The Slowest Gun in the West

"The Slowest Gun in the West" was a pilot for a TV series that wasn't picked up by the networks. After seeing it, I could easily see why...it was terrible.

The town of Primrose is filled with evil gunmen and a nasty boss (Bruce Cabot). However, the townsfolk want the place to be a nice place to live and keep hiring sheriff after sheriff--and they get killed one after another. One day, an abject coward, The Silver Dollar Kid (Phil Silvers) comes into town and the townsfolk get an idea--hire this annoying guy because he's such a coward that the gunmen won't kill him because they don't want to be known as the guy who murdered a totally yellow guy(?). And, using lots of anachronistic and annoying ways, the new sheriff brings peace to the land.

The show has three huge problems. The biggest is the ever-present and annoying laugh track. The other is that while this idea MIGHT have worked, it certainly wasn't enough to support a series. Additionally, Silvers and his shtick was 100% annoying and became grating as the show progressed. Overall, a rather dopey idea that just didn't work.

This seems to have been made immediately after the "SGT Bilko" show went off the air, as a vehicle for Phil Silvers by Nat Hiken, the mind behind "SGT Bilko." It may have started out as a pilot for a new show starring Silvers. If so, it is not surprising that it was never made. Silvers' character as a fast-talking con-man does not merge well into the western genre.

It is always good to see Silvers in anything, but he's not very convincing as a cowboy, even "the slowest gun in the west." There are some funny moments, but many of the jokes fall flat. The theme-song, a western-style ballad about the Silver Dollar Kid (Silvers' character), is repeated far too many times, far too loudly, and gets intrusive after a while. The rest of the cast is stiff, and do not seem to be very well-rehearsed.

The movie picks up when Jack Benny's character appears. Benny was rather famously not very good in movies, but he is very natural in this role -- which is just an extension of his character from radio and TV. Unfortunately he isn't in the movie very much, and the climax of the movie is a big letdown.

It might be fun to see for fans of Silvers or Benny, but don't expect big laughs.

This was an amusing comedy which I believe was shown the during the summer of 1960. The show was about how Phil Silvers was cleaning up a crime ridden town in the old west, sometimes using methods that were...shall we say a little anachronistic. In one sequence he ruins a young gunslinger by convincing him that his dependence on his two six-shooters was based on an unhappy childhood deprived of his toys. You hear him shooting it out, and as he stumbles out of the building, he looks at his two guns and mutters (in happy tears), "My Teddy Bears!" The bad guys hire Jack Benny to bring down the cowardly Silvers, only to hire his criminal opposite number. Benny and Silvers ended the show in the most preposterous show-down in western history. To prove their superiority over the other they have to be more cowardly - so each yells "You draw first!" to the other. We watch them in place with the town growing up around them. Only at the tail end of the show do we see who won the show-down.

This is an innovative and hilarious western starring veteran comedians Jack Benny and Phil Silvers. The town of Primrose, Arizona is filled with outlaws. In desperation, the law-abiding townspeople hire the cowardly Fletcher Bissell III (aka The Silver Dollar Kid, played by Silvers) as their new sheriff. The townsfolk are convinced that law and order will be restored because the local outlaws will be too proud to gun Bissell down. This proves to be the case, because none of the outlaws wants to ruin his reputation by being "the man who gunned down The Silver Dollar Kid." In retaliation, the outlaws hire their own cowardly gunfighter, Chicken Finsterwald (Benny), to go up against The Silver Dollar Kid. Finsterwald's "style" of gunning people down theretofore amounted to knocking out an old lady's cane in a dark alley and shooting her in the back. Despite pressure from the townspeople and outlaws, both Finsterwald and The Kid manage to avoid confrontation until the final, surprising showdown in the street.

Benny and Silvers are at their best in this one, with Silvers' wisecracking and Benny's low-keyed, self-effacing humor and deadpanned looks. Great support work is provided by veteran heavies Ted DeCorsia, Jack Elam, and Lee van Cleef. The dialogue is smooth and never forced, probably due to a combination of such a "veteran" cast and a good script. Nat Hiken wrote and produced this film. TV buffs will recall that he wrote, produced and directed "The Phil Silvers Show" in the 1950s and "Car 54, Where Are You?" in the 1960s.

This is a movie the whole family can enjoy. The movie was made for television and I do not know if it is available on videocassette. I highly recommend it.

Finding this by accident on YouTube, I was excited because I vaguely remembered watching it on TV, 'way too many years ago.

I had not remembered it as a Phil Silvers special, for some reason. But watching it and him, I was again reminded what a really fine actor he was.

Yes, he generally played the similar kind of bluff con man, but watch his face. Watch his body. He was incredibly expressive, so very much in control.

Jack Benny also very much played his well-known character, but, again, watch him, closely. He really could be a good actor. And was in this funny story.

Then we were given some of the very best villains ever filmed, including Bob Wilke and Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam. And they and all the others were so excellent in their portrayals, I can't help wondering why this little gem of a TV movie is not better known and presented more often.

It has one flaw: That intrusive and annoying laugh track. There is absolutely no good reason for such interference.

But I highly recommend "The Slowest Gun in the West" for a less-than-an-hour's entertainment