"Yeah, Yeah, Liars Always Start That Way..."

One of the most interesting aspect of the digital age is being able to see how people found their way to whatever you are posting. Of course, this is also how advertisers and marketers try to figure out how to shill more products to you whether you want them or not. That aside, every now and again, I like to sift through and see what it is about what I put up that brings in my audience. The one that keeps popping out to me is that my coverage of the strange tone of gang rape v. comedy in Hannie Caulder starring Raquel Welch has been a frequent tag that brings in the public. That's not so good.

A nicely laid out poster...with unfortunate whiffs of Hannie Caulder to come...

On the lighter side, people looking for stuff on Dean Martin movies also find their searches directed my way. And now, I've been provided an opportunity to bring both those tastes together (...although, I'm not sure how to feel about this...) as well as close the book on Raquel's trilogy of western films with a look at Bandolero! (1968).

The posters for Bandolero! promise a new fangled look at the old fashioned oater, which makes perfect sense as Sergio Leone had breathed new life into the Western in the U.S. following the release of A Fistful of Dollars in 1967. Try as they may, Hollywood never quite figured out the spaghetti western formula, and they shouldn't have: spaghetti's reflect an outsider's view of the media version of the Wild West, and Hollywood's spaghetti imitators were trying to reflect that reflection while being unable to escape the ties to the culture they themselves came from. Make sense?

Dino does not buy my convoluted explanations...

Casting Dean Martin and Jimmy Stewart seems to me a stab at trying to bring in an older audience to this new, grittier version of the West. Casting Raquel...well...I think we all know that was a stab at bringing anything with a Y chromosome to the theater. In the movie, Martin plays Dee Bishop, an outlaw gunslinger formerly of the Confederacy, who ends up caught with his gang after a bank robbery goes south by Sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy). During the skirmish, Dee's gang shoots the husband of Maria Stoner (Welch), which opens a relationship door for the amorous sheriff. Former Union soldier turned drifter Mace Bishop (Stewart), discovering that his brother's misdeeds will be leading him to the gallows, launches a plan that will free his brother and end up in kidnapping the young widow. This leads to the Sheriff going on a long chase after the gang into bandit country in Mexico where Mace will try and convince Dee to leave his life of crime.

This is the Jimmy that was sent after bad Jimmy impersonations...which is most of them...

The opening third of the movie, from the bank robbery to the eventual escape, is pure, thrilling movie adventure, but unfortunately the middle third sags from too much time in the saddle and a few too many heart-to-hearts between the brothers in between brush-ups between Mace and Dee's surly gang. The final third picks up the pace but is unfortunately a little too predictable from the moment we see, or rather, don't really see the bloodthirsty arrival of the Mexican bandits who slaughter the Sheriff's posse. And while Welch and Martin have the makings of some fun onscreen chemistry, the "falling for the bad boy" angle isn't quite enough to sell her falling so soon for the man who was responsible for her husband's death. Without getting into the details, there wasn't necessarily a lot of love lost in Mr. Stoner's death for Mrs. Stoner, but for a girl who worked her way up from nothing, to prostitution, to some creature comfort, doesn't quite add up to her going for the guy who murdered her meal ticket.

Having said all that, the movie works more than well enough, and I had a fine time watching it. While Raquel doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, Maria was definitely one of her better dramatic roles, and certainly of greater depth than the beautiful harpy she would play the following year in 100 Rifles. Martin and Stewart are, of course, old hands at this sort of thing. While they don't look anything like brothers, their natural ease of delivery sells it well enough, and they are a joy to watch together even when the riffs of their dialogue grows a little tired. The standout in many ways is Kennedy as July Johnson, an intriguing figure for a movie sheriff, who seems more interested in giving chase to these outlaws due to his love or lust for Mrs. Stoner than the sense of justice he keeps touting. In fact, it must've made an impression on Larry McMurtry who also named a sheriff in Lonesome Dove, July Johnson.

And this is the George Kennedy that could put Cool Hand Luke's George Kennedy in jail...

