No
Bad Company anyone?
I absolutely adore this movie. Something about it is just so odd and wonderful, from the almost Vince Guaraldi does Scott Joplin-esque score to the both dull and amazingly beautiful photography. Not to mention this creepy sort of spectre of the civil war that kind of hangs menacingly over everything.
It feels a lot at times (and I think it's a sort of precursor to
The Tin Drum's treatment of the holocaust in this regard (I know the book was already written, I'm saying the style of the movie)) like it's a depressing western guided by very innocent interpretations of the genre.
T
he bad guys are bad, but not above sitting down to coffee with the good guys. A man is selling his companion for prostitution (his daughter? His wife? Doesn't matter to the boys), and everyone involved kind of good naturedly jokes about it.
And yet, when it gets right down to it, the gunfights are gruesome. You see a man kick at the air as he's hanged in one long take. When the boys shoot a man, and he yells out "I'm dead!" it's funny at first, but not so much when you notice his finger is plugging a bloodied bullet hole in his neck.
Yet the movie has the respect for its audience to let
you deal with the questionable aspects, while it just keeps chugging along to its upbeat piano music.
It really is a magnificent little film.
Not probably my favorite Western, but surely one I feel is worth mentioning.