It's MOVIE TIME!
When we think of a comedy film that skewers the tropes and cliches of the classic western, most people think of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles released in 1974.
But five years before that, director Bert Kennedy and actors James Gardner, Jack Elam and Harry Morgan had already poked several holes in the conventions of western movies with Support Your Local Sheriff!
Jason McCullough ambles into the town of Calendar in the Colorado Territory. The town is a whirlwind of lawless chaos, overrun by any number of miscreants and scoundrels looking to score in the recently discovered gold buried in and around the town.
Jason aims to only be in town a little bit, maybe get a stake on some of that gold to help fund his eventual excursion to Australia.
Jason repeatedly tells anyone who will listen than he's only in Calendar temporarily and he's on his way to Australia.
Calendar needs a sheriff; all the previous men who held the job are dead or left before they could be unalived.
Jason needs money and acedes to being the town's new sheriff.
It's not a bad gig with a decent pay check and free room and board. And a brand new sherriff's office and jail all ready for business.
Except...
No bars on the cells. Those will be in any day now.
That doesn't stop Jason from getting right to work, arresting a thug named Joe Danby who shot a guy in a saloon right in front of Jason.
Jason convinces Joe to stay in his cell without bars.
The Danby family that runs roughshod over the town is viscious and corrupt, figure there ain't no cause for Joe to be in jail just because he shot somebody.
If all this sounds like the plot of Rio Bravo, well, it is.
Jason is not dealing with this alone. He has drafted stable hand Jake (self described as the "town character") as his very reluctant deputy.
Also on Jason's plate is dealing with hotheaded Prudy Perkins. She's the one who first discovered the gold that made Calendar the growing chaotic hub it has become. Prudy lives with her father, Olly, the town's mayor, and runs the household that is part of the sheriff's free room and board.
Prudy begins to spark towards Sherriff Jason and while he responds warmly to her affection, he reminds her he is only in Calendar temporarily on his way to Australia.
The Danbys engage a bunch of guys to attack Calendar and retreive Joe from jail. After a long but mostly unproductive gun fight, Jason bluffs his way to victory against the Danbys.
In the closing monologue, Jake breaks the fourth wall and brings the audience up to speed on what happens next:
- Jason & Prudy get married.
- Jason becomes the first governor of Colorado after it became a state
- Jason never makes it to Australia but he reads about it a lot.
- Jake takes over as sheriff of Calendar and becomes "one of the most beloved characters in Western folklore".
A lot of the beats from Support Your Local Sheriff are mirrored in Support Your Local Gunfighter.
A laconic gentlemen enters a rowdy town gone wild over GOLD. Like Jason McCullough, Latigo Smith is fast with a gun and even faster with an ascerbic quip.
Latigo is a gambler and con man and goes along with the gag when he's mistaken for "Swifty" Morgan, a famous gunfighter.
Two mining companies run by bitter rivals are in a race against time to find a "mother lode" of gold buried somewhere nearby. One rival has hired a gunfighter to take out the competition.
The other rival, Taylor Barton, wants to hire him first.
Latigo talks amiable ne'er-do-well Jug May into impersonating Swifty.
Latigo gets the attention of Patience Barton, the hot-tempered daughter of Taylor (the townsfolk call her "The Sidewinder"), who, desperate to escape her frontier existence, wants to attend "Miss Hunter's College on the Hudson River, New York, for Young Ladies of Good Families", and live a life of refinement in New York City.
Breaking the fourth wall, Jug May narrates what comes next:
- Latigo and Patience head off to Denver to get married.
- Patience never goes to Miss Hunter's College, but her seven daughters do.
- Jug goes on to become a big star in Italian Westerns.
James Garner thought that Support Your Local Gunfighter was not quite as good as Support Your Local Sheriff!
An assessment I agree with. Support Your Local Gunfighter is too shrill, to frantic, trying too hard to capture the charm that Support Your Local Sheriff displayed with less effort.
The titles of these films were derived from the popular 1960s campaign slogan "Support Your Local Police".
Next Saturday, with the new musical Wicked For Good in theaters, Movie Time will be about a classic musical.
And it's a Western.
Where the wind goes whipping down the plain, it's Oklahoma!
And with a little luck, there will be a Movie Time post on the Wicked sequel.
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