Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Budd Boetticher's SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956)

I don't know why other low budget westerns were never this good. Fewer than fifteen speaking roles. Like the old Krazy Kat comics, set in a surreal desert landscape.

Randolph Scott plays a sheriff who was voted out of his job. Too proud to work as a mere deputy, his wife had to take a job in a Wells Fargo office. Now he's hunting for the men who killed her during a robbery.

He's joined by Lee Marvin and his partner who are looking for the men, too, but only for the $20,000 in gold they stole. Scott helps a woman and her less masculine husband headed west in a covered wagon.

When Randolph Scott feels bad about having not provided for his wife, the woman (Gail Russell) assures him that she doesn't love her husband any less because of the way he is.

Kind of an interesting twist toward the end. 

I never understood that thing where the hero outdraws the villain. Doesn't seem like a sign of virtue or good law enforcement.

In Violent Saturday, an Amish farmer stabs Lee Marvin in the back with a pitchfork. Should he have squared off with him and pulled a gun really fast instead?

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