So if early Westerns are a little too white hat v. black hat for you, and spaghettis are a little too operatic v. nihilistic for you, then Bandolero! might provide a nice middle ground between the two: it's matured from the former, and doesn't strain itself trying to be the latter. For comparison, I would also recommend The Professionals (1966) starring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, and Claudia Cardinale, which also featured a long chase into Mexico that involves a woman. It too features a cast of familiar and enjoyable old hands, but also has a few more twists to the plotting.

"What about Junior?"

Inspired by the ilovedinomartin blog's wonderful reception to my past looks at the Dean Martin filmography, I decided to rewind the tape even further back to Dean's early forays into cinema as half of the comedy team Martin & Lewis. I knew Martin & Lewis as one of comedy's most famous duos and perhaps as comedy's most infamous feud.  What started as a nightclub act, pairing Dean Martin's music with Jerry Lewis comedy, soon led to television appearances and then onto the silver screen with My Friend Irma (1949).  I sat down with That's My Boy (1951),  their fourth film together, and I can't  help but wonder if the couple of "Best of..." lists I looked at hadn't led me wrong.

Unfortunately NOT the exploitation movie about Siamese twin graduates...

The story concerns an overbearing tycoon and former college football star who lords over his son, Junior (Jerry Lewis) to the extent that he saddles him with all manner of psychosomatic illnesses and allergies. In a mutually beneficial deal, the tycoon pays for Bill Baker (Martin), a poor but rising football star, to pal up with Junior at his alma mater and help him to be a success on the field. Unfortunately, though Junior's got heart, he's no great athlete, and matters are further complicated by the formation of a love triangle between Bill, Junior and the lovely Terry Howard (Marion Marshall).

Jerry does a spot on imitation of me watching this movie...

The plot's essentially sitcom nature would be forgivable if not for the fact that it seems like the comedy duo has little to do. Lewis fares better than Martin in that he gets a bigger character and more face-time, but the movie suffers from long unfunny jags where neither performer is to be seen. Following the opening credits, twenty minutes pass before Jerry shows up for the first time, and almost that much more before we see Dino. The relationship between Junior and his father has more to do with Sissy Spacek's relationship with Piper Laurie in Carrie (1976) than it does with comedy. I realize that a good part of this is the difference in attitude between then and now, but Junior's dad is so loud, brutish, and relentlessly domineering that there's no surprise that any kid would turn out as nebbish as Junior. In comedy, even the bad guy still has to have some kind of relatable soft spot.

Dino thinks romance, movies...and whether he should start drinking...

The romance angle seems wedged in just to give Dino something to do, and it was this kind of thinly developed romantic lead that would eventually sour Dino on doing these pictures.  So when Dino puts in his best turn in a scene where he drunkenly expresses his regret at having taken this deal for his future, the acting is spot on and shows where Dino would eventually get dramatically, but is robbed of any resonance by the weak storytelling.  Luckily, early on, Dino gets a fun song-and-dance number with co-star Polly Bergen at a graduation dance while Jerry hams it up by himself in the corner.  (Full marks to Jerry managing to kick his own shoe into his face, which was probably my only laugh out loud moment during this viewing.) The film's initial football training sequence was also quite enjoyable, but has been done and redone in far too many sports comedy films since.

Jerry demonstrates a 50's craze: Chin Woogies...

If anything, from what I've learned of Martin & Lewis's time on-screen, it's that few things have changed in the past 50-60 years when Hollywood tries to figure out how to turn showbiz success offscreen into even bigger success onscreen. The formula's pretty simple: cook up a simple if inane plot idea, plug in hot commodity, let the chips fall where they may quality-wise, and rely on an adoring public to pay to see whatever comes out. I'm at a loss to think of one where this actually generated true movie gold, and am instead reminded of the spectacularly goofy nonsense that was KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978).

In the end, I can't really recommend That's My Boy, which is sad since I can certainly admire the talents of both performers, both together and apart. What I can instead recommend was the Marx Brothers' collegiate football romp Horse Feathers (1932).  I kept thinking of it all during the runtime of this movie. It too had a story thinner than a sheet of tracing paper, but that was more because it gave the Marx's free reign to do their brand of comedic insanity.  That's exactly what I feel like was missing here: the room to let Martin & Lewis do what Martin & Lewis could do.