Chisum

Although a few notches below classic Wayne westerns like "Stagecoach" and "Rio Bravo," this film was a masterful return to form for Wayne. This was the first film Wayne did after gaining weight and donning an eye-patch for his work on "True Grit." In this film, Wayne plays an honest, straight talking man of action, not too different from the type character on which he built his career. The supporting characters are very well drawn and the villains resourceful enough to keep the action moving. In a way, this character, though based on an actual rancher, is similar to the character of Dunson in the superior "Red River." Both characters gambled on a long cattle drive from Texas and although "Red River" is about the drive itself, "Chisum" is about what happens to a similar character twenty years after the drive succeeds. At the time the film was released, at least one critic commented on how improbable it was for John Wayne, at the climax of the movie, to have done that much riding, fighting and falling all within the same sequence. As far as I am concerned, that sequence helped prepare me for later action sequences of 1980's action stars like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and action directors like James Cameron and John Woo. The film is no "Red River" but it is fine western nonetheless.

(6.5/100) One of the few films the Duke made that was based on true events. Its nowhere near his top films, but the film itself is solid and has enough memorable moments to separate itself from Wayne's later westerns. Although having his character's name in the title, the movie actually plays out as an ensemble giving equal time to Pat Garrett and William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. However, Corbett and Deuel were mediocre and unable to pull their own weight in scenes with Wayne. On the flip side, Christopher George played a good, villainous gun-for-hire while Ben Johnson gave one of his best supporting performances that I've seen out of him. Has a pleasant amount of humor with a good final shoot out and a catchy, yet borderline annoying theme song. The film is carried down with a strikingly large cast for a sub two hour movie, but has a number of memorable moments.

The first few times I saw this movie, I hadn't read the history of the Lincoln County Land Wars.

However, in recent years, with the convenience of the internet at hand, I read the histories along with watching the movie. Compared to the amount of factual change that most movies based on a history put on film, this movie is not far from being spot on.

In fact, the amount of direct action that John Wayne's character, Chisum, took in the film, is probably the element that is the most out of place.

Billy the Kid really did work for an English rancher involved in the dispute. His boss really did fund a rival general store with a lawyer. Both the English rancher and the lawyer were murdered by the faction controlled by the rival general store.

Billy the Kid really did get his outlaw career kicked off in seeking vengeance for his boss and mentor's murder. Pat Garret really was supported for sheriff by John Chisum, who somehow managed to stay out of the thick of the feuding even though his use of huge tracts of public grazing land was part of the heart of the dispute.

So history buffs can safely enjoy this movie knowing that history is just bent a little, and not ripped completely asunder as the case would be with most movies. LOL That said, this is a very entertaining western. John Wayne is on top of his game as a cattle baron, and the supporting cast does a fine job. It includes a bit of everything: rustling, gunfights, stampedes, crooked sheriffs, greedy bad guys, heroic good guys. It has more plot surprises than the normal western (and that is precisely because it kills off certain characters approximately when and how they died in the real events).

All in all, an enjoyable and surprisingly informative film about a real "old west" feud.

Over the course of his career John Wayne played a few real life characters. Coming immediately to mind are Davy Crockett, William T. Sherman, Frank "Spig" Wead, Genghis Khan and some others with pseudonyms for William F. Halsey and John Grierson. Playing these people would normally impose certain restrictions on an actor who's as larger than life as John Wayne.

But it certainly didn't with playing John Simpson Chisum, New Mexico cattle baron and key player in what has become known in history as the Lincoln County War. Of course the politics involved were a bit more complex than what you would see here. And a whole lot of liberties have been taken with the facts. One of the biggest is the fact that both Chisum and his rival L.G. Murphy died in bed and quite soon after the action of this film.

But if Maxwell Anderson could take liberties and have Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I of England meet, then why can't we have Chisum and Murphy meeting in a final confrontation? After all it's a John Wayne movie and John Wayne movies can only go in a certain way.

The Duke plays Chisum as the Duke, no more, no less. He and other ranchers are being squeezed by a greedy rapacious businessman in L.G. Murphy as played by Forrest Tucker. Others in the cast worthy of note are Patric Knowles as Henry Tunstall, Glenn Corbett as Pat Garrett, Geoffrey Deuel as Billy the Kid, and Christopher George as Dirty Dan Nodeen.

Chisum has in its cast a whole host of familiar Hollywood faces from the past like Bruce Cabot, Ben Johnson, Hank Worden, Edward Faulkner, all Wayne film regulars. It also has the presence of both Glenn Langan and John Agar.

One of the really great things about John Wayne was the way he took care of people, not as charity cases, but giving them parts in his films when they were down. John Agar and Glenn Langan have small roles in Chisum and both were not doing too good at the time. Agar was Shirley Temple's first husband and made a screen debut in Fort Apache. Langan was a promising contract player with 20th Century Fox in the late forties and is best known for being the Amazing Colossal Man. Both were I'm sure grateful for the work and the paycheck. I remember in McLintock Wayne says to his son Patrick who's looking for a job that he doesn't give jobs, he hires men. That was something in real life he lived up to.

The Lincoln County War has been told in any number of westerns right up to the two Young Guns movies of the Eighties. Chisum is not the best or the worst retelling of the tale. But it is a good John Wayne western and that takes in a lot of territory pilgrim.

The odd thing about this western is that it has the notorious murderer, Billy the Kid, as a good-guy vigilante. This break in history adds some questionable moments in the film. Also the movie relies heavily on The Kid character, more so than does the character of John Chisum(Wayne). This aside, it is still a great film, as John Wayne plays the traditional role of Justice vs. Tyranny. Forrest plays the role of "the villain you love to hate" completely, but does not over do it. One of the most memorable lines of the show is the confrontation of the "Duke" and the town boss. The town boss had relied on a puppet sheriff, as well as a weak governor to promote his control of the town. When Chisum confronts the boss, he mentions,(something to this effect) [When you try to take over my land], "...I won't call the Rangers, I won't call the Governor, I won't send a letter to the President, I come after you myself!" Traditional line of the Duke, but never so passionately delivered. This scene alone makes the movie worthwhile. It also has the traditional western action, but don't be surprised if you question yourself at the end, "Was I actually rooting for Billy the Kid?