Sunset: Glenn Ford’s last Westerns
It was TV Westerns from now on.
The Sacketts (NBC TV, 1979)
At the end of the 70s, Ford was back in the saddle for another TV epic, this time The Sacketts, a “mini-series” which compresses two Louis L’Amour novels, The Daybreakers and Sackett, into two 2-hour episodes.
It
wheeled out many of the old faithfuls to play alongside Sam Elliott, Tom
Selleck and Jeff Osterhage as the Sackett brothers. Ford is Tom Sunday,
good-bad man, though he bears his age less well, seems to be going through the
motions and sadly looks as though he had eaten a donut or two de trop.
Ben
Johnson plays Cap Rountree and is, of course, splendid. We also get Jack Elam,
Slim Pickens and James Gammon, excellent as the elderly but still ornery
Bigelow brothers, out for revenge after Elliott has shot their card-sharp
brother.
Mercedes
McCambridge has a brief early part as Ma Sackett. Even after all these years you still can't help thinking of Johnny Guitar. LQ Jones is a cattleman in
eyeglasses. John Vernon is satisfactorily slimy as leading bad guy Jonathan Pritts.
Ruth Roman is back as Rosie, Johnson’s long-time ‘girlfriend’ and Gilbert
Roland does his hidalgo act. So there are many old and loved Western faces,
alright.
There’s
also (there had to be) a girl each for the brothers: Marcy Hanson for Orrin,
Drusilla Alvarado for Tyrel and Wendy Rastattar for Tell.
Apparently
it was shot (by Jack A Whitman Jr.) in California and around Buckskin Joe in
Colorado but some of it sure looks like New Mexico to me – that limpid light
again. The music is by Jerrold Immel and is well up to the task.
It’s
fun to watch and a lot happens. The actors clearly enjoyed it (Elliott, Selleck
and Osterhage joined forces again to strut their stuff in another TV epic, The Shadow Riders, three years later). Ben Johnson joins the line-up at the end
as the four of them walk down the street, Wild Bunch style. There’s a
good final shoot-out. The overall impression we are left with, however, is of a
frantic editing and cutting to squeeze two novels’ worth of story into a couple
of evenings’ TV watching. So yes, get the DVD but don’t expect greatness. And
as for Glenn Ford, well, it was Glenn so you have to see it. But sadly, don’t
expect Jubal or 3:10…
Border Shootout (Turner TV, 1990)
Ford’s very last Western
appearance was a small part as sheriff in Turner’s 1990 Border Shootout, also known as Law
at Randado, the title of the book it is based on. He was 74.
First the good news: the movie
is based on an Elmore Leonard story. It’s an early one (1954) but like most
Leonard, it is spare, actiony and gripping. Being an EL tale, it is set in the
Southwest. It’s a coming-of-age story about a young man, Kirby Frye (a rather wooden Cody Glenn in the movie) who becomes
a deputy and battles the bad guys as much with brains as with guns. He is no
quick-draw superhero, just a regular guy trying to do the right thing.
More good news: Glenn Ford is
in it, not a big part, admittedly, despite his top billing, but he’s there, as County
Sheriff John Danaher,
who hires Kirby. He is rather obviously substituted by a stuntman on occasions
and even just walking about town does look a bit stiff.
Sadly, though, that’s about where the good news ends. The
writer/director (Chris McIntyre – he did another one, Hell to Pay, this time with Lee Majors in the Glenn use-a-big-name-star-in-a-bit-part role, in 2005)
has tried to ‘improve’ the Leonard story. The additions and interpolations don’t
do the story any favors and the development of the plot is uneven to say the
least.
There’s the obligatory border town shoot-out at the end.
This really isn’t a very good Western, readers, I’m sorry to tell you,
and Glenn Ford certainly deserved better as his swansong.
And so we come to the end of the Western career of Glenn Ford.
Glenn Ford was very credible in The Sacketts, so much so that I consider it to be one of the saddest moments in film when he gets shot down
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