dougdoepke

A nifty plot twist makes this an oddball Mesquitiers oater. So who's winning the fight: is it good guy Stony or bad guy Dude? Then too, who's winning the hard-riding run-down: is it Stony or Dude. Can't tell because they look and dress exactly alike. So what's a front-row geezer like me supposed to do. Suddenly, I'm realizing how handily simplfying the 'white hats' vs. 'black hats' of my front-row youth were. Anyway, it's an interesting twist served up by the plot with actor Livingston playing both roles. All in all, it's an unusual oater wih lots of hard-riding and good red-rock scenery, along with ventriloquist Terhune's comical dummy that adds a few well-woven laughs. So catch up with the rather provocative hour's entertainment when you can, especially if you're a front-row cowboy like me.

Oddball early entry in this popular series since there's no crime or criminal doings involved. Instead Friday tries to talk down a suicidal man from a ledge high above city streets. Friday's sweaty and so am I as the two perch there like two birds who can't fly. So how will it turn out since the wacko's pledged himself to dive in 15-minutes real time, our time. So now we can count down along with him - a good suspenseful touch. At the same time, nothing Friday or the ground crew seems to work at saving him. Instead he's dead set or is it set for dead. My one reservation: I wish the wife's humanizing reveal on why husband's gone wacko were inserted sooner. That way, he would be more sympathetic than the cruel angry man he comes across as, and maybe more worthy of police like Friday risking their lives. Anyway it's a 30-minute white-knuckler, so don't miss it.

( Note presence of actor Milburn Stone as what amounts to Friday's pardner. He would soon trade hats and go on to play Doc Adams in another enduring series Gunsmoke, {1955-75}.)

One thing this visually messy, uncensored docu captures is the spirit of domestic revolt from the early 1950's to the anti-Vietnam uprisings of the '60s. That early part with biker counter-culture (Aliens) is really more reflective of the '50s when some urban free-wheelers found motorcycles more fulfilling than the cultural conformity of the post-WWII years. (Check out Brando's The Wild One, 1952, for an early foreshadowing.) Then, after much visual cascading as the scenes flash by, the movie's setting moves into the more explicit anti-war movements of the '60s. At some murky point, the movie messaging slowly becomes more coherent amidst the general visual chaos, finally culminating in a rather eloquent read-over of an antiwar letter apparently penned by a young adult of the time. All in all, given what's gone before, it's an unexpectedly coherent summation of the radical 60's period.

Note the generally optimistic expectations of the 60's antiwar rebels that the flick conveys. It's as though their dissidence amounts to an irresistable wave of the future. Trouble is the docu was assembled in '69 at the rebellion's peak. But once the war in Vietnam ended in the mid-70's the fire burned out leaving the docu as a messy if mood-capturing record of the time. So, if you can manage the cascading visuals catch up with this genuine oddity.