Hey folks,
No one loves a good western more than I. In fact, there are some westerns I like that really are not quite so good. I liked this film, but it did have some really dumb moments that just made no sense and took away from what the film should have been.
When the Texas Rangers were making their surprise assault on the King gang near the end of the film, for some dumb reason, the director has the leader of the Rangers start shooting long before they have any of the bad guys in sight, and this simply alerts the bad guys to defend their positions. This was dumb, really dumb, and surely a director with any common sense should have recognized this.
Also during this final confrontation, bad guy King is ready to shoot Ranger leader McNelly when Ranger Dunnison comes up behind King and has the chance to shoot King without King even knowing it. Instead of shooting King in the back of his head, he decides to talk to King! As dumb as that is, the film then makes a cut to Dunnison making a dive toward King as he then shoots him! Why did Dunnison make a dive toward King? Who knows - that is the way the film was edited. I may not have ever been trained in filmmaking, but I have seen a lot of films in over 65 years, and this just does not make sense. I may be wrong, but I would lay the blame with the director.
There must be hundreds of old Westerns in years past which also had dumb things in them, but I enjoyed them at the time. This film should have been better than some of those old Westerns which had similar dumb moments. This film had a better story, better actors, and better production resources going for it. For some reason or other, I think the director snatched mediocrity from the jaws of a really decent film.
I think this film had a lot of things going right for it, and it could have been so much better. I wish someone could explain to me how these dumb things could have been allowed to stay in this film.
Best wishes,
Dave Wile
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