Review: Chisum


John Wayne plays the title reformed cattle baron who now stands up for the little guy and takes on a bastardly (which I didn’t even know was a word, I was only using it kiddingly, but MS Word seems to think it is a word, so it must be true!) rival Murphy, played by Forrest Tucker, who has just moved to Lincoln and set on taking over by any means necessary. Heck, Mr. Moneybags Tucker has even bought off local Sheriff Brady (Bruce Cabot). Chisum’s allies include a rather effete (and pacifist) Englishman, Tunstall (Patric Knowles), who is harbouring a young ruffian nicknamed Billy the Kid (Geoffrey Deuel), attempting to educate the young outlaw (AKA William H. Bonney) and set him on a righteous path. Andrew Prine plays virtuous lawyer Alex McSween, who also aligns himself with Chisum. Ben Johnson is excellent as Chisum’s right-hand man and foreman, Pepper, and there’s also an (underdeveloped) appearance by Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett), here seen as a bit of a drifter who competes with Billy for the affections of Chisum’s pretty niece Pamela McMyler. A young Jaeckel and always-unseemly Robert Donner play a couple of Murphy’s men, the former an ex-Bonney gang member.


Enjoyable, muscular 1970 Andrew V. McLaglen (“The Rare Breed”, “Bandolero!”, “The Last Hard Men”) western is one of The Duke’s best latter day films, despite his real-life character being more of a supporting character to the goings on, though screenwriter Andrew J. Fenady (“Ride Beyond Vengeance”) tries his best to beef the role up (as well as downplaying the fact that Chisum was as much of a capitalist land-owner as any other). Deuel is far too lightweight in the important role of William Bonney/Billy the Kid, the role as written is a bit bipolar, but Deuel isn’t quite up to the task of playing it. Thankfully, there’s great support from Knowles, Prine, and especially mean ‘ol Tucker in the roles later played by Terence Stamp, Terry O’Quinn, and Jack Palance, in a better treatment of the Billy the Kid saga, “Young Guns” (John Chisum didn’t turn up until the sequel, wherein he was marvellously played by James Coburn as a not-so nice guy at all). Christopher George is also well-cast as a bad-ass gunslinger, and there’s lots of other familiar faces throughout.


It’s pretty rousing stuff, and though Deuel isn’t all that impressive, it’s certainly impressive to see such a schizo interpretation of the Billy the Kid character. Best thing in the film is the amusingly uber-macho title song by Merle Haggard.


Rating: B-

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