Barquero

Around 1970 the Western genre had a new lease of life from the success of the Spaghetti Western. This is one of many attempts to marry the classic Western with this new style, and it does it quite convincingly. In the title role we have Lee van Cleef as the most impressive ferryman in film history - making his colleague at the Styx worry about the security of his job. Lee is up against Warren Oates and his bandits who need his ferry to transport their booty. Consequently, we are treated with the rare sight of a naval battle in a Western.

The villains of this piece are rather traditional Western villains (John Davis Chandler plays a delightful little dirtbag) while the heros (van Cleef and Tucker), all enigmatic and a bit on the shady side, seem to have been borrowed from Cinecitta. The excellent music by Dominic Frontiere is also presented in Italian style.

Like contemporaries Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef did his sojuourn in European films mostlywesterns and graduated to leads. Unlike Marvin, Bronson, and others like Claude Akins, Neville Brand, and Jack Elam, Van Cleef never did explore a comic side. Maybe he just didn't have one. He's also one strange hero as he is in Barquero.

In this film Lee Van Cleef is the man with the barge who ferries people across a deep river. He doesn't even particularly like the settlers in the town on the river bank that has grown up. But when Warren Oates's gang of renegade cutthroats want to use that barge, Van Cleef proves to be the savior of the town.

Oates who usually plays with a comic twist either as a good guy or a bad guy is one deadly serious villain here. His gang massacres a whole town to leave no witnesses to a shipment of arms that they are robbing. Van Cleef knows well what they are capable of.

Forrest Tucker who can be comic here provides the comic relief as a mountain man. the last of a breed who proves to be Van Cleef's salvation. He rescues Van Cleef when he's captured by a couple of Oates's men who were sent to secure the ferry man for the gang. He has some sardonically funny scenes with John Davis Chandler, the captive.

Mariette Hartley is in this and she's the wife of a local storekeeper who is also a most pious reverend. When he's left behind and captured by Oates, Hartley makes Van Cleef an offer that an old time gentlemanly cowboy hero would never take up. Think of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, that's the kind of hero Van Cleef is.

This one is a must for fans of Lee Van Cleef.

Lee Van Cleef had already become an international star late in his career, following his success in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns, when he starred in "Barquero", made in 1970. The film is clearly influenced by the Spaghetti tradition, most clearly displayed in the drugged-up, psychotic villain, Jake Remy, who bares similarities to the character of Indio in "For a Few Dollars More". However "Barquero" is far superior to the many "Spaghetti" imitators and deserves to stand on its own as a great Western.

The plot is fairly simple, beginning with the massacre and plundering of a peaceful town by Jake Remy and his crew of assorted bandits. Their only escape from capture is to cross the river to safety but the only person who can help them is the Barquero, played by Lee Van Cleef, who refuses, and a violent stand-off ensues.

The film is aided immeasurably by the performance of Warren Oates as Jake Remy, in one of his best roles. Remy makes even most the evil Western characters look saintly in comparison, as he kills and butchers anyone who gets in his path (check out the scene in which he sleeps with a woman and then casually kills her) and his only redeeming feature is his loyalty to his men. This is perhaps the only Western in which the bad guy is given more screen time than the hero and is one of the most complex villains ever seen on screen. Remy has a past which he is haunted by, and is slowly driven mad by his determination to cross the river and by the stubbornness of the Barquero.

The film does not really have a hero, as the only two characters to resemble this are the Barquero and Mountain Phil, a truly bizarre character, excellently played by Forrest Tucker. The Barquero is prepared to help the endangered townsfolk against Remy, but only because he wants to bed one of the women and Mountain Phil does not help out of kindness but more so because he is slightly insane.

"Barquero" was directed by the undistinguished Gordon Douglas, although he did direct the classic 1954 Sci-Fi/horror "Them". Fans of Sam Peckinpah will be pleased to see the villainous pairing of Warren Oates and John Davis Chandler, although Van Cleef fans may be disappointed as he is given little to do, besides having to wear one of the worst shirts ever committed to film.

"Barquero" should be seen by anyone who is serious about Westerns and is required viewing for fans of the great Warren Oates.

Barquero has really no excuse for not living up to its full potential. The inspired casting choice of piting genre stalwarts Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates in opposite sides of the river against each other and the idea behind the film – a group of ragtag cut-throats led by Oates transporting rifles and silver after a successful raid at a nearby town to the Sonoran territory in Mexico and desperately in need to cross the river before the army gets them while Lee Van Cleef as the boatman holds the barq at the other bank and refuses to pick them up. That should have been enough to keep Barquero afloat and my terrible puns at bay (ahem).

What really keeps the film down is the unpolished, roughly sketched script. The first and closing acts sustain interest through lengthy bouts of gunfighting but some kind of semi-compelling plot needs to be assembled for the middle act where sadly Barquero fails to kick the conflict into high gear, a hard feat to accomplish with a story that seems to invite conflict and could have gone into so many different places. Instead what we get by the end of act two is the good guys outwitting the bad and saving the hostage Warren Oates was keeping tied up and Oates half mad and desperate (as the army draws closer with every passing moment) shooting holes at the water and saying to his henchman "I shot the river". Not particularly endearing, don't you think? Forrest Tucker steals scenes in the role of ant-eating Mountain Phil while Van Cleef and Oates seem to be representing two different western archetypes – Van Cleef the romantic hero eclipsed by the coming modernization of the west, represented in the movie by a bunch of squatters he's called to protect, Oates the rough-hewn, murderous son of a bitch, the gritty and hardboiled aspect of the western, pioneered at the time by spaghetti westerns of whose villains he's somewhat reminiscent of.

Definitely better seventies westerns to keep the genre aficionado occupied out there but it's worth a watch for its marquee value, Van Cleef and Oates a dream match made in heaven and both in pretty good shape.

The Quick Pitch: Remy (Warren Oates) is the leader of a band of outlaws. He wants to cross a river on his way to Mexico. The titular barquero, Travis (Lee Van Cleef), isn't going to let him use his barge. He knows it will be destroyed to prevent others from following. A stand-off ensues.

Until I stumbled on this last night, I had no idea Barquero even existed. What a find! Warren Oates and Lee Van Cleef in the same movie. These guys just ooze machismo. Throw in a supporting cast featuring Forrest Tucker and Kerwin Mathews and there was no way I wouldn't enjoy Barquero. The opening shootout as Remy and his men slaughter everyone in a small town to steal a wagon load of guns is an over-the-top joy to behold. And the last act where Remy and Travis are drawn into their final, inevitable showdown is just plain old awesome.

The problem with Barquero is the bits that come between the beginning and the end. Unfortunately, the second act really drags with Remy and Travis separated by a river. They shout back and forth, but there's really not much else that happens. Too bad, because with this kind of cast, some fantastic locations, and plenty of blood and violence, Barquero had the potential to be legendary.

6/10