La blonde et le shérif

I just loved this film. Kenneth Moore was inspired as the English gentleman buffoon. When you get that 'innocent abroad' persona - for example with Ali G in America; with 'The Idiot Abroad' etc, it's a brilliant tool for cutting through prevailing cultural norms, even if they are for example, whether it's etiquette to shoot first and speak later, or better to proffer a nice cup of tea. When he 'disarms' the injuns at the start of the film it's beautifully done and dead funny.

Jayne Mansfield is like a cartoon character, full blown - in a not quite 'Marilyn' way - and a reasonable foil for our Ken. Even her '50s starlet soon to be housewife' style of singing, (check out 'The Valley Of Love'), seemingly so inappropriate in a rough, tough saloon owner/ music hall glamour girl, fits in so neatly. The whole thing is a pastiche of the age - the 'civilized' 50s making sense of a wild, wild world, with a boy meets girl bottom line.

Like I said - brilliant! Oh and English classic comedian Syd James has a cameo role, so even better.

Kenneth More, the British Comedian stars in his first Hollywood movie with Jayne Maynesfield, the blonde bombshell in this spoof of westerns where a man who would rather drink tea than pick a gun tames the west. The film is well-directed by the veteran Michael Curtiz, is mildly amusing to extremely funny in parts. Jayne sings some songs, especially a catchy one with echoes. What else to say, good fluff.

Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield star in The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw which plays very much like a Carry On film. In fact Sid James of the Carry On company has a brief role as a drunken stagecoach passenger and kind of lends an official presence to this satire of the western. The Carry On crew would later film Carry On Cowboy which this bears some resemblance to.

The real model for this film is Destry Rides Again as Kenneth More plays a rather mild mannered Englishman who goes west to sell firearms, firearms manufactured by his father Robert Morley's company. More sells Morley on the fact that in the lawless American west what better place can the company find a better market.

Poor Moore he manages to get himself involved in a range war between two large ranches, gets appointed sheriff of the town of Fractured Jaw and gets made an adopted member of the local Indian tribe. But this was not without its pleasant side as he manages to also win saloon singer Jayne Mansfield. She's more like Wrangler Jane of F Troop than Marlene Dietrich.

Jayne gets three songs also and she's dubbed by the familiar voice of Connie Francis. Not that Connie doesn't sing them well, but we know that's Connie Francis coming from Mansfield. They should have used an unknown singer.

The film has its amusing moments, but it really is an overblown Carry On film.

Jayne Mansfield plays Kate, boarding house owner, and into town comes Kenneth Moore, a gun salesman from England. Not only are the songs by Jayne dubbed, it sounds like some of the lines are too. Starts out slow, gets better as it goes along. The mayor and the Indian chief steal the movie. There are a few gags and laughs, sort of an early version of Mel Brooks "Blazing Saddles". Nothing real good in "Special Features" on the DVD, but I guess that's due to the fact it was filmed in 1958. No real surprises here... your run of the mill spaghetti western with some laughs thrown in. According to the DVD liner notes included, this was filmed in England and in Spain (?) Too bad they didn't do more with Robert Morley; could have spiced things up more.

In the first place, the cliché of the "fish out of water" might be over-used now, but it was hardly over-used in 1958. There are echoes of Bob Hope's Paleface and Son of Paleface, but those were ten years earlier.

Secondly, just because a movie might have had some scenes filmed in Spain does not make it a Spaghetti Western. Spaghetti Westerns are westerns produced by Italians and directed by Italians. That's where the name "spaghetti" comes from, see?

The Western is not my favorite genre, but I enjoy Kenneth Moore. Jayne Mansfield does an adequate job. My favorite is of course poor William Campbell as Keno.