The Broken Land

This short 1-hour Western movie centers on a drifter who comes to a small town and has run-in with its sadistic sheriff. A string of circumstances leads to running from a posse, robbery, and murder. Considering the limited length of this movie, it's a good story, the characters are likable, the dialog is literate, the performances are good (particularly Jack Nicholson), and it's well directed. If you collect Western movies, this one is worth having.

Featuring outstanding Arizona scenery in Cinemascope color, one interestingly written character (Billy), and Jack Nicholson in a young anti-hero performance, what is wrong with this Western? The answer is: Nothing is wrong. Having a budget that obviously consists of little more than pennies does not negatively impact this film much, except for some low-paid "discount" acting at times.

To me the most intriguing Westerns are ones that portray some aspect of the Old West based at least partly on fact. I put this film in that category as it does portray a phenomenon of those days, namely the existence of a few Sheriffs who were little more than legalized executioners.

The cast and crew just went out to Arizona and filmed this on the desert in a straightforward manner. It works for me.

Very early Jack Nicholson vehicle that is nothing more than a quick B-western with some exotic Arizona Apache Zone locales. Evil small town sheriff Kent Taylor rules the community with an iron fist and several within the small landscape join forces to change things. Nicholson is way down the list on the credits as a young hothead who has an itchy trigger-finger and likes to solve things with a rifle rather than by talking things out. An extremely wishy-washy film that is shorter than most documentaries these days (the film is only about an hour in length) and sports no real recommendations anywhere across the board. Only memorable to see how Nicholson was before his "Easy Rider" days. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

The only reason to see BROKEN LAND, a low-rent western from 1962, is for a young Jack Nicholson as a hot head who tangles with a small town's evil sheriff and then teams up with two other men and a "wayward" woman who also have run afoul of the sheriff. Shot in Arizona, the film looks pretty good for a DeLuxe color print job, but the acting and dialogue are absolutely atrocious. Nicholson at least stands out with his toothy grin and hambone delivery. Apparently, Burt Reynoldsa was originally cast in the Nicholson role, not that that would have helped this turkey. All the cowpokes are laughably clean shaven with 1950s-style hairdos. The "wayward" woman of the film looks like someone's grandma in a bad wig. The entire cast consists of maybe 12 people. It is a very small town, obviously. My best guess is this was shot to fill out the bottom half of a movie bill, as it barely runs 70 minutes. Any kid watching this in a theater or drive-in must have been ready to jump off a bridge long before its short running time was played out.

And what a delight to watch it in LBX please folks !!!! What a pleasure because it is so rare from an API production. The story itself is not that terrific, but for a B western, that's what I like, instead of the bland and standard yarns with the same character, as the likes of Bill Elliot or Roy Rogers.... Don't mind about Jack Nicholson, focus instead on this cosy tale, despite the fact that it won't bring anything exceptional, except the villain as lead character, but it is only a rare little gem, so unique and hard to find in LBX. And the acting is pretty good too for this kind of production, even the directing, from this unknown director. But I have always craved for evil lead characters, especially a rogue sheriff, played here by Kent Taylor.