Big Bad John

My review was written in June 1990 after watching the film on Magnum video cassette.

An insipid song-into-film feature, "Big Bad John" arrives nearly 30 years late with a whimper. Released in February in Tennessee, it's a minor video title.

Jimmy Dean topped the charts in 1961 with the gold record he penned and sang. He's comfortably cast as a lawman (given to aphorisms) in this movie, but material has no substance.

The morbid song lyrics paid homage to a "mountain of a man" who became a hero saving his co-workers in a mining disaster. Patchy screenplay creates an irrelevant chase motif of Dean as well as hired killer Bo Hopkins and a feuding clan all pursuing John Tyler (Doug English), who's run off with young Romy Windsor.

Poorly paced film has action crosscutting between the pursuers and the young couple getting married, setting up a home and English going to work in the mine. Time frame and logic of the story is nonsensical -it plays like two separate films spliced together.

Hectic final reel delivers the mine disaster; a survivor chalking the final song lyric sentimentality on the mine's facade and then a very phony happy ending of Windsor becoming reconciled with her real father (Dean) and pregnant with Big John's child.

Filmed on location in Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, pic looks all right but has no momentum.

Director Burt Kennedy, whose Budd Boetticher scripts and own films in the '60s were superior Westerns, seems to have succumbed to a low-key, enervating tv style.

Dean shows potential to be a tv series regular, perhaps in the Andy Griffith mold. English is miscast as the title character, way too cuddly and bland to fit the song's description.

Supporting players, mainly good old boys, have all been better elsewhere. Title song is esayed here not by Dean, but a more modern rendition by the Charlie Daniels Band, with guest artists Oak Ridge Boys.

The cast is game for a good old country boy tale. It actually has very little to do with Jimmy Dean's title song. "Big Bad John" is more like "Big Good John.", who runs off with Ned Beatty's step daughter to save her from evil Ned. In Pursuit are Jimmy Dean and his friend Jack Elam. They are being followed by Bo Hopkins, who Beatty has hired to bring home the fleeing step daughter. The plot is thin, Dean's dog is great, and the Colorado scenery is another plus. So if you like these hixsploitation movies, you could do a lot worse than "Big Bad John." Recommended for the cast, the song, the scenery, and if you can get passed the simplistic road movie script, the movie is entertaining. Good of it's type. - MERK

I'm a sucker for these kinds of movies but I really enjoyed Big Bad John. I'm sure no one has ever heard of it and I seriously doubt if any one will EVER read this review but since no one has bothered, I think I will "do the honors".

I first saw this movie when I was nine years old. Well, I'm twenty now. It was cool then and it's cool now. I usually like anything with Bo Hopkins in it and this is no exception. Even though he is one of the baddies.

This is just an old-fashioned, good ole boy flick. If that's your sort of thing and you can actually find a copy of this, give it a run

All in all, Big Bad John was a hilarious, and touching movie. If you want romance, tragedy, and humor, this movie's got it. If you're a fan of the song (like I am) you pretty much know how it ends. But if you don't, or do and want to watch it anyway, I strongly recommend this movie. Jack Elam and Jimmy Dean are a hilarious pair with great chemistry. However, I wouldn't recommend this movie to strict urban folk. You have to understand where these people are supposed to be coming from, and only a handful of us are left. But even a few urban folk might understand it, and appreciate it for what it is: a good, down home movie that'll make you laugh, cry, and be inspired.

A good ol' boy film is almost required to have moonshine, car chases, a storyline that has a vague resemblance to "plot" and at least one very pretty country gal, barefoot with short shorts and a low top. The pretty gal is here (dressed in designer jeans)-- but the redneck prerequisites stop there. Jimmy Dean is a natural as a sausage spokesman but as a tough guy former sheriff, he comes up way short. Big John is big, but he isn't convincing with the "bad" part of his moniker. Bug-eyed Jack Elam is a hoot as always and Bo Hopkins has been playing this same part for decades; Ned Beatty also does his part in a small role... but there is no STORY. It smells more like an episode of In The Heat Of The Night than a feature film. Cornball cornpone with easily predictable sentiment. Perhaps the most glaring problem with this movie is Charlie Daniels singing the theme. You know the one; it was made famous by... Jimmy Dean.