laurencefagan

Among 'war' films, Kelly's Heroes is right up there with The Deer Hunter, Platoon, Private Ryan and Metal Jacket for me. Even though it's amusing and far-fetched, it's brilliant entertainment. I'm no expert in assessing whether the weapons and equipment for the time (WW2) are accurate, but it doesn't matter....the film is that good. Clint makes a good job of his character as usual BUT, for me, Telly Savalas, at his very 'loud mouth' best, steals the picture, as I think Eli Wallach did in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Also good performances from Donald Sutherland and Don Rickles add to this really enjoyable war/buddy/heist movie which would be in my personal best top ten, covering all genres.

Rawhide was without a doubt the best TV western. Even though it didn't run for as long as say Gunsmoke, it had everything that most of the others didn't have. The most obvious thing that made it stand out from the rest was the fact that it was mostly shot on location and looked for the most part like a cinema feature film, not a TV show. Unfortunately, the scenes shot on a sound stage looked like they had been (the lighting always gives it away), but in the main, they only made up a fraction of the show, unlike Bonanza (a 50 year old dad with three 35 year old sons) which looked like most of it was shot 'indoors'. Another thing in Rawhides favour was that it was an hour long, unlike a lot of the other popular TV westerns that only ran for 30 minutes. Apart from a good solid regular cast, the list of 'guest' appearances reads like a who's who of Hollywood greats...an episode I saw only last week on TCM had Claude Akins, Myron Healey, John Dehner and Robert Wilke as guests...amazing! Last, but by no means least, the show had the best theme tune by far, sung by Frankie Laine, a big star vocalist of the time, who was responsible for many feature film themes including Blazing Saddles and the original 3.10 to Yuma. All in all, Rawhide beat the rest of 'em outa sight in my view...long may it be shown on TV.

I watched this film on TV on TCM recently after reading the short synopsis and seeing the cast list....Glenn Ford, Angie Dickinson, Jack Elam, Royal Dano and Gary Merrill. A good, reliable line-up. It was a 1967 film as well, sandwiched between The Professionals (1966) and The Wild Bunch (1969), not to mention Butch & Sundance and True Grit, both from the same era. It had to be good. It wasn't...it was awful! The tired plot (ageing gunfighter trying to escape his past with a new young pistolero wanting to prove himself) has been done many times before, and better, but I thought the stellar cast might bring something new to the film...wrong! Poor old Glenn Ford looked his usual world-weary self a bit too much in this film and Jack Elam played his regular character that he's played many times down the years, which is OK if the movie's a good one...if it's not, it doesn't work for me. The most ridiculous waste of talent was the part Royal Dano played, not just an Indian, but a drunken one that wouldn't have been out of place in Blazing Saddles. On top of all that, the film actually looked horrible...it had none of the sharp, colourful camera work that the others I mentioned had, in fact it looked like a 'B' movie to me. The best thing about this film was Angie Dickinson who looked great throughout it. For me, Shane in 1953, set the standard for future westerns, and Rio Bravo ('59) and The Magnificent Seven ('60) kept up this standard with 'grown-up' scripts, good casts and attractive locations. For me, The Last Challenge had none of these ingredients. The only other western I've given a negative review is The Unforgiven with Burt Lancaster (and again, a good cast)...bad, but not quite as bad as this one.