Westerns Changed --- They Didn't

More Old Men Mount Up In Bandolero! (1968)

A western Dad could take Junior to see, Bandolero! stood tall for what was left of establishment cowboys as closure of the range drew nigh. Whatever else spaghettis were, they told at least surface truth of grime and gore at heart of frontier life, Hollywood seeming childish beside them (but really, what was silly as most spaghetti westerns?). True Grit brought us up even, then advantage was Italy's again with Once Upon A Time In The West, to which we threw gauntlet of The Wild Bunch. Who knew these would exhaust the West as resource for myth-making, all of statements made and topic closed by finish of the 60's. Had movies and television wrung the genre dry? Youth didn't care save conventions being challenged, or better, demolished, as by Leone and Peckinpah. Beyond that, what was left? By new decade, westerns were for elders and stick-in-mud fans. John Wayne's began to slip, while heir apparent Clint Eastwood toted guns to better effect in modern dress. Still there were stars, less defined by the term, who'd stay in saddles for those who recalled lead men in chaps on routine basis, and prospering by it. No more, that seemed, as cultural change swept out saloons.

I went to see all of old-man westerns where fading names were paired like bulbs pitted against a room pitch dark. We could choose Bandolero! on paying basis at the theatre or stay home and watch Jim Stewart/Dean Martin gidd-yap on television, and in color by summer '68 for many families. This dealt out most movies labeled ordinary, which Bandolero! was, whatever our pleasure in it now (for me, considerable). Color TV closed widespread accounts for theatre-going, folks having less-than-ever reason to pay piper that was boxoffices. By way of sample, The Sons Of Katie Elder, with Martin and John Wayne, ran primetime ABC in January 1968, Stewart with Two Rode Together ubiquitous in syndication from 1965. All their color westerns were tube-fed, or soon would be. Had Bandolero! been made cheaper, then perhaps ... but to do outdoors well, as in wide, color, and with names, took more cash than came back in quicksand 60's. Bandolero! lost $911K, despite $7.3 million in worldwide rentals. Trouble was, it cost $4.4 million.

I liked old-men westerns as antidote to Italy. No flies lit on James Stewart, and we'd not look so close on pores of Dean Martin's skin. Bandolero! was a western on terms readily understood, not markedly different from Gunsmoke or The Virginian other than knives jabbed in deeper or Raquel Welch having back of her shirt torn off. That last was focus of advertising, a policy to persist even unto DVD release when Bandolero! was tendered as part of a Raquel Welch promotion. I was shocked at fourteen to hear Raquel's character declare that she was "a whore at thirteen," one more veil ripped from propriety of homegrown westerns. Also we got Martin killing civilians in a holdup and Stewart robbing same bank after dust is cleared, anti-heroes to give Italos a run for money (trouble was, the imports were done cheaper and so got more profit). Bandolero! was taken less serious when new for Martin clowning on Thursday night NBC and frivolous Matt Helm for increasingly sorry vehicles. It's late date, but obvious now what good and serious work he does here. Dean liked westerns and respected them, so no wink or walk through this part.

James Stewart rides in under credits to Jerry Goldsmith scoring by Jew's-harp, this not a first US nod to maestro Ennio Morricone. Bandolero! would be Jim's best western work since last with Ford. I'd forgot what humor he could invest where content allowed, this having not been case in unpleasant ones like Shenandoah and Firecreek, the first bearing stench of 60's Universal, the second an ordeal of town siege and unrelieved misery for him, most of cast, and us. Bandolero! let Stewart relax and have fun with at least a first half, saving big brother and bottled-up stuff for effective shading to his and other characters nearer a finish (much of Bandolero! is revamp of themes from Night Passage). Stewart, Dino, Kirk Douglas, Lancaster, Widmark, Fonda, Mitchum, Peck, a whole flock of roosters who'd flown since the war, did old man westerns right through the sixties and much of seventies. King Rooster was Wayne, of course. Going to enough of theirs, as I certainly did, could make you forget there was counterculture abroad in the land. We think of the time as all hippie beads and come the revolution, but vets were still doing might is right on strict traditional terms, each a fill-up in face of times changing perhaps too fast.