Gone with the West

When an innocent convict (James Caan) is released from prison in the Southwest he teams-up with an AmerIndian woman (Stefanie Powers) to exact vengeance on a town of sadistic revelers in the desert. Aldo Ray plays the sinister town boss, Robert Walker Jr. the weary sheriff and Sammy Davis Jr. a black-clad gunslinger.

"Gone with the West" has a strange history: It was actually shot in 1969 under the working title "Man without Mercy," but not released until 1974-1975. This explains how scenes from the movie were available for use in the theater sequence of "Messiah of Evil" (1973). A reedited version with new music and additional scenes (a new intro & conclusion set in modern times) was released in the late 70s under the name "Little Moon and Jud McGraw" wherein Caan's character, Jebediah Kelsey, was changed to Jud McGraw. I viewed the original "Gone with the West" version.

The movie SEEMS like a serious Western with the typical sadism of Spaghetti Westerns (for example, the opening features a woman being raped with a town mob heartily enjoying the spectacle), but the goofy jazz/rock score keys off that it's supposed to be satirical. If there's any doubt, the ending scene tells all. Speaking of the music, it's akin to the groovy rock in low-budget biker flicks, e.g. "The Cycle Savages" (1969), except that a great acoustic piece surfaces occasionally, similar to something Heart would do back then.

When I discerned that the film wasn't to be taken too seriously I started to chuckle with it, a little anyway, and was entertained by several sequences, like the knock-down drag-out brouhaha of two women, Sammy Davis Jr.'s deadpan gunfighter and the guy humorously singing "Abide with Me" deadpan, as well as the over-the-top hellish close.

Unfortunately, the editing is incoherent, like whoever put it together was on acid. Not to mention there's zero meaningful dialogue with Powers babbling in an AmerIndian language the whole time (or was it Spanish?). So, there are items to appreciate in this eccentric Western, but you have to persevere through its outlandishness and defects.

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot in Las Vegas with the title sequence shot at Vasquez Rocks, California, just north of Los Angeles in the high country.

GRADE: C-

Ex-convict James Caan is released from prison and sets out to exact some long overdue vengeance on Aldo Ray, the man who murdered his family years before and apparently the rest of the town as well.

There's some trashy fun at first but things run out of steam pretty quick and never recover.

A paper thin story, the obnoxious free-wheeling 1970's style direction, and the bad funk score are all pretty off-putting, as is the terrible performance by Stephanie Powers, who looks like Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon and is so verbally challenged she makes Tonto look like a radio talk show host!

The great Sammy Davis Jr. is sadly wasted in this. His leather-clad gunfighter character was the most entertaining thing in the movie and really deserved a better script!

This has to be one of the worst movies ever! How did it take three people to write a story with nearly no dialog and very little plot? How did anyone get talked into financing this bomb? How did they manage to get James Caan and SAMMY DAVIS JR.! to appear in this thing? I think this movie gave Sammy Davis Jr. cancer. He probably never let Sinatra or Dean Martin know he was in this thing. It is that utterly bad. It is more confusing than some bizarre Fellini flick. I watched the whole thing and I have NO idea what it is about, just a collection of scenes that don't add up to a story. I don't know what any of it means - the cockfighting, the woman and little kid getting shot, the two hookers (?) getting into a fight, the wrestling match in the bar (which is perpetually in a fight scene), the cowboy singing 'Abide With Me' every so often. Weird, weird, weird. Maybe it would make sense if you watched it on LSD, since it was apparently written under that influence. I can't recall another movie which has left me feeling so stunned, like 'What the HECK was that?' No wonder it's in the public domain; nobody would have spent the few dollars to keep the copyrights going. Wow. This whole movie makes no sense whatever.

This is possibly the worst western that I have ever seen. The sound, photography, and the acting is awful. I would not blame it all on the actors. This appears to be a film that was possibly started many years earlier, with a different intention. Only to be finished years later with a different story, sloppy narration, and other low quality production values.

This is probably something that James Caan either doesn't remember or will not talk about. It has a release date of 1975 but was more likely filmed anywhere between '70 and '72 considering Caan's career went into high gear by the end of '72, not to mention how young he and Stefanie Powers look. Obviously something went seriously wrong with the western that some non-entity named Bernard Girard directed, thus the "need" to offer some contemporary (mid-70's) wrap-around footage. Perhaps a total lack of coherence required adding the story-telling narrative. Regardless, the whole thing is a botch, modern-day accessory footage included. It has something to do with Aldo Ray as the town baddie who steals Caan's cattle and molests Powers and the two victims seek revenge by destroying Ray's rotten town. Davis, Jr. is Ray's hired gunslinger. Strange fact: Davis, Jr. was actually a quick draw in real life. Apparently he was clocked at one time as one of the fastest ever. Sammy seemed to be a natural at anything he attempted (just ask Linda Lovelace... but that's another story). Yet poor Sammy appears absurd in his Jack-Palance-from-'Shane' outfit and has little to do except act phony-tough and gun down a few bozos in his few scenes. At least Aldo Ray seems to be having fun (his paycheck happily covering his liquor bill, no doubt). Meanwhile, Powers adds a little comedy relief, a little skin, and not a word of English. Caan is fine (his pleasant demeanor unmolested by the knowledge the film he was ostensibly appearing in would later be edited by a mix-master). Oh, and the music score is as goofy and wrong-headed as the film itself.