star_in_the_zenith_79

Lonesome Dove is not just a mini series or a novel, it is a phenomena. After getting background on Larry McMurtry, I came to understand why he disliked the sequel he didn't make, Return to Lonesome Dove.

Lonesome Dove was a a story McMurtry wrote to demythologize the west. And yet, oddly enough the story wound up celebrating it in the eyes of most people who watched it or read the novel. Many years later he mulled over this wondering why people liked such a brutal and depressing story.

Well Mr McMurtry, I suggest you go back and reread the first 400-600 pages or so of your book and you will understand. Somehow in the early 80's you just were spot on about how to create characters people loved. Nothing to be ashamed of sir, it is your masterpiece. I know you don't consider it your greatest but most of us do.

I think McMurtry just underestimated how much people would come to love his own characters, and how much they would relate to them. Its a phenomena I just find interesting. But over the years I think he came to terms with the fact he had written possibly the greatest western saga ever. He even dubbed it the Gone With The Wind of the West. That seems pretty high praise, but I dare say that it just might be more of a compliment to Gone With the Wind than it is to Lonesome Dove.

The ins and outs of this timeless classic have already been covered pretty extensively, no need to go into that. i just decided to do something unique with this review addressing something I thought was an interesting metamorphosis of a story. What was meant to be a brutal, nasty chronicle of a rough time turned into a cult phenomena of iconic characters glorifying that time that even it's author didn't see coming. Its not something that happens everyday.

And btw, it is great.

People rag on John Wayne to much for playing himself, or playing similar characters in all his movie. I guess most of us who didn't live in those times fail to understand that that is what people wanted. Doesn't mean he couldn't.

Rio Bravo is richly entertaining, the characters are very likeable and you can't help but smile at some of their antics, particularly old Walter Brennan. I felt Dean Martin and Rickey Nelson really stole the show here as well.

Yeah sure, it suffers from a few of the same problems spaghetti westerns of the time did. Some of the gunfights were a little tacky and unrealistic, Angie Dickenson as the love interest sometimes overacted. The lead up to the murder at the beginning by Joe Burdette that initiated the whole plot seemed pretty flimsy and forced.

But the good far outweighs the bad with this one.

Because this was the third film in the similar plot lines of Rio Bravo and El Dorado, it probably suffered from the burn out effect. However, I think the Civil War element added enough to the story to set it apart from those two enough to be a worthwhile watch.

However I felt Victor French was wasted in this movie. His character Ketchum was ridiculously underdeveloped to be the main villain, all throughout the movie he does little but shout at his men not to try anything and get the snot kicked out of him by John Wayne. Entertaining to be sure but not exactly swimming with depth.

No timeless classic by any means, but the Duke and the Civil War story make it worth watching.