Barquero

Around 1970 the Western genre had a new lease of life from the success of the Spaghetti Western. This is one of many attempts to marry the classic Western with this new style, and it does it quite convincingly. In the title role we have Lee van Cleef as the most impressive ferryman in film history - making his colleague at the Styx worry about the security of his job. Lee is up against Warren Oates and his bandits who need his ferry to transport their booty. Consequently, we are treated with the rare sight of a naval battle in a Western.

The villains of this piece are rather traditional Western villains (John Davis Chandler plays a delightful little dirtbag) while the heros (van Cleef and Tucker), all enigmatic and a bit on the shady side, seem to have been borrowed from Cinecitta. The excellent music by Dominic Frontiere is also presented in Italian style.

Barquero has really no excuse for not living up to its full potential. The inspired casting choice of piting genre stalwarts Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates in opposite sides of the river against each other and the idea behind the film – a group of ragtag cut-throats led by Oates transporting rifles and silver after a successful raid at a nearby town to the Sonoran territory in Mexico and desperately in need to cross the river before the army gets them while Lee Van Cleef as the boatman holds the barq at the other bank and refuses to pick them up. That should have been enough to keep Barquero afloat and my terrible puns at bay (ahem).

What really keeps the film down is the unpolished, roughly sketched script. The first and closing acts sustain interest through lengthy bouts of gunfighting but some kind of semi-compelling plot needs to be assembled for the middle act where sadly Barquero fails to kick the conflict into high gear, a hard feat to accomplish with a story that seems to invite conflict and could have gone into so many different places. Instead what we get by the end of act two is the good guys outwitting the bad and saving the hostage Warren Oates was keeping tied up and Oates half mad and desperate (as the army draws closer with every passing moment) shooting holes at the water and saying to his henchman "I shot the river". Not particularly endearing, don't you think? Forrest Tucker steals scenes in the role of ant-eating Mountain Phil while Van Cleef and Oates seem to be representing two different western archetypes – Van Cleef the romantic hero eclipsed by the coming modernization of the west, represented in the movie by a bunch of squatters he's called to protect, Oates the rough-hewn, murderous son of a bitch, the gritty and hardboiled aspect of the western, pioneered at the time by spaghetti westerns of whose villains he's somewhat reminiscent of.

Definitely better seventies westerns to keep the genre aficionado occupied out there but it's worth a watch for its marquee value, Van Cleef and Oates a dream match made in heaven and both in pretty good shape.

Lee Van Cleef had already become an international star late in his career, following his success in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns, when he starred in "Barquero", made in 1970. The film is clearly influenced by the Spaghetti tradition, most clearly displayed in the drugged-up, psychotic villain, Jake Remy, who bares similarities to the character of Indio in "For a Few Dollars More". However "Barquero" is far superior to the many "Spaghetti" imitators and deserves to stand on its own as a great Western.

The plot is fairly simple, beginning with the massacre and plundering of a peaceful town by Jake Remy and his crew of assorted bandits. Their only escape from capture is to cross the river to safety but the only person who can help them is the Barquero, played by Lee Van Cleef, who refuses, and a violent stand-off ensues.

The film is aided immeasurably by the performance of Warren Oates as Jake Remy, in one of his best roles. Remy makes even most the evil Western characters look saintly in comparison, as he kills and butchers anyone who gets in his path (check out the scene in which he sleeps with a woman and then casually kills her) and his only redeeming feature is his loyalty to his men. This is perhaps the only Western in which the bad guy is given more screen time than the hero and is one of the most complex villains ever seen on screen. Remy has a past which he is haunted by, and is slowly driven mad by his determination to cross the river and by the stubbornness of the Barquero.

The film does not really have a hero, as the only two characters to resemble this are the Barquero and Mountain Phil, a truly bizarre character, excellently played by Forrest Tucker. The Barquero is prepared to help the endangered townsfolk against Remy, but only because he wants to bed one of the women and Mountain Phil does not help out of kindness but more so because he is slightly insane.

"Barquero" was directed by the undistinguished Gordon Douglas, although he did direct the classic 1954 Sci-Fi/horror "Them". Fans of Sam Peckinpah will be pleased to see the villainous pairing of Warren Oates and John Davis Chandler, although Van Cleef fans may be disappointed as he is given little to do, besides having to wear one of the worst shirts ever committed to film.

"Barquero" should be seen by anyone who is serious about Westerns and is required viewing for fans of the great Warren Oates.

Beautiful Colorado scenery and a fine attention to detail in this western set in the late 1860s.

Several American attempts at a spaghetti western surfaced in the late 1960s: this one is a much more compelling film than Eastwood's "Hang 'Em High", in that all of the lead characters are well-drawn and mysterious.

Van Cleef, in his finest lead, plays the title character, a man more interested in protecting his barge than in the well-being of the "squatters" who populate the town. Oates is a bit hammy as Remy, but an effective psychotic villain nonetheless.

Tucker practically steals the film in a role that would have gone to Edgar Buchanan two decades earlier, that of Mountain Phil, a man loyal enough to put his life on the line for his best friend, and who holds the "squatters" in even more contempt than the barquero does.

Should be on DVD by now. An overlooked gem that anticipated "Tom Horn", "Unforgiven", and other stripped-down westerns that would follow over the next 25 years.

"Barquero" ended up on my must-see list for a number of reasons. First of all because it's a so-called American Spaghetti western, which basically means (in my book, at least) that it's raw, uncompromising and violent in comparison to those polished and politically correct John Wayne flicks. Secondly, the basic premise is incredibly simple yet original and intriguing. A gang of outlaws and a bunch of townsfolks each find themselves stuck at the wrong side of a river, leading to a tense ego-contest between the embittered and asocial ferryman Travis and the vicious but indecisive gang leader Remy. And last but not least, because the lead actors in "Barquero" are two of the most robustly charismatic but criminally underrated actors in history. I think it's safe to say that both Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates lift the film to a much higher level, and it wouldn't be even half as recommendable if their roles were played by different actors. Even with a broad river separating them, there's a continuously intense and ominous rivalry between these two über-machos. The film suffers from a few very tedious parts and Gordon Douglas' direction is rather monotone, but the locations and performances are great. Van Cleef receives good support from Forrest Tucker as the eccentric "Mountain Phil", while Oates' can rely on the excellent Kerwin Matthews.