Chisum (1970)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Andrew V. McLaglen

Writer:

Andrew J. Fenady (written by)

Release Date:

29 July 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

THE HERO - John Wayne is "Chisum"

Plot:

Cattle baron John Chisum joins forces with Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett to fight the Lincoln County land war.

Plot Keywords:

Cattle | Billy The Kid | Pat Garrett | Range War | Wilhelm Scream

Awards:

1 win

US TV Schedule:

Sat. Nov. 14

8:15 AM

AMC

Cast

John Wayne	...	John Simpson Chisum
Forrest Tucker	...	Lawrence Murphy
Christopher George	...	Dan Nodeen
Ben Johnson	...	James Pepper
Glenn Corbett	...	Pat Garrett
Bruce Cabot	...	Sheriff Brady
Andrew Prine	...	Alex McSween
Patric Knowles	...	J. Henry Tunstall
Richard Jaeckel	...	Jess Evans
Lynda Day George	...	Sue McSween (as Lynda Day)
Geoffrey Deuel	...	Billy 'The Kid' Bonney
Pamela McMyler	...	Sallie Chisum
John Agar	...	Amos Patton
Lloyd Battista	...	Neemo
Robert Donner	...	Bradley Morton - Deputy sheriff

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG | Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-11 (new rating: 2001) | Finland:K-12 (original rating) | France:U | Finland:K-12 | Norway:16 (theatrical rating: 1970) | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Durango, Mexico

Company:

Batjac Productions

Trivia:

The Zoom in and zoom out sequences of Chisum sitting on his horse on the hillside at the beginning and end of the movie are the same footage. The original shot was the zoom out used at the end. That was reversed to produce the zoom in used at the beginning.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the gunfight at the store/bank, when the scene changes from nighttime to daylight two curtains on the outside of the store change lengths.

Quotes:

Sheriff Brady: He's deader than a can of corned beef. You just had to kill him, huh?
Dan Nodeen: A whole lot less trouble that way.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 100 Years of John Wayne (2007) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Ballad of John Chisum

A Fine Western Ahead Of Its Time

Although a few notches below classic Wayne westerns like "Stagecoach" and "Rio Bravo," this film was a masterful return to form for Wayne. This was the first film Wayne did after gaining weight and donning an eye-patch for his work on "True Grit." In this film, Wayne plays an honest, straight talking man of action, not too different from the type character on which he built his career. The supporting characters are very well drawn and the villains resourceful enough to keep the action moving. In a way, this character, though based on an actual rancher, is similar to the character of Dunson in the superior "Red River." Both characters gambled on a long cattle drive from Texas and although "Red River" is about the drive itself, "Chisum" is about what happens to a similar character twenty years after the drive succeeds. At the time the film was released, at least one critic commented on how improbable it was for John Wayne, at the climax of the movie, to have done that much riding, fighting and falling all within the same sequence. As far as I am concerned, that sequence helped prepare me for later action sequences of 1980's action stars like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and action directors like James Cameron and John Woo. The film is no "Red River" but it is fine western nonetheless.