Current Chart Position: 242
Thoughts: Did you ever picture yourself to not be a certain type of person, not having really tried it, only to find out when you did try it you liked it. Well that’s me with westerns. I didn’t think I was a western person. No one would ever look at me or talk to me and think I was a western person, yet the more of them I see the more of them I realize I actually like. Or at least the ones that seem to be on this 250 list plus two others that I know of off the top of my head.
I began this film not expecting to like it. In fact it started off a tiny bit slow and it took me the better part of two days just to get through the first 40 minutes just because I have a short attention span, and kept wandering off to pack (more on that later) or check my e-mail. I finally forced myself to actually sit down and pay attention to it, and I’m glad I did. Let me start by saying the stereotypes in this are a bit laughable. Maybe they weren’t so much in 1962, but I definitely found John Wayne’s character, as well as the bumbling town marshall, and town drunk/newspaper publisher character quite laughable at times, and let me not forget the minor group of random “mexicans” that suddenly show up towards the end, who couldn’t have been portrayed any more poorly had they been in a Speedy Gonzales cartoon.
Despite all this I really got into this movie for the meat of it’s plot which largely focused on the main characters struggles to rid themselves of oppression from the local bully/bandit and bring truth and justice into their early frontier town. Most compelling and admirable of all was Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) {once you got used to him saying “pilgrim” every five minutes} and all he ended up sacrificing in the name of justice. He definitely ended up sacrificing his own happiness for the greater good, which if you read my video game guys post, you know is one of the traits which I find most admirable. I don’t want to delve into it too deeply for fear of spoiling it, but it made me realize a little why people used to admire him so much.
Ishtar’s Rating System:
Plot: As previously stated, I loved this story. I liked even more that they chose to do the major portion of the plot in flashback format. Four Stars
Characters: As previously stated, you do end up liking these characters, though they start off being a little too over-the top. Two and 1/2 Stars
Technical: I’m not too savvy on how this rates cinematography or lighting wise with other pictures of the time. It seemed to be relatively straight forward in it’s delivery and I don’t remember anything overly fancy going on other that the one scene where Ransom goes after Liberty and is told to “step into the light”. Two and 1/2 Stars
Overall: Three Stars I know you’re saying three stars doesn’t sound that great, but trust me I grade hard unless I really love something it almost always gets a two star rating, to get four stars (like the plot) is a very rare thing. Also I would say that I consider plot to be the most important rating of my three with the other two categories being an added bonus that if done right can further enhance the plot. in other words, if I give the plot a four, it’s probably worth seeing regardless of how the overall looks (unless the characters and technical were so poor it ruined the plot, this would be indicated by a rating of one or zero stars).