Can't Roast Chuck Here

rmax304823

Spoilers. Well, this is one western they got pretty much right: writing and direction, casting, performances, score are all well above the expectable and easy.

Tom Gries, whose name I recently discovered is pronounced "Gryes" and not "Greaze", both wrote and directed this film and, overall, did a fine job of it. The script has the ring of authenticity. "See the elephant" was a current expression. I don't know about "Big Auger" and "Stud Duck" but they sound right. His direction is unusually good too.

The movie begins just before dawn so we feel these working cowboys still have sleep in their eyes and need hot coffee. A conflict between Chuck and a younger hand who harrasses him about his age is handled deftly, with Chuck only responding when necessary, finally bonking the younger man on the head with a skillet. Chuck is no fastest gun in the west, just an exhausted cowhand trying to get the job done and maintain some modicum of dignity. The solidarity found within isolated male groups is handled deftly. When the herd is delivered after a long and arduous trek, the hands split up. There are a few muted compliments exchanged but no new-age hugs or tears, despite the intensity of the friendships. Chuck's partners, Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe, always an interesting actor who does a neat German accent here, hook up with him and the trio find themselves in a shootout with a group of rawhiders over a dead elk.

Here the film weakens a bit. The rawhiders are a thoroughly villainous group, totally lacking in humanity. Their patriarch, Donald Pleasance as Paw, is a religious hypocrite, and his sons are no better. Bruce Dern's first line in the movie is one he utters to his father during negotiations over the carcass -- "Kill 'em, Paw." They're all one-dimensional characters and seem to be in the movie mainly to provide an opportunity for violent conflict. Anyway, if the cowboys are having such a hard time finding work in the winter, how in tarnation are the "rawhiders" making a living? What IS a rawhider?

In the next act, probably the best, Chuck is confined, wounded, to the line rider's hut up in the snowy mountains. His accidental companions are Joan Hackett and her young son, two stranded California-bound travelers with no real future in the Golden State. They nurse him back to health and civilize him a bit, teaching him Christmas songs and so forth. Chuck is at his most interesting in these scenes. He rarely projects self-conscious awkwardness in his performances, but he manages it here. His defensive explanation of why he only takes seven or eight baths a year is hilarious. "In the Spring, why, you give yourself a REAL GOOD ONE." His performance here makes his Marc Antony look wooden.

Joan Hackett looks the part. Her hair is piled on top of her head unglamorously and she tends to keep her gaze lowered, as if afraid to look directly at the sort of reality that Chuck represents. Her voice, though, sound straight out of Smith or someplace. (Alas, she died at an early age.) I realize they had to have a kid in this movie. But did Horace have to be so cute, with one buck tooth sticking out of his freckled face? Did he have to be called "H. W." and be referred to as "the button"? (Ugh.) Did he have to wave at the departing Chuck at the end, when the retreating horseman was too distant to hear him, out of "Shane"? I surely do wish that kid had been ugly.

Still, the last conversation between Chuck and Hackett is touching. She, out of ignorance, argues delicately that they can begin a ranch or a farm and live on love. He, on the other hand, brought up in a more rigorous, practical way, explains why it's too late for him to begin over. "I'm damn near fifty years old."

Ben Johnson is here too, and looks just like what my idea of a ranch foreman ought to look like. Unsmiling, unsentimental, and fair. The rest of the supporting cast is equally good.

The musical theme by David Raksin ("Laura") consists of a main theme of a melancholic but not tragic hue, and fits the story. It bounces along rythmically but not symmetrically, like a horse plodding over uneven ground.

The incidents are sometimes overscored. Over the closing credits there is a horrifying set of lyrics imposed on the main theme -- "A man is only a man. . . does the best he can" -- defacing what has come before it.

It's a naturalistic Western, for the most part. Lucien Ballard's photography is impeccable. This isn't Monumental Value. It's the windswept Great Plains. Unglamorous as hell. If you have a chance to catch this one, do so. It's a decent film. And it's Heston's best film effort, as far as I'm aware.

score 7/10

rmax304823 17 December 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0105240/