he does not seem to know what to do with Jean Simmons, clearly too good and beautiful an actress to appear in wild Jericho town, run with an iron fist by ruthless, evil, control freak Dean Martin, in one of his finest hours - I do not rate it the inferior of his part in RIO BRAVO.
Pretty boy Peppard with his deprecating gotcha smirk forever on his lips, complies with Dean's every whim, but beats the latter at poker, scores a small fortune and is told to clear town or he too will hang by his neck and kick the bucket. George waits until the situation is hopeless to start shooting the hell out of Dean's cutthroats (Dean's order actually is: Get me 12 men in 5 minutes!)
What sets George apart from other silver screen gunhands is that he only uses his Colt .45, regardless of his distance from Winchester-toting Dean and sidekicks. The man is so good with that six-shooter that I do not recall seeing him reload it!
At the end, when George and Jean seem ready to ride off into the sunset loving each other forever, only George disappears into the bush, and it is not Jean's, which left me with rather frustrated.
To cut a long story short, ROUGH begins well and only gets worse from halfway on. Its 104' felt like 3 hours, I couldn't wait for it to end... and when I saw George gently tapping the rock behind which he is hiding with his Colt, thereby giving Dean his exact position, to then throw a knife at Winchester-wielding Dean... I marveled at my own stupidity for watching it all to the end.
5/10: one of my most generous assessments ever.
Despite having a decent cast to work with, from the outset he does not seem to know what to do with Jean Simmons, clearly too good and beautiful an actress to appear in wild Jericho town, run with an iron fist by ruthless, evil, control freak Dean Martin, in one of his finest hours - I do not rate it the inferior of his part in RIO BRAVO.
Pretty boy Peppard with his deprecating gotcha smirk forever on his lips, complies with Dean's every whim, but beats the latter at poker, scores a small fortune and is told to clear town or he too will hang by his neck and kick the bucket. George waits until the situation is hopeless to start shooting the hell out of Dean's cutthroats (Dean's order actually is: Get me 12 men in 5 minutes!)
What sets George apart from other silver screen gunhands is that he only uses his Colt .45, regardless of his distance from Winchester-toting Dean and sidekicks. The man is so good with that six-shooter that I do not recall seeing him reload it!
At the end, when George and Jean seem ready to ride off into the sunset loving each other forever, only George disappears into the bush, and it is not Jean's, which left me with rather frustrated.
To cut a long story short, ROUGH begins well and only gets worse from halfway on. Its 104' felt like 3 hours, I couldn't wait for it to end... and when I saw George gently tapping the rock behind which he is hiding with his Colt, thereby giving Dean his exact position, to then throw a knife at Winchester-wielding Dean... I marveled at my own stupidity for watching it all to the end.
5/10: one of my most generous assessments ever.