Young rancher Kirby Frye is appointed deputy in a small town tyrannized by ruthless Phil Sundeen, the son of one of the founders of the town.Young rancher Kirby Frye is appointed deputy in a small town tyrannized by ruthless Phil Sundeen, the son of one of the founders of the town.Young rancher Kirby Frye is appointed deputy in a small town tyrannized by ruthless Phil Sundeen, the son of one of the founders of the town.
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Josef Rainer
- Lt. Davis
- (as Josef Ranier)
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Storyline
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- Quotes
Harold Mendez: I hoped I had seen the last of you.
Kirby Frye: Maybe you're hallucinating.
Harold Mendez: If you ain't corn liquor, son, you're just a bad nightmare.
Harold Mendez: How can you tell the difference?
Kirby Frye: Because I can get over a hangover.
Featured review
What Appears To Be A Natural For Film Conversion Proves Not To Be So.
Popular fiction writer Elmore Leonard has hammered out a number of
rather simplistic Western novels, of which one, "Law at Randado", is
utilized as basis for this heavy handed adaptation, with the original
apparently being tailor-made for a feature film since it is principally
propelled by action and dialogue in lieu of any alternate emphasis upon
psychologic insight, of which there is none. However, director Chris
McIntyre's screenplay is constructed with a surfeit of plot threads,
and this failing, in combination with some unfortunate casting choices,
and a plot line full of flaws in logic and continuity, lowers the work
to the point of its being a confused and unintended pastiche of the
Western cinema genre, certainly a boon for stuntmen but a seemingly
endless bore for a sentient viewer. Leonard's tale focuses upon the
activities of protagonist Kirby Frye, played here by seventh billed
Cody Glenn, including his efforts to perform his duties as deputy
sheriff for an imaginary southwestern U.S. border town, a post he has
assumed only with reluctance, but McIntyre's undistinguished additions
to the story are merely weakened by his own erratic direction, while
choppy post-production editing accentuates the dreary affair's lack of
cohesion, apt to leave a viewer asea when trying to locate a rationale
behind most sequences. Cinematographer Dennis Dalzell's inventive
efforts with his camera, essentially the only tolerable aspect of the
film, make appropriate use of the Western flavoured settings, shot in
Arizona and Burbank, California, but in general this work is but a pale
shadow of Leonard's piece that is itself but a heavily denatured
example of the Western school of fiction. The film becomes increasingly
more slapdash as it moves along, with a strong quality of the
ridiculous marking a great deal of the often risible dialogue, a
favourite line being read by Charlene Tilton, performing as a married
doxy who spends most of her screen time struggling with an off the
shoulder blouse, never seeming able to adjust it either off or on
enough to her satisfaction. In a climactic scene, wherein her character
entreats for exoneration by her cuckolded husband, she describes him
thus to others present: "Haig might not have had two nickels to rub
together when he met me, but he spent those two nickels on me.",
thereby matching the film's extensive array of visual non-sequiters.
Among the players propelled in and out of the narrative is Glenn Ford,
in his middle seventies and top billed for obvious marketing purposes,
but in reality filling a supporting role as sheriff of Randado, plainly
too old and stiff-jointed for the part, while being awkwardly edited
out and replaced by a stuntman during an action scene wherein the
sheriff quells four tough rivals.
helpful•81
- rsoonsa
- Aug 25, 2006
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