Le Clan des Sacketts

This is something of a poor man's "Lonesome Dove." The story is a combination of two Louis L'Amour novels and doesn't have the intensity of Larry McMurtrey's aforementioned "Dove," nor the beautiful cinematography.

The best part of "The Sacketts" is the cast, led by some of the best actors to ever play cowboys. I mean, this is worth owning alone just to see Sam Elliott, Tom Selleck, Glenn Ford and Ben Johnson all in the same story. These guys - especially Elliott and Selleck - were always fantastic playing cowboys. Not only that, you get classic stars such as Gilbert Roland, Mercedes McCambridge, Ruth Roman, Jack Elan, Slim Pickens and more ! Wow - impressive.

Being a made-for-TV film, you don't get much profanity or blood and for most of the film, you get two separate stories going on at once. One story features Selleck and Jeff Osterhage as brothers and another as Elliott, as the older brother involved with his own adventures.

Even though I can't compare it favorably to Lonesome Dove, it's still a decent western on its own merits.

This is pretty much standard Western fare with a cattle drive, gold prospecting, town taming and gun play. Sam Elliot, Tom Selleck and Jeff Osterhage play the three Sackett brothers. The oldest one, Tell (Elliot) is the one looking for gold. In the meantime, the other two leave their home in Tennessee and head west, hooking up with a cattle drive. When the cattle are delivered, they head to racially divided Santa Fe to help a beautiful Mexican senorita whose family is threatened by a dishonest businessman.

Much of the strength of this story lies in the supporting cast, including Western veterans Glenn Ford, Ben Johnson, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens and Gene Evans. Ford is Tom Sunday, ramrod of the cattle drive. He and the two younger Sacketts go into business together rounding up stray cattle before taking them to Santa Fe. Then Sunday's relationship with the Sackett boys begins to spiral downward, and when Orrin (Selleck) gets the sheriff job Sunday has his heart set on, a grudge develops that will not abate. Ben Johnson is a hoot as Cap Roundtree. He was going to join in the stray cattle venture, but when he meets up with Tell, his eyes light up with gold fever and off they go to the mountains. Elam, Pickens and Evans are the Bigelows. They aim to get revenge against Tell for the slaying of their brother and this leads to the final confrontation. Elam, with his long handlebar mustache and black garb, including gloves, looks especially menacing.

The Sacketts is not the best Western to come along, but it is always a pleasure to watch those guys who appeared in so many of the bygone classics and have since passed on.

The best part of the Sacketts is the cast. Including 5 members of the Western Performers Hall of Fame. Sam Elliott ( Tell Sackett), Tom Selleck ( Orrin Sackett), Glenn Ford ( Tom Sunday), Ben Johnson ( Cap) and Jack Elam, so it is fair to say the producers put an effort into casting. The funny thing is though the main character is the youngest brother Tyrel ( Jeff Osterhage), and he is the one who obviously is not well known like the others. I also give the producers credit by casting actual Mexicans Gilbert Roland as Mexicans Don Luis and Ana Alicia as his granddaughter Drusilla. It certainly helps when it comes to the authenticity of the characters. While The Sacketts was well above average, the thing that prevented it from being great was too many open plot lines. I actually went to Wikipedia and found out that Tyrel married Drusilla in the book, and Orrin was definitely not as lucky with the woman he fell for ( Laura) . In the film she ended up in a saloon serving drinks and in the books she married him and tried to have him killed.. if they would have spent more time on Drusilla it would have improved the movie because the Drusilla scenes with Tyrel were some of the strongest in the movie. Anyway, I give it 8/10 stars mostly for the cast.

....you know, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam, Sam Elliot, Shug Fisher, James Gammons, etc etc LQ Jones etc. Episodic kinda nature of the show keeps your interest, esp. when you see Sam Elliot come onto the screen.

Nothing ground breaking, but check it out if you like either L'amour or Tom Selleck at the least.

*** outta ****.

After a deadly encounter that has left two members of a rival clan dead, two brothers by the names of "Orrin Sackett" (Tom Selleck) and "Tyrel Sackett" (Jeff Osterhage) are forced to leave their home in Tennessee and head out west. As luck would have it they join a cattle drive headed by a ramrod named "Tom Sunday" (Glenn Ford) and another veteran cowboy by the name of "Cap Rountree" (Ben Johnson). Within no time the four of them become good friends and when the cattle drive is over they all go into business together and along the way stop off in a small town in Colorado. Meanwhile, their oldest brother "Tell Sackett" (Sam Elliott) has had the unfortunate experience to become involved in a gunfight against a card shark named "Wes Bigelow" (James Gammon) which ends up with Wes dead and Tell having to quit his job as a miner to avoid any further trouble from Wes' brothers who are rumored to be nearby. It's then that Tell arrives in the same town in Colorado where he meets up with his two brothers and their two new colleagues. What none of them realize is that the Bigelow brothers are close behind and have recruited several gunmen to help them in their quest for revenge. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a very good Western which managed to capture the flavor of the Old West quite well. That said, however, because it is a mini-series the overall running time was quite long and in addition to that there were certain scenes which tended to run on a bit. But even so I found it to be very entertaining and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Above average.