Ne tirez pas sur le shérif

Support Your Local Sheriff! is directed by Burt Kennedy and written by William Bowers. It stars James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan and Bruce Dern. Harry Stradling Jr. is the cinematographer and Jeff Alexander scores the music. The film is essentially a parody of a Western splinter that encompasses an iconoclastic new arrival in a troubled town who sets about taming it. Here it's James Garner as Jason McCullough who is on his way to Australia to make his fortune. Stopping over in an Old Western town for some rest, a bite to eat, and maybe earn some cash? McCullough is disgusted to find corruption and murder is rife. Showing a firm backbone and some nifty skills with a gun, McCullough highly impresses the town dignitaries who offer him the position of Sheriff. A job he finally accepts and begins taming the town with his unconventional methods.

Support Your Local Sheriff! Very much had time on its side when it was released. Interest in the Western as a genre had waned considerably, with the advent of free television potentially ready to drive the final nails into the coffin. Four years earlier Cat Ballou had shown that a comedy Western in the 60s could be well received. While master craftsman Howard Hawks had parodied his own Rio Bravo a year after Cat Ballou with the well regarded El Dorado. Throw into the pot that James Garner had good comedic Western credentials behind him on account of his run in TV series Maverick (1957-1962); and it's evident that Messrs Kennedy & Bowers knew exactly what they were doing.

Roger Ebert famously accused the makers of the film of being thieves, not buying into the parody basis, he hated the film and thought it just stole from other Western movies whilst being made in a TV show style. Well that's kind of the core of a parody movie is it not? Bowers & Kennedy have crafted a top dollar irreverent Oater, embracing the clichés of many standard genre pics that had gone before it-and then turning them upside down. While all the time, with this cast of very knowing genre participants, cloaking the picture with love and affection. It's not so much biting the hand that feeds you, but more a tasteful appreciation of what was sometimes fed.

Full of truly memorable scenes such as a jail without bars, the film is immeasurably helped by the on fire cast. Garner deadpans it a treat and is charismatic into the bargain. As he goes about taming the town more by logic and suggestion than rapid gunfire, he's a hero that's very easy to warm too. Hackett, who owes the Western fan nothing after Will Penny, is simply adorable as a bumbling rich girl quickly getting the hots for the new Sheriff. Morgan & Dern play it firmly with a glint in the eye and tongue in cheek, and Brennan, a god-like bastion of Western's, is hilarious as the patriarch of the bullying Danby clan. But best of the bunch is Jack Elam (The Far Country/ Vera Cruz/ Gunfight at the OK Corral), who playing the town character somehow finds himself (in spite of himself) employed as the Sheriff's deputy, turns in a lesson in visual and physical comedy. Fittingly it's Elam who closes the film out with a suitably knowing piece of smart.

It lacks some great scenic photography and the score is a bit too much Keystone Coppery, but really this is about the excellent script and the players bringing it to life. A Western comedy gem. 9/10

Jason McCullough (James Garner) is just passing through town on his way to Australia (!). Needing money, he takes the job of sheriff and quickly finds himself at odds with the criminal Danby family. Very funny western comedy. It sends up the western genre gently without being condescending or insulting like so many western comedies are. James Garner is terrific as the level-headed sheriff, as quick with his wits as with a gun. Great character actor Jack Elam is lots of fun as his sidekick. Bruce Dern is hilarious as the dim-witted Joe Danby. Walter Brennan plays the patriarch of the Danby clan. One would assume this is a send-up of his role in My Darling Clementine. He's very funny as well. Harry Morgan is solid as always. Joan Hackett as the hotheaded Prudy nearly steals the show. I say nearly because Garner's flawless performance can't be beat. It's really a superb cast in a must-see film.

This is a classic example of a genre parody. It's not one of those jokes-coming-at-100mph kind of spoofs (such as Blazing Saddles), it simply plays everything by genre rules. It shares this with the 1939 version of Destry Rides Again, but it goes much further in exhibiting the hilarious potential of the genre by just slightly exaggerating the kind of improbable situations classic Westerns so often throw at us.

To appreciate this film properly you need to be familiar with the classic Western genre, mostly to understand how the genre works when played straight but you may also recognise some movie references.

The cast is absolutely marvellous, James Garner is a commanding lead, Jack Elam has never been better, and there are first-rate character actors for all the supporting roles. Especially Harry Morgan and Walter Brennan are excellent in roles very similar to ones they played straight in High Noon and My Darling Clementine, respectively.

This is a great film to have in your collection and to pull out when you have guests with varied tastes. Fantastic screenplay, staging, pacing and, most of all, incredible acting, all come together to make this a nearly perfect film. Someone says, "I don't like Westerns," you tell them this is a western "spoof" and really more of a brain-over-brawn and romance than a western in the classical sense. Another says, "I'm getting tired of romantic-comedies," you tell them that it's not the main storyline, and the romance is just another part of the spoof. There are some well-staged and funny action scenes and lots of witty dialogue. Whatever a person likes, it is in here; and whatever a person may not like, there is not so much of it in here to dominate the movie, and so much else to enjoy. Get this one in your video library as soon as possible...

I love it when Sheriff Garner casually sticks his finger into bad guy Brennan's gun barrel. What a great way to disarm a menace. I don't know if his trick would really work, but who cares since it's good for a laugh. In fact, such imaginative goofiness could stand for the movie as a whole. Like when Garner chases a gunslinger out of town with a barrage of rocks. His aim may not be so good, but a thousand clichéd fast-draws flashed before me while I laughed. And it's not just Garner-- it's the whole superbly droll cast. Old pro's like Henry Morgan, Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, and even the newcomer Joan Hackett, a fine actress who shoots much too well, but in real life, died much too young. All the nonsense adds up to one really droll take-off on a thousand Western clichés, without rubbing your nose in it. It's also a tribute to the much under-rated helmsman Burt Kennedy and writer William Bowers who comes up with the great line about "disturbing the peace" as the three half-dressed councilmen escape the exploding bordello. Then too, looks like Garner's Cherokee Productions financed the project, proving that the savvy actor knows quality when he sees it. From start to finish— a real little gem.