You Know My Name

Maybe it was the fact that it was a western set at the start of the modern time period, but something about this movie was lacking. Sam Elliot as Tiglman is excellent and Carolyn McCormick as his wife was a nice bit of casting. However, Arliss Howard as the corrupt federal agent was so over the top you would think you were supposed to be watching a present day drug film. Elliot should be acknowledged as a master of the western movie genre, if he hasn't been already. However, this movie didn't have enough of the "western" qualities for me. I'll sit back and watch Conagher again to see Elliot in top form with a great "western" storyline.

Sam Elliott was made for the lead in this film, playing William Tilghman in his final weeks as a lawman in an Oklahoma "Oil Patch" town in the mid-1920s. He's simply over-powering in demeanor and gait and attitude. Pay special attention at the end when he bids farewell to his family. Oh, my!... Other mostly unknown actors are mostly okay, but Arliss Howard's drug-addled primary bad guy seems a tad much over the top (I reckon I cotton to heavies who are bad _and_ smart).... Best all is the production which features a roughneck oil town and mud and iron/steel workers and noise and mobs and blacksmiths and misery and saloons and cathouses and ... well, you get the idea.... As a bonus, movie buffs get to see reproductions of Tilghman's own silent movies about his exploits as a young lawman.... Thus, a many-dimensional treat for us hero-worshipers who grew up with the movies.

If a SMILE could be the star of a movie, Sam Elliott's inimitable smile would be the star of "You Know My Name." Elliott may well be the greatest leading man in westerns in the post-1970 period, and he is at the top of his game in this based-on-a-true-story oater set in Oklahoma in the early twentieth century. There have been better westerns, sure, but there have not been many better western star turns than this. Elliott makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time, ALL the time, and at the end you just do both.

This movie definitely could have been better. First, you've got a great story of a great man to the people and law of Cromwell. Second, without a doubt, you've got Sam Elliot! After Clint Eastwood, nobody took the role of a great western actor...until Sam Elliot.

The true(?)story of Oklahoma lawman Bill Tilghman. Producer/star Elliott who is legendary for his characterizations of western lawmen and pioneers, falls flat on this project. Some one needs to explain to me why, WHY, when many of the original locations in the movie-Cromwell, Wowoka, and Chandler, Ok, are still much as the same as they were in the 20s-when this story takes place-did Elliott and crew feel it necessary to film in Canada?? Must be a NAFTA thing. And again, there is the attempt to make the west seem more like the present (large drug shipments parachuting into rural areas-reminiscent of the "Mena legend"!). .. my guess this is done to appeal to the Gen Xers. This is just another picture, made in the last three decades that gives proof to the adage "Western pictures have gone down-hill ever since Robert L. Lippert died!