Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

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Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

SnoopyStyle Latigo Smith (James Garner) is a ladies man, a gambler and a con man. He escapes from brothel madam Goldie who intends to marry him and sneaks off the train at the mining town of Purgatory. He befriends Jug May (Jack Elam) and asks the doc to remove his Goldie tattoo. Taylor Barton (Harry Morgan) and his family mistakenly assume him to be gunslinger Swifty Morgan hired by rival mine owner Col. Ames. Taylor's impetuous daughter Patience "The Sidewinder" (Suzanne Pleshette) is quick to shoot and eager to go to a college back east. Smith comes up with a scheme to pass Jug off as Swifty but it all comes to bite him.This is a follow up to 'Support Your Local Sheriff!' but is not actually a sequel. Many of the same actors return in different roles in a different story. It's funny. James Garner is a great fun cad and I love Jack Elam. This one improves by getting Suzanne Pleshette who is a much funnier actress than Joan Hackett. This is simply a fun franchise that is anchored by the great Garner.

Robert J. Maxwell Well, a B for effort. It tries hard. Everyone except Garner overplays it in this rip off of "Yojimbo" or "For a Fistful of Dollars." (Take your pick.) Garner is a con man who rides into the town of Purgatory. Two sides are in battle over the contents of a gold mine and they mistake him for the manager of a hired gunslinger. He bilks both sides, meanwhile romancing Suzanne Pleshette.Garner is smooth and transparently phony. He smirks a good deal. But every other character seems to dash about, shout at one another, and shoot guns wildly. The mistaken assumption is that frenzy -- even pointless frenzy -- is in itself funny. The film itself disproves the theorem.For instance, if anyone can find anything amusing about a bar room brawl that breaks out for no reason at all, please let me know so I can send you a personal check for sixteen cents that will bounce. We've all seen a thousand such brawls, with men being pushed through windows, hit over the back with balsam wood chairs, looking cross-eyed when punched, and the bartender is frantically trying to save the mirror. They've been used to far greater comic effect in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and even the unsuccessful "Donovan's Reef." And for dramatic effect nothing equals the fist fight in "Shane." This one could have been written, directed, and edited by a Magic 8 Ball.It was directed by Burt Kennedy, who developed some subtle and witty dialog in the movies he wrote for Randolph Scott in the 1950s. "Ma'am, if you was my woman I'd of come for you, even if I'd of died in the doin' of it." It's almost folk poetry. But, as a director, there's not much he can do with this script, whose funniest dialog runs along the lines of, "Madam, unhinge your jaw and DEPART!"

dch48 This movie, while funny in many places, pales in comparison to the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff. The first movie, with much of the same cast, is a solid 10 but I can only give this one a 7 at best. All of the actors who were in both movies did a better job in the first one and Joan Hackett was surprisingly better than Suzanne Pleshette.They just aired them back to back and the superiority of Sheriff was glaringly apparent. Sheriff flows along smoothly with great dialog but this one seems to stutter and try too hard. The premise of the first movie is also better and the opening scene sets the tone for the hilarity that follows. Again this one just doesn't do that as well. I always liked Garner and he was brilliant in both movies but maybe they should have quit while they were ahead and never made this one.

MartinHafer This film came out two years after SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF. Aside from having very similar titles, both starred James Garner, Harry Morgan and Jack Elam in very similar roles, and the plot itself was so close to the first film it made me wonder why they didn't try something a little more original. Oddly, despite all the similarities, this second film was actually written long before they even made SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF. However, because of the extreme similarity of the films, I really can't rate SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER any higher--though it's still a nice little Western-comedy.James Garner's character is a bit more amoral and weasel-like in this film as he plays a clever con man determined to take advantage of a war brewing between rival mine owners (Harry Morgan and John Dehner). His plan is to pretend that his new-found bumbling sidekick (Elam) is the dreaded gunman, Swifty Morgan and capitalize on how much everyone fears this famous hired gun. The problem is that eventually, the REAL Morgan comes to town and it looks bad for Garner and Elam.While the script was pretty good, there was one big difference about this film that I really disliked. In SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF, the female lead was played by Joan Hackett and she was a total kook--a lovable kook, but a kook nonetheless. Here, Susan Pleshette plays a woman who is rather psychotic and IMPOSSIBLE TO LOVE--someone who would have been institutionalized or killed--not someone who would win the man's hand at the end of the film!! Her psychotic outbursts simply weren't funny and really hindered the film whenever she appeared. While I loved Ms. Pleshette in many roles, this one was simply beneath her. As a result of this and the repetitive quality of the film, it's not a film you must see but more of a likable time-passer. Do yourself a favor and see SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF and only see this second film if you feel you need a lot more of the same.