Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)

Director:

Burt Kennedy

Writer:

James Edward Grant (written by)

Release Date:

3 June 1971 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Western

Tagline:

The story of a man who took the law into his own finger!

Plot:

A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.

Plot Keywords:

Gunfighter | Mining Town | Con | Con Artist | Mistaken Identity

Cast

James Garner	...	Latigo
Suzanne Pleshette	...	Patience
Jack Elam	...	Jug May
Harry Morgan	...	Taylor
Joan Blondell	...	Jenny
Marie Windsor	...	Goldie
John Dehner	...	Colonel Ames
Henry Jones	...	Ez
Dub Taylor	...	Doc Schultz
Kathleen Freeman	...	Mrs. Perkins
Dick Curtis	...	Bud Barton
Willis Bouchey	...	McLaglen
Walter Burke	...	Morris
Gene Evans	...	Butcher
Grady Sutton	...	Storekeeper

Also Known As:

Latigo (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | UK:U | West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | USA:G (certificate #22841)

Filming Locations:

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway, Durango, Colorado, USA

Company:

Cherokee-Brigade Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: In the bar fight, Patience sees Latigo lying face-down on the floor with nobody near him. In the close-up, Latigo's lying face-up with his head on the leg of another unconscious cowboy.

Quotes:

[Latigo proposes Jug poses as a notorious gunfighter for hire]
Jug: I'm supposed to pretend I'm Swifty Morgan? Goodbye!
Latigo: They're willing to pay.
Jug: How much?
Latigo: One thousand dollars. We'll split it fifty-fifty. That means four hundred for you.
Jug: That seems fair. But I think that...
Latigo: No, no you don't. That's part of the deal. I do the thinking, you stand around and look tough.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Per un pugno di dollari (1964)

Very Funny

"Support Your Local Sheriff" was a very funny movie, so essentially the same cast and director to make another movie in the same style. "Support Your Local Gunfighter" is funnier without reference at all to "Sheriff", and if "Sheriff" hadn't been so good the flaws in "Gunfighter" wouldn't be so noticeable.

Except for some mild language and extensive (and very funny violence), it's unobjectionable.

Like "Sheriff", "Gunfighter" has James Garner as a western hero playing against the grain. In "Sheriff" he was a capable man "Just passing through on his way to Australia", and who, accepting the position of sheriff to clean up a town, seemed not to comprehend the western conventions the other characters were foisting onto him.

In "Gunfighter", Garner is a west-hating coward who makes a living off women by his good looks. Fleeing the latest of his conquests, who thinks they're about to be married, he stops off in the town of Purgatory just to see a doctor then head on his way. Unfortunately the mayor (Harry Morgan) and his wackaloon daughter (Suzanne Pleshette) think he's "Swifty" Morgan, a gunfighter sent for by a business rival (John Dehner). Garner persuades them the gunfighter really is his newfound sidekick (Jack Elam), takes the money, and prepares to blow town.

Chuck Connors, arriving at the end as the real "Swifty", proves, a decade before airplane, that having serious actors play deadpan in well-written comedies can be very funny indeed.

Don't watch it on the same week-end as "Sheriff". There are no points of continuity between them, and, funny as this movie is, some of "Gunfighter"'s shine will be lost by the unavoidable comparisons with its superior predecessor.