Winchester et jupons courts

Two teen girls (Amanda Plummer & Diane Lane) hook up with the Doolin-Dalton Gang in 1890's Oklahoma Territory, but Bill Doolin (Burt Lancaster) is tired and the gang's heyday is behind them. Meanwhile Marshal Tilghman (Rod Steiger) is intent on putting the kibosh on the wild bunch. Scott Glenn and John Savage are on hand as members of the gang.

"Cattle Annie and Little Britches" (1981) is similar in tone to "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and, like that film, was based on the real-life account, albeit loosely. "Young Guns" (1988) and "Young Guns II" (1990) did the same with the Billy the Kid story. The film starts off like "Bad Company" (1972) mixed with the fun spirit of "Butch Cassidy," but becomes weightier as it moves along with some pretty moving moments.

Plummer was 23 during filming while Lane was only 15. The former is utterly convincing as the sassy Annie and Savage is notable as her taciturn quasi-beau. The superb folk songs by Sahn Berti & Tom Slocum are stirring and sometimes profound. It's an inexplicably obscure Western, hardly promoted and barely released. I guess studios were gun shy after the devastating failure of "Heaven's Gate" (1980).

The film runs 1 hours, 37 minutes, and was shot in Durango, Mexico, about 1200 miles southwest of the real-life events.

GRADE: B

I know shamefully little about Lamont Johnson, other than he worked mainly in the TV medium. An ageing Burt Lancaster plays the part of Bill Doolin, leader of the Dalton-Doolin gang, which robs trains and banks and is chased by Marshall Tilghman, well portrayed by Rod Steiger.

John Savage also shines as a half-breed, but Amanda Plummer as Annie and Diane Lane as Little Britches steal the show as Doolin's most loyal supporters, even when the gang appears to be defunct.

Burt Lancaster was a great actor and he is the life of the film despite putting on smug facial expressions, wide gestures reminiscent of his TV Moses reaching the promised land, and clearly enjoying the love of underaged Little Briches. Meanwhile, his character as Bill Doolin veers constantly between good sense and uprightness on one hand, and robbing all he can and leading a bunch of outlaws on the other. When he notices the disappearance of the latest robbery's proceeds (dollar notes put away in the trousers of a lawman), at the cost of some of his men, he laughs like Walter Huston upon realizing that it is fool's gold, not the real thing, in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (US 1948). I did not like that sequence, or the ending, but I must admit that the film keeps an enticing pace throughout.

Scott Glenn seems sadly underused while John Savage begins substantially enough but somehow sinks into near invisibility after taking Cattle Annie swimming.

Strong cinematography by Larry Pizer, interesting soundtrack. 7/10.

Good old-fashioned Western movie with a good shot of comedy. A great production and fine working cast (Diana Lane and Amanda Plummer are all too gorgeous as drifters) make this one a gem for everyone who like Western movies a la True Grit, Cat Ballou, Waterhole and so on.

9-year-old me wanted to watch this movie in the theaters, but my parents wouldn't take me, though now that Kino-Lorber has release it on blu-ray, I finally get to watch it. Honestly, the main reason I bought this film is I've had a crush on Diane Lane since "Six Pack" and still really wanted to watch this movie. It tells the tale of two teenage girls in the old west falling in love with outlaws and being pursued by the law. That's about it, but what makes the film work is a surprisingly strong cast. Besides Diane Lane, in only her third film, you also have Amanda Plummer ("Fisher King" "Pulp Fiction") in her film debut as Cattle Annie. There's also Scott Glenn ("Silverado" "Silence of the Lambs"), John Savage ("Enter the Dragon" "Nightmare on Elm Street") Buck Taylor ("Tombstone" "Cowboys & Aliens"), and even Hollywood legends Rod Steiger ("On the Waterfront" "In the Heat of the Night") and Burt Lancaster ("From Here to Eternity" "Sweet Smell of Success"). Overall, the film is lightweight fluff, but it's utterly charming and goes down easy like comfort food.

This typical early eighties western, shot in the shadow of HEAVEN's GATE, is made in a different way from the Gordon Douglas's version of 1949, DOOLINS OF OKLAHOMA,thirty years earlier, but it matches it. I like both, this one shows tenderness and light heart too. Lancaster is as usual excellent as the aging outlaw.