After two darker tales the next spot in the countdown is the fun, breezy big screen adaptation of
Maverick, the character originated by Jim Garner on television in the 1950s. Maverick is a wise ass and a gambler who would much rather talk his way out of a confrontation than shoot his way out, or even better yet just leave town in the middle of the night before the showdown. Garner himself is along for the ride here, which not surprisingly is a little more action-oriented coming from Mad Mel and director Richard Donner, who helmed all four of the flicks in the
Lethal Weapon franchise (look for Danny Glover’s cameo and the use of the
Lethal Weapon theme). Jodie Foster is the other main character, a con artist and gambler who Maverick spends the entire movie flirting with without ever really trusting. All the characters are on their way to a big poker tournament on a river boat with plenty of chases and laughs along the way and an array of the genre’s familiar faces including James Coburn, Dub Taylor, Geoffrey Lewis, and Denver Pyle as well as some contemporary Country Music stars in cameos and Alfred Molina as the baddie. For fans of the series it misses the mark a bit in terms of tone, and for all of his charms Mel is no James Garner in his prime, but the resulting big budget ride is undeniably fun.
Maverick finished with 61 points from six votes, including two top tens in a third and a ninth placer.
The Shooting is a micro-budgeted film from Monte Hellman (
Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter), one of the pioneers of independent film, and the flick is often categorized as one of the first so-called Acid Westerns that incorporated some of the era's psychedelic influences and the younger generation's attitudes. It is a sparse revenge piece that really only features a handful of characters in the desert including Millie Perkins, Warren Oates, and Will Hutchins who seem to be shadowed by a lone figure in black (Jack Nicholson). The target of and reason for the female rider’s revenge remain a mystery until the very end. It is a stark, effective piece that Hellman shot at the same time as another Western,
Ride in the Whirlwind (also starring Nicholson and Perkins). Due to some financial and legal disputes Hellman’s film was unreleased for a couple of years until he and Nicholson could buy it themselves, then it was briefly and sporadically shown without a major distributor. This led to an arthouse, underground fanbase for this hard-to-find flick co-starring a pre-
Easy Rider Jack Nicholson. Five MoFos included it on their ballots including two big votes of 24 and 22 points (2nd and 4th placers) to get it to 63 points and the thirtieth reveal.
In the few years between
Star Wars making him known overnight and
The Empire Strikes Back and
Raiders of the Lost Ark securing him as a superstar Harrison Ford was a working actor who hadn’t yet cemented his legacy. He starred in the WWII action piece
Force 10 from Navarone, the WWII romance
Hanover Street, and a comedic Western with Gene Wilder. Since the back-to-back 1974 Mel Brooks hits
Blazing Saddles and
Young Frankenstein Wilder had been looking for similar successes without Mel. The Hitchcockian comedy
Silver Streak (his first pairing with Richard Pryor) was a big hit, but
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and
The World’s Greatest Lover, both written and directed by Gene, were not.
The Frisco Kid script, about a Rabbi pairing with a gunslinger, had been bouncing around town for years and at one point John Wayne was going to play the Harrison Ford role. Wilder did an uncredited rewrite and signed on. Robert Aldrich, best known for
The Dirty Dozen and who helmed five other Westerns over his career including
Vera Cruz and
Ulzana’s Raid with Burt Lancaster, came onto the project very late. Comedy was not really his forte and he would make only one more movie. It ain’t
Blazing Saddles and the tone shifts here and there, but
The Frisco Kid somehow endures with enough laughs and two likeable stars to carry it. It only got three MoFo votes but they were all top tens: second place, fifth place, and seventh. 24+21+19 = 64.
To say
Westworld now evokes the slick, ambitious current HBO series. But the central idea of a futuristic playground where you can fu*k or fight humanoid robots who then turn on their masters to become killing machines was Michael Crichton’s. Richard Benjamin and James Brolin star as two customers of the park who sign up to try out their boyhood fantasies and live inside a Western movie, complete with all of the characters you’d expect: the beautiful dance hall girls, the surly bartender, and of course the gunslinger in black (Yul Brenner). But the game is rigged, the guests always win, and after each day the broken chairs and robots are reset to start all over again. Until the robots decide they’ve had quite enough and even the odds. Crichton’s blending of Sci-Fi and the Western is still a fun, clever ride and
Westworld landed on six ballots, including second and seventh place votes. By appearing on twice as many ballots as
The Frisco Kid its 64 points settles it one spot higher on the countdown.