The Usual Problem

I cannot fault this tale of the old west for the way it is made because technically it is pretty well put together. I cannot fault it for its acting because they are all good. What I can fault it for is the phoney fast draw baloney at its core. Anyone who knows anything of the history of the true old west knows that fast gunfights were mostly fiction. Most famed bad guys and good guys of those times seldom if ever stood in the street and looked each other in the eye before drawing their pistols. More often than not the fights took place between drunken fools in barrooms who blew each other to pieces without staring somebody down. Many times they shot each other in the back. In the 1950's westerns and before, it was the steely eyed gent with nerves of absolute iron who fires the gun that saves the day. This didn't happen often in the real west. Look at Wild Bill Hicock shot in the back as he played cards in a smoky, stinky dump in Deadwood, South Dakota. That's how many if not most met their ends. It wasn't until fairly reacently that the movies started showing the actual way people fought back then. That's why this film and so many of the rest of them are just fables entertaining though they may be.

Nothing is more beautiful than Oscar Homolka.