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Reviews
Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
The funniest "Western" I ever saw - and I've seen it about 100 times.
I fell in love with this movie when I first saw it in 1971, and I added it to my collection in 2004. All in, that's 36 years of watching the same movie and I still laugh out loud every time I watch it. Kudos go to the great James Garner, Harry Morgan, and the late, great Walter Brennan, Jack Elam and Joan Hackett - the latter do some of the greatest screwball comedy turns since they invented 'em!
Immortal lines - Bruce Dern: "He lies to me about whether my gun is loaded," (Joe Danby explaining to Pa Danby (Brennan) why he is sitting in a jail cell that has no bars.)
"I don't know what I could've said to give you that idea," (Sheriff Jason McCulloch (Garner) to the town's mayor (Morgan) after the mayor expresses confidence to Jason: "I guess you know what you're doing." Used the Garner line myself many times. Still love it.
Garner's delivery of that one line puts me away every single time I hear it - sober, stoned, happy or sad - for 36 years.
Another exchange between Joe Danby (Dern) and Pa Danby (Brennan): Joe: "I thought you said they couldn't build a jail strong enough to hold a Danby!" Pa (after a few failed attempts to break Joe out of said jail): "Well, now they built one!"
This movie is a classic, still one of the best, funniest pieces of the craft of acting and directing I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it, see it! If you haven't bought it, buy it!
P.S. Some TV producer tried to make a series out of it on NBC in 1971. It was called "Nicholls" - Garner played the lead role, with John Beck as the deputy (Elam's role in the movie), and Margot Kidder in the Joan Hackett role as the mayor's daughter. Stinker. Lasted half a season.
Didn't deserve that much.
Number One (1969)
Washed-up NFL QB finds real life harder to deal with than eroding skills on the field.
This is a good date movie if you and your date don't want to watch the movie. The young lady I was with wanted me to pay attention to her, so I did. We had a wonderful time "paying attention" to each other. By the way, we both thought it was a lousy movie - it took about 15 minutes to figure out that Charlton Heston did not make a credible football player, washed up or otherwise, and he didn't do such a great job with the straight acting, either. I do remember Heston opening the blouse of the character played by Diana Muldaur. Diana was a babe in those days, in that '60s, long-flowing dark hair, eye-shadow junkie makeup style.
Unintentionally funny were some of the lines mumbled by a few real-life New Orleans Saints football players of the era - Dan Abramowicz, Doug Atkins (a very large human being), and another one who delivered what was supposed to be a locker room go-get-em speech. Sounded like he swallowed his mouth guard.
Like I said, a great date movie if you don't want to watch the movie.