Okay, maybe this film doesn't have quite the respectable ensemble cast of something like "How the West Was Won", because it even predated the moderate success that Robert Carradine saw in, well, of all things, "Revenge of the Nerds". before he was famous (Man, Bruce Dern is old). Roscoe Lee Browne, Colleen Dewhurst, Stephen Hudis, A Martiniez and - oh - Bruce Dern. I don't even know if this film is that much more successful than Rydell's other filmmaking endeavors, because it barely exceeded its budget upon release, which is shocking, considering that it stars such mega-stars as John Wayne. A good film doesn't necessarily make for a good television, yet that didn't stop Mark Rydell from going on to turn to TV after this film, at least for success. I'd say that it's a testament to the success of this film that it inspired an ABC program, but the TV spin-off to "How the West Was Won" didn't have but 25 forgotten episodes, and it was still way more successful than this film's spin-off. I don't know if I'm more amused by the sheer genericism of this film's title, or the fact that it must not be that generic, seeing as how the only thing that took that title since this film was its TV series spin-off. As many westerns as John Wayne has been involved in, at this point, he just quits and goes for a film that is simply titled "The Cowboys".
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |