Conagher

I can hardly put into words ,my love for this movie.I have seen it at least 50 times.I wore out the first video and have started on my second one.

I am a great fan of Louis L'amour and the making of this book into a film was one of the best things that could have happened,for me.

The cast and crew could not have been better picked. The roles of Evie and Conagher could not have been better done than with the husband and wife team of Sam Elliott and Katherine Ross.

I am transported to the old west every time I watch this movie.I suppose I like it so much because the book does the same thing when I read it.It is a movie to enjoy time and time again.

As far as books that become movies go, this is arguably the most faithful adaptation I've ever seen. This film follows L'Amour's novel of the same name so close that most of the dialog is word for word with the book. Like HONDO, also a L'Amour, the only parts left out of this film are minor pieces that had to be omitted because the film would be 4-5 hours long if every single scene was included. Even HONDO though, which is a wonderfully faithful adaptation doesn't follow as close as CONAGHER. The parts from the book that are left out are explained rather than shown.

That being said, the film is in my opinion one of the great westerns of all time. Not THE best, but definitely worthy of mention among the best. Sam Elliott & real life wife Katherine Ross are excellent, as is the supporting cast, comprised of a who's who of western actors, including Barry Corbin, Buck Taylor, James Gammon, & Ken Curtis (who was actually one of John Ford's "boys"). I can't think of anything but praise for this film. If you're a fan of great westerns it's definitely for you, but also anyone who likes a good film of any kind where we have a hero not trying to be a hero, but rather just doing what he has to, you'll like it too.

If you think you see some similarity between this film and the John Wayne classic western Hondo you're a sharp person. That's because both were written by Louis L'Amour and both have a cowboy hero aiding a woman alone on the frontier with her children.

Katherine Ross plays the woman who has a small ranch that also serves as a stagecoach station.. But that small amount of base income is about to be cut off as a new station is being built, As for her ranch, Ross's husband is gone for some months now on a cattle buying trip with no word when or if he's returning.

Sam Elliott is our title character hero and he's riding line for Ken Curtis's ranch and doing his best to keep thieves off the range. Curtis is beset by rustlers and Elliott does get tempted to look the other way. But like Hondo Lane, Conagher is your straight up cowboy hero, the kind we seldom see in our more cynical age.

Real life marrieds Sam Elliott and Katherine Ross have some tender scenes as she and he would like to get together. But as long as the missing husband's status is still missing they will be true to their moral code.

The supporting cast has a several familiar western faces. My favorite is Barry Corbin the stagecoach driver who even with his company not subsidizing Ross, he has a great personal concern for Ross and her kids.

Conagher answers in a positive way the question of whether we see westerns like we used to see. Most affirmatively with this one.

First, let me say, for you "Conagher" fans out there, it has finally been released on DVD, in May 2005, by Warner Home Video.

Second, on behalf of my wife, this is her favorite western of all time.

And she has seen a bunch of them!

In addition to being a cowboy movie, it's a romance. A realistic one, too. Katherine Ross' strong female character provides an excellent counterpoint to Elliot's rough cowboy ways.

Sam Elliot gives his finest performance, I think. He certainly seems to be having fun while doing it, too.

In many ways, this movie reminds me of "Will Penny", another fine western, starring Charlton Heston. If you liked "Will Penny", you will like "Conagher".

This was a solid lower-key Louis L'Amour-written western, meaning a little bit less action than the normal film of its genre. The action scenes they did have in here were short, too.

This is mainly a movie with several stories weaved in it: 1 - Cowhands slowly being sifted out as the times change and they are no longer needed; 2 - traitors among the main group, men who go to a competing gang of rustlers; 3 - a story of a lonely widow who has to take care of two kids after he husband disappears (killed).

Katharine Ross is the mother ("Evie Teale") who turns cook at a lonely stagecoach stop that also is being eliminated. She is a good woman, and it's nice to see the female star of "Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid" still looking good out there is the prairie over 20 years later. Also refreshing to see was her young boy "Laban," one of the nicest, most respectful kids I've ever seen on film: the exact opposite of the many brats I've seen on film in the last quarter of the 20th century. Cody Braun was excellent as the son, and, that's the only movie role he ever played.

The man "Evie" eventually falls for is the hero of the film, "Conagher," played by Sam Elliott. If anyone in the modern era of films ever looked like he was born to play a cowboy, it has to be Elliott. He has the weathered looks and the voice that go perfectly with westerns.

Overall, this is another beautifully-photographed, nice story and a real "keeper" for those who love a good fim of this genre.