Gone with the West

there are really no words to describe how bad this movie is. thank god we bought it at the dollar store! the only way my sister and i watched it was in fast forward! we couldn't stop laughing, we only watched when we guessed the man was singing, we knew someone was dead! Stephanie powers had the best role, she really did not have much to say or do. i hope they all got paid a lot of money for this mess of a movie.you can tell this movie was made in the late seventies. the music and the way the camera angles were so bad, i thought i was watching a music video. the only way to watch this movie is with a lot of popcorn and a big drink.

Though this film seems to have had a cute idea for a tongue-in-cheek western send-up at its heart, the result was so bad it reminds one of the cheesy pornographic films from the same era. Surely the production values are that low, and and as others have noted, the editing was such as should have earned any film-school student a failing grade. How a name-brand a cast like this one ever got involved with something so poor is to be wondered at. Perhaps no less wondrous is why really awful films like these get released on DVD while so many other infinitely more redeeming ones still fail to see the light of day (I personally am still waiting for "The Secret of Santa Vittoria" with Anthony Quinn). Rest assured, younger viewers, that this disaster is far, far below even the average quality of films of its time. Speaking of which, the 1975 release date cited in these pages cannot be accurate because the Oldsmobile Cutlass so prominently featured in the beginning of the film (yet another waste of otherwise perfectly good celluloid in connection with this movie) was not on the market until the 1978 model year.

When an innocent convict (James Caan) is released from prison in the Southwest he teams-up with an AmerIndian woman (Stefanie Powers) to exact vengeance on a town of sadistic revelers in the desert. Aldo Ray plays the sinister town boss, Robert Walker Jr. the weary sheriff and Sammy Davis Jr. a black-clad gunslinger.

"Gone with the West" has a strange history: It was actually shot in 1969 under the working title "Man without Mercy," but not released until 1974-1975. This explains how scenes from the movie were available for use in the theater sequence of "Messiah of Evil" (1973). A reedited version with new music and additional scenes (a new intro & conclusion set in modern times) was released in the late 70s under the name "Little Moon and Jud McGraw" wherein Caan's character, Jebediah Kelsey, was changed to Jud McGraw. I viewed the original "Gone with the West" version.

The movie SEEMS like a serious Western with the typical sadism of Spaghetti Westerns (for example, the opening features a woman being raped with a town mob heartily enjoying the spectacle), but the goofy jazz/rock score keys off that it's supposed to be satirical. If there's any doubt, the ending scene tells all. Speaking of the music, it's akin to the groovy rock in low-budget biker flicks, e.g. "The Cycle Savages" (1969), except that a great acoustic piece surfaces occasionally, similar to something Heart would do back then.

When I discerned that the film wasn't to be taken too seriously I started to chuckle with it, a little anyway, and was entertained by several sequences, like the knock-down drag-out brouhaha of two women, Sammy Davis Jr.'s deadpan gunfighter and the guy humorously singing "Abide with Me" deadpan, as well as the over-the-top hellish close.

Unfortunately, the editing is incoherent, like whoever put it together was on acid. Not to mention there's zero meaningful dialogue with Powers babbling in an AmerIndian language the whole time (or was it Spanish?). So, there are items to appreciate in this eccentric Western, but you have to persevere through its outlandishness and defects.

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot in Las Vegas with the title sequence shot at Vasquez Rocks, California, just north of Los Angeles in the high country.

GRADE: C-

This is probably something that James Caan either doesn't remember or will not talk about. It has a release date of 1975 but was more likely filmed anywhere between '70 and '72 considering Caan's career went into high gear by the end of '72, not to mention how young he and Stefanie Powers look. Obviously something went seriously wrong with the western that some non-entity named Bernard Girard directed, thus the "need" to offer some contemporary (mid-70's) wrap-around footage. Perhaps a total lack of coherence required adding the story-telling narrative. Regardless, the whole thing is a botch, modern-day accessory footage included. It has something to do with Aldo Ray as the town baddie who steals Caan's cattle and molests Powers and the two victims seek revenge by destroying Ray's rotten town. Davis, Jr. is Ray's hired gunslinger. Strange fact: Davis, Jr. was actually a quick draw in real life. Apparently he was clocked at one time as one of the fastest ever. Sammy seemed to be a natural at anything he attempted (just ask Linda Lovelace... but that's another story). Yet poor Sammy appears absurd in his Jack-Palance-from-'Shane' outfit and has little to do except act phony-tough and gun down a few bozos in his few scenes. At least Aldo Ray seems to be having fun (his paycheck happily covering his liquor bill, no doubt). Meanwhile, Powers adds a little comedy relief, a little skin, and not a word of English. Caan is fine (his pleasant demeanor unmolested by the knowledge the film he was ostensibly appearing in would later be edited by a mix-master). Oh, and the music score is as goofy and wrong-headed as the film itself.

This is possibly the worst western that I have ever seen. The sound, photography, and the acting is awful. I would not blame it all on the actors. This appears to be a film that was possibly started many years earlier, with a different intention. Only to be finished years later with a different story, sloppy narration, and other low quality production values.