Dull western is actually two episodes of "The Virginian" from the 1960s, one starring Charles Bronson and the other starring Lee Marvin, edited together and released theatrically almost 20 years later. The episodes are connected in that Marvin and Bronson are supposed to be half brothers, although they didn't appear together in their respective episode and their stories not originally connected. The only reason I wanted to see this film is that one of the two episodes was written and directed by the great Samuel Fuller ("The Big Red One," "The Steel Helmet," "Shock Corridor," etc.), but you'd barely notice when watching this routine TV western. There are flashes where you can see seeds of something better, such some basic story concepts (Fuller wrote and directed the Lee Marvin episode), Fuller's usual knack for action, and, of course, Bronson and Marvin. However, it's all undone by cheap television production values, such as cheap sets, bad photography, and painful overuse of stock footage. Marvin is good, but he seems to just be going through the motions, as does Fuller. Really, there's nothing to recommend here unless you're a Fuller, Marvin, or Bronson completionist.
10 Reviews
This movie is pretty bad even for both Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson fans
jordondave-2808528 April 2023
(1966) The Meanest Men In The West
WESTERN
Plays and feels like a really bad made for TV movie, but it's like the only movie where we can see Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin sharing the same screen together. The set up regards a robbery lead by Harge Talbot Jr (Charles Bronson) and company gone wrong since someone ratted him out. The movie centers on Harge trying to find the culprit responsible which is really his psychopathic brother Kalig (Lee Marvin) who had just kidnapped the judge(Lee J Cobb) who imprisoned him. This also happens to be Lee J Cobbs final film appearance. This movie is quite bad even for fans for both Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson fans.
Plays and feels like a really bad made for TV movie, but it's like the only movie where we can see Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin sharing the same screen together. The set up regards a robbery lead by Harge Talbot Jr (Charles Bronson) and company gone wrong since someone ratted him out. The movie centers on Harge trying to find the culprit responsible which is really his psychopathic brother Kalig (Lee Marvin) who had just kidnapped the judge(Lee J Cobb) who imprisoned him. This also happens to be Lee J Cobbs final film appearance. This movie is quite bad even for fans for both Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson fans.
Unwatchable Disaster
cphillips513 October 2001
A Sam Fuller-directed and scripted episode of the TV show The Virginian starring Lee Marvin and Lee J. Cobb is cobbled together with another episode (I assume) starring Charles Bronson to create this dreadful mess. Bizarre voice-overs, misplaced shots, and freeze-frames attempt to create the new plot. Utterly ludicrous and a disservice to a great filmmaker.
They're there, but not really there.
lost-in-limbo7 July 2007
What was this?! A complete botch. Kalig uses his half-brother Harge Talbot Jr (who he secretly hates for the death of his mother when he was born) in a plan to seek revenge against the judge who sent him to prison. Honestly I couldn't be bothered revealing much more because I came away feeling really gypped after expecting to get some Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin interaction. However their scenes are obviously edited together from totally different productions, which are supposedly two episodes of the western TV show "The Virginian". It's actually quite embarrassing and erratically staged. The way certain scenes are worked in are terrible, confusing and extremely unconvincing that found my snickering at the stock footage. Especially when Bronson and Marvin share the screen. Just look at those studio shots! ugh! From be it to the slipshod editing, what also brings it down was the non-existent direction, tacky music score and unusual photography. There so many odd filming techniques that try to cover it. It's just so hard to cut up this one because it's just lazy work. L.J Cobb also shows up on the same reel as the grizzled Marvin. Even with these names, everyone is pretty much on the sideline slumming it, with Marvin constantly staring and sneaking about. Gee, he might have just been as a viewer. The conventionally patchwork story is predictable from the get-go, with little purpose and a drone-like narrative that loosely draws up the two episodes together for one wretch story. Which manages to also drag. Sam Fuller's name is attached to it, but it's a fizzled effort. Even on their own, they wouldn't have made for anything of interest. The action sequences are useless and muddled. Pointless, just pointless.
A Disastrous Mess
mulroon025 May 2013
This film has many troubles including a bad timeline. The first season portions guest starring Lee Marvin are set in 1898. At one point he sings the Lizzie Bordon song, referring to a woman who murdered her parents in 1892. Yet in the sixth season segments featuring his brother, Charles Bronson, he writes the year 1887 in the family bible as the year of his just born son. Elizabeth Grainger (Sara Lane) is kidnapped and referred to as Judge Garth's (Lee J. Cobb's) daughter, when in reality she was John Grainger's granddaughter and Clay Grainger's niece, and no relation to, nor never met the judge. MCA obviously was trying to capitalize on the popularity of the film The Dirty Dozen, starring Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson.
Two TV Episodes Spliced Together Scene By Scene! Terrible!
verbusen19 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I wanted to give this a shot because when I read that it was two episodes of The Virginian combined to make a "movie" I thought the first part would have Marvin and the other part would have Bronson. I had seen this done before with "Man from U.N.C.L.E" movies, two Gemini Man episodes together in "Riding with Death", and a few drive in flicks like "The Doomsday Machine, and "They Saved Hitler's Brain". The results are usually not very good but I figured with two legends like Bronson and Marvin it would still be something decent. Little did I know that instead of some footage to tie the two episodes together that instead they would cut scene by scene the two together, and also it seems, with stock footage from a dozen other films. I had to stop watching pretty early in when I saw random Union Calvary soldier footage in with lots of wagon trail footage. The telescope trick was a riot (and lame). If you like really insulting to your intelligence entertainment (to laugh at) then you may be interested in this, otherwise see it for the curiosity and don't stay too long or you may get angry at the creators for making something so horrible. I think this was made for overseas audiences where English is not the first language. 1 of 10.
Awful
David_Brown5 October 2013
Warning: Spoilers
The single thing that really makes this film bad is the editing ( which might be the worst I have ever seen). You can actually spot where this film is spliced together from two episodes of "The Virginian" You can even tell how James Drury aged from the Lee Marvin scenes to the Charles Bronson scenes. Not to mention (spoilers ahead) the stupid abrupt ending , where you have no idea if Harge Talbot (Bