Duel dans la poussière

Showdown is another version of the two buddies who take different turns in the road of life. It borrows elements from George Marshall's supremely enjoyable Texas which starred two very young players named Glenn Ford and Bill Holden.

The buddies here are Dean Martin and Rock Hudson. They're a little older than Bill and Glenn were. Rock Hudson is now a solid respectable citizen ranch owner, married to Susan Clark, and who also happens to be the sheriff.

Dino cleared out from the ranch they had and has been gone for two years so he doesn't know that Hudson is the new sheriff. Maybe he wouldn't have decided to rob that train with some very serious outlaw types. Unfortunately Dino was recognized and Hudson has to bring him in.

This turned out to be the last western film for both Dean Martin and Rock Hudson. Martin, starting with Rio Bravo in 1959, did a whole string of westerns of varying quality. But making them is hard work, a fact Dean discovered one day out in the desert heat making these films. The rest of his movies were done in modern dress.

Also for some reason two of the most agreeable stars to work with as attested to by numerous co-stars of both did not get along during the making of Showdown.

Yet this Damon and Pythias story is still good entertainment and nothing either Rock or Dean had any reason to be ashamed of.

Old friends and partners Rock Hudson and Dean Martin unwillingly collide when Martin is wanted for train robbery and Hudson is the sheriff who has to catch him, which he does when his wife, Susan Clark, stands between the two men.

George Seaton's first western and last movie is an oddly paced affair. Both men seem to be uncomfortable at all time, and Miss Clark very relaxed. I attribute this to the idea that it seems a more more calculated to show off Ernest Laszlo's stunning cinematography than a story film. True, westerns, the most conservative of movie genres, was always more about the camerawork and vistas of the old western than stories; western writer Frank Gruber said there were only seven plots for westerns, so what else was a western movie supposed to be about other than the pictures? Yet even the great color westerns of the 1950s always had an artificial look to them. Laszlo's camerawork is seemingly more casual and gorgeous for that.

The print and transfer I saw were both carefully done. That always helps.

I am quite satisfied by this western which looks very like an Andrew Mc Laglen's film from the early seventies; I mean a plot that sounds like a sixties scheme or late fifties but with the seventies melancholia touch. Nothing to do with Monte Hellman nor Sam Peckinpah's style, but it could be an Arnold Laven's film ; such as his ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO - with also Dean Martin as the villain, unlike FIVE CARDS STUD where he was the good guy and Bob Mitchum the bad one. Rock Hudson is better than ever here, totally different from his Douglas Sirk's films characters, not the handsome son in law anymore, but a rough, disillusioned and bitter, poignant man. Yes a good film to close a career, especially from a director for whom western was not the speciality. Donald Moffat in a very interesting supporting character, a villain, former ranch owner for whom we feel some empathy. In the Budd Boetticher - with Randolph Scott - manner...As Richard Boone in TALL T.

"The Western", in the 70's was a New-Breed Formed in the Genre that was In-Flux by the Likes of Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher, in the 50's...

Followed and Substantially Changed by Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone in the 60's, it was a Reboot of the Genre.

That Resulted in a New-Look, New Mind-Set and Landscape. Introducing the Psychological, a Grittier, more "Realistic" Show of Blood-Spurting Violence, with a Grittier Template...more Dirty, more Earthy, a more Lived-In Feel of Frontier-Times and the True Pioneers and Outlaws that were Alive During the Great American Expansion.

A Reflection of the Genre's Maturity and Expansion as an Art-Form Excising the Easier on the Eyes Consumption of "Western-Movies" that Remained Resonant for Movie-Goers Insatiable Desire to "Look" at the Every-Day Life During the Migration to Undiscovered Territory.

A Significant Change with New-Thinking Getting-Around the Traditional, Format, UN-Complicated. White-Hat Black-Hat Mostly "Kiddie-Affairs" that Main-Stayed the Genre Ever Since "The Great Train Robbery" (1903), the 1st Movie to "Tell a Story" was a "Western"

The Result Remaining and Oblivious to "Change", was the History of Westerns that Remained for the Ensuing 50 Years.

"Showdown" was a Movie Marketed for the Establishment that Embraced the "Old-School" and Went Against the Grain of the Trend and Felt Uneasy with the New-Fangled Revisionism that Contained a "Future-Shock", Considered Extreme, Excessive and Not-Entertaining.

The Most Conservative of Genres, "The Western", in 1973, Offered Up as an Alternative to Reform...

2 Conservative Actors that Personified Entertainment in Years-Gone-By, Dean Martin and Rock Hudson that Nobody Pictured Akin to "Bloody Sam" or that "Foreigner" Leone.

They were a Comfortable "Clean-Cut" Duo as Easy as a TV-Dinner, and a Reliably, Absent of Cringe, and were Invited by the Moral-Majority into Their Lives Without Regret.

An Anti-Programmer to the Anti-Establishment Take on 'The Western" that Had Been an Established Entertainment for the Aforementioned 50+ Years.

If You Fall into that Category, this Movie, that was Out-of-the-Corral "Dated", it's...

Worth a Watch.

It may not be an amazing script, but the couple great actors of Martin and Hudson make it well worth the watch. It's a decent western, even if there's no great "action" to speak of. You won't find any memes from it, and it's not even really blog-worthy beyond the hour and a half of relaxing tv watching. Both Martin and Hudson play their parts in an understated way, which makes it more believable.

There's enough chemestry between Rock and Dean that they're comfortable to watch. There is some subtle humor here and there, and the story doesn't offend. Personally I enjoyed it, if you like westerns and buddies on opposite sides you may like it too.