Review: Rancho Notorious


Arthur Kennedy is an embittered cowboy whose wife-to-be is brutally murdered on the eve of their wedding. He’s on a vengeance mission to track down the murderer (Lloyd Gough, who along with creepy John Doucette were robbing the general store where she worked), with the trail leading to the goofily-named Chuck-a-Luck, a ranch owned by Altar (Marlene Dietrich). Mel Ferrer is Dietrich’s fast-draw companion Frenchie Fairmont, Jack Elam plays a fourth-tier gunman.



Bizarre 1952 western from Fritz Lang (“Metropolis”, “Ministry of Fear”, “Man Hunt”) has a dopey title, even dopier song by William Lee, and a bunch of non-Western sounding/looking actors in the cast (Kennedy, Dietrich, and Ferrer, let alone a German Expressionist director…or an Austrian-born German Expressionist director). And yet it all works…well, except the damn song. That’s just awful.



It’s probably a chief inspiration for Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles”, wherein Madeline Kahn aped Dietrich and Frankie Laine parodied himself and presumably Lee here, too. Dietrich (whose song numbers are really quite good) and Ferrer are especially charismatic, and Kennedy is always sturdy (I’ve rarely seen a bad performance by him). Definitely worth a look for the curious among you, it’s oddly watchable and at under 90 minutes, it’s never dull. The screenplay is by Daniel Taradash (“From Here to Eternity”, “Picnic”), from a story by Sylvia Richards (screenwriter of “Ruby Gentry”). But really, Chuck-a-luck? Chuck-a-luck?!



Rating: B-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more