The Brush Roper

I've had mixed success with Walter Brennan movies. He tended to always use the same "folksy old man" mannerisms, which get on my nerves.

On the other hand, earlier this year I saw him give a top-notch performance in "Along the Great Divide" with Kirk Douglas. Maybe the director was responsible for reigning him in, to be more realistic.

That's not the case in what I watched of this TV episode. Brennan goes so overboard with the mannerisms, it's self-parody. I genuinely could not even understand what he was saying in the first scene--a talky one that seems to go on forever.

Then there's the animal abuse. Getting ready to go find a lost bull, Brennan tells his grandson they'd better cinch up those saddles real tight. A closeup shows us the cinch digging into the poor horse's flesh. And Brennan's supposed to be the good guy?

So between all these things, I realized I didn't want to watch the remaining 15 minutes.