burkeinca

I saw "Support Your Local Sheriff" and enjoyed it so much that I immediately rented "Support Your Local Gunfighter" which I knew was similar. In terms of style, actors used, humor, character types and genre, the two are almost identical. The director Burt Kennedy is also the same. Also, both spoof earlier famous westerns (the first "Rio Bravo" and the like, the second "Yojimbo."). I enjoyed SYLS more than SYLG, though. I would rate the first movie a 9 out of 10—a real gem; the second I'd rate 3 out of 10—disappointing but not a complete waste.

The main difference had to do with the likability of Garner's character. In SYLS, although smooth and suave, the Garner character is never deceptive. In fact, part of the humor is his flat honesty (as when he tells Prudy that he can't be in a committed relationship even before she even shows much interest in one). He also has real, not fake, talent, since his shooting ability is practically supernatural.

In SYLG, the Garner character is nothing but a smooth fraud. From the very first scene, we watch him sneak away from his betrothed with fistloads of cash he's swindled from her. The first thing he does when getting into town is con a rich older lady into a relationship. Really? At least Robert Preston chose the prettiest and smartest woman in town to woo in "Music Man." This is just slimy, going after rich older women. The Garner character hires on as a gunfighter, but, in this account, he's not even an average shooter. That didn't impress me. I found the subplot where the Garner character keeps betting $4600 on 23 black (and losing) annoying also.

SYLS was a real oddity: a film with conservative values made during the liberal era of "Hair," "The Graduate," and "Bonnie and Clyde." The subtext of this earlier film supports ideas like "An orderly town is superior to one full of violence and bullying," "When you take a job, you have certain responsibilities," and "Authority should come from real, not fake, talent." At its core, it was a tongue-in-cheek wish-fulfillment fantasy for those of us that believe a permissive, disorderly society hasn't been such a great improvement, but that with the right leader in charge, this problem could be solved. SYLG had no such appealing subtext. A rather shifty, fast-talking opportunist winds up getting the gal and a whole lot of money mostly by luck—a movie to be enjoyed more as droll character study and parody with a couple of mildly cute scenes than as something special that can be savored.

I'm glad I had a chance to see "The Corsican Brothers" on TCM. It was exciting, exotic, romantic, and, best of all, from my point of view, based on a classic.

In the opening credits, it's stated that the film has been "freely adapted," or, in other words, loosely adapted, from the original Dumas novella. Here's what is similar and different between the two versions. Both film and novella feature Siamese twins, surgically separated, with one living in Paris, the other in the Corsican hills, and thereafter able to sense each other's feelings with a kind of ESP. In both, the Parisian twin learns of a bet between two gentlemen to connive (or force, in the original) a date with a beautiful lady, and the Parisian gallantly intervenes only to be injured. Of course, his twin living back in Corsica in both cases is able to sense the injury. This is the center of the original Dumas story, and all of this is in the movie as well.

The film, though, in order to fill out a full-length feature, adds a great deal to this original plot. In the film, it is imagined that the reason for the original separation of the twins is related to a massacre of the twins' parents and family which is part of a larger family feud (this is Corsica, after all). When the twins become of age, they take up this feud as personal vendetta and begin killing the members of the other family, using their identical appearance as a method of trickery. The romance between Louis and the beautiful lady (here a countess) is also elaborated, and, to complicate matters, both twins both fall in love with her and wind up quarreling. All of this additional material I found diverting and, actually, probably necessary, since the original source was thin.

Although there is much to praise about the movie, I'll mention one aspect I didn't personally like. In order to create two entirely different personalities who look identical but are of separate character types, Fairbanks makes Lucien, who lives in the Corsican hills, surly and sullen—not very likable. As for the Parisian Louis, Fairbanks makes him foppishly verbose—also not very likable. This wasn't part of the original story, where both brothers were appealing, intelligent, and well bred even while being different.

I agree with the other commenter, by the way, that "Start the Revolution Without Me" based on the same conceit and probably the same source, where Donald Sutherland's foppishness is magnified to extreme lengths, is hilariously entertaining.