The Law West of Tombstone

Notorious liar, Bill Barker - who is banished westwards by the law - sets out to bring the law into force, west of Tombstone after talking the town people of Martinez into making him a mayor and judge. His first mission is to arrest the trigger-happy Tonto Kid, but soon they join forces against the notorious McQuinn gang.

The Law west of Tombstone is an unusual western with quirky humour, lots of engaging dialogue and a strong story. It has more characterisation and there's an air of looniness around the plot and characters. The acting honours go to Harry Carey who plays a notorious liar who becomes a mayor. He tells tall tales of his epic experiences - Tim Holt plays the Tonto Kid and Rocky Allan Lane is in a brief role before biting the dust. It can be a bit talky but don't expect a typical rootin' tootin' horse opera - the only major gunplay occurs at the end and quite a smoking one too.

Oftentimes conventional western that regularly heads off in unconventional directions. Harry Carey (senior, not junior) is delightful as very odd character Bill Barker. Head of dancehall girls/prostitutes is named Mrs Mustache! Just read that Harry Carey, Jr is 82 and made more than 40 westerns in his career. Catch his old man in this one for a treat and movie history.

There are some horses on dusty trails, cattle and shots fired. But this has little use for rustic scenery, stunts, boulders, stagecoach robberies, ranchers, gold mines and grifting frontier bankers of a B Western. This is urban, for adults, with a train robbery, politics, sex, comedy, iambic pentameter, relationships, surreal twists and the Western storytelling of Carey, Sr. Youthful Holt stirs the drink as he would in Ambersons and Sierra Madre and in his career. Like a B movie this pays less attention to acting, lighting, production values as might a Curtiz, but it has respectable photography and sound with a clear print. Ward Bond, always a star in any role, delivers a memorable cameo. Native Americans here are at least presented with authentic costuming and intelligence, if comedically, not as inarticulate enemies.

Well, Fellini didn't direct this one, but at times it sure seems like it. This is one odd-ball movie, with plotlines that appear out of nowhere and disappear into the same place, character motivations David Lynch couldn't understand, and behavior that sometimes suggests that everyone in the film and everyone who made it was hitting the peyote a little too hard. Harry Carey well plays Bill Barker, and one presumes he is the hero of the piece, though he gets enough undisputed disrespect from respectable characters that sometimes it's hard to know whether he's the moral center or just a none-too-bright gasbag. Tim Holt is good as the Tonto Kid, but everyone else is either not very good or is just mired so deep in the confusion that it's not possible to distinguish their talent. It's almost impossible to disentangle the plotlines, although it's fairly clear that one of them involves Barker's attempts to make a good life for the daughter he never knew. The rest of it is pretty much a jumble, and the confrontations between Barker and the McQuinn gang, and in particular a bizarre game of Russian roulette between Barker and the Tonto Kid simply defy rational explanation. And what in the world was Ward Bond doing in this--not WHY was he in it, but WHAT was he doing? He appears to be channelling his John L. Sullivan character from "Gentleman Jim," funnelled through Pancho Villa. But the purpose and intent of the character are just two of the manifold mysteries of this weird little melange. Just about the strangest thing I've ever seen that wasn't meant to be strange.

In the usual world of the "B" Western, character and plot are usually fairly straightforward, and one knows after the first ten minutes not only how it will end, but who is going to end up with the girl--if anyone does. In this endearing oddity, your appreciation may depend on your tolerance for eccentricity, whethere it is enjoying that brilliant veteran of so many silent western Harry Carey appearing as the town's benevolent liar, a jolly man who can also lead a crowd, but who is a master of social manipulation. Tim Holt, ostensibly the star and hero, is a sort of moody but well-scrubbed hero, capable of two expressions--one petulant and pouty, and the other agreeable and smiley...there seems to be no room for any kind of thoughtful expression. He and the judge share a love-hate relationship, and into it are thrown all sorts of beloved character actors, whether Ward Bond, bare-chested and speaking with a Mexican-Italian accent, or Charles "Ming" Middleton, lurking at a poker table, sulking. The treatment of the native American tribe is totally insensitive and ludicrous, especially when Carey convinces them to leave the land next to a river for the seashore of sunny California. In short, if you want some reliable old-fashioned Cowboy Action, a la Roy Rogers or Hoppy, this ain't it. But if you want a fast-paced curiosity from the "B" movie that can be a lot of fun in so many ways, this can be a delight!