Pray for the Wildcats

This film begins at an advertising agency with three employees named "Warren Summerfield" (William Shatner), "Terry Maxon" (Marjoe Gortner) and "Paul McIlvan" (Robert Reed) trying their best to retain the account of a wealthy businessman by the name of "Sam Farragut" (Andy Griffith). The problem is that Sam Farragut is not a nice man to do business with as he is both arrogant and extremely cruel. In fact, he is so arrogant and cruel that, in order to flaunt his power over them, he demands that they accompany him on a 600-mile dirt bike ride through the Baja Desert to an isolated site where he is setting up his next business venture. Needless to say, this long hard ride through the desert is not what any of them really want to do but for the sake of their careers they all reluctantly agree. What they are soon to find out, however, is that there is an even worse side to Sam Farragut than any of them could imagine and that all of them will soon be faced with a decision that might weigh heavily upon their consciences for the rest of their lives. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a decent made-for-television movie which suffered somewhat because of that format. It also had Andy Griffith acting in a role that was totally uncharacteristic of him-at least for that particular time. It also had several different sub-plots which, in some cases, could have used a bit more depth as well. Be that as it may, this turned out to be a solid film for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

An ok movie about a few executives going to Baja California. Griffith plays a somewhat sadistic boss who orders his execs to go to Baja with him on dirt bikes. The shirts they wore looked like Federation shirts, without the emblems. Too coincidental to just happen.

Sam Farragut (Andy Griffith) is a rich jerk who fully realizes how powerful this makes him. Instead of just allowing the advertising agency to handle his company, he controls them--insisting the three execs working for him MUST go on a long, long motorbike ride across Baja...or no contract. Once on the trip, Sam turns out to be a real piece of work...an amoral guy who drinks, brawls and womanizes-- acting nothing like the Andy Griffith we've all grown to love. He's a lot like Satan on a cycle!

Among the three execs are Warren (William Shatner), Paul (Robert Reed) and Terry (Marjoe Gortner). All three are extremely flawed men and only Terry seems excited about making this trip. Paul is hiding a secret but Warren's is the darkest of all...he knows he's being terminated from his job and is showing hints that he might use this trip as a way to kill himself! What does come of all this?

This is certainly one of the strangest made for TV movies of its era. That's saying a lot since "The ABC Movie of the Week" often featured weird plots--such as women impregnated by aliens, monsters living in the chimney and reincarnated witches! But this strange is because the folks play so against type...especially Griffith! But is this strangeness any good? Well, yes. Despite the plot being extremely difficult to believe and the actors playing so against type, the basic issues going on in the film are compelling-- especially when Griffith's character does some very horrible things. The only BIG bad thing about all this is the ending with Shatner in the surf--not THAT is amazingly stupid! All in all, well worth seeing just because of its novelty.

By the way, if you are curious who Marjoe Gortner is, read him IMDb biography. This guy was VERY prolific on TV in the 70s but his life before this is really, really interesting. He's not particularly good in this film, however. Also, I think it is very likely NOT unintentional that the four men all sport shirts that look almost exactly like "Star Trek" shirts--red, blue and yellow! You really notice their Trekkiness in the cantina scene...complete with the black collars! Apart from missing the Enterprise emblem, they are almost dead ringers!

The coolest video store in the world, Movie Madness, has a VHS copy of this film here in Portland, I rented it one night a few years ago and was stunned at the wondrously awful hilarity it contained. The sight of Andy Griffith trying to erase his good guy image by hassling a young couple in a Mexican cantina, droning on about "hippies", Marjoe Gortner and his "main man" speech, Shatner and Robert Reed, at one point, having a conversation about what to do with Griffith, which just sounds like Captain Kirk and Mike Brady having a tete-a-tete. But the capper is Angie Dickinson doing absolutely NOTHING. She's supposedly married to Robert Reed, but having an affair with Shatner, yet there's no evidence of it, at all. Such a shame. GO find this film, have some friends over and soak up the bad-ness. - mh

I thought Andy Griffith was unbelievably funny in this movie when he made an indecent proposal with a $100 Bill to a young couple thinking that they would actually agree to take him up on his offer!! It was amazing to me to see Andy Griffith act like such a twisted, dirty minded deviate who displayed violent sour grapes when he did not get his way.

This movie was so funny and enjoyable because it was incredibly ridiculous with all its funky chemistry of Actors,Characters and the plot all combined to make a movie that me and my friends have been poking fun at for many years now. I often recommend this movie to people just because I want to see the look on thier faces and laugh when they see such a odd mixture of Actors and the Characters that they played in this flick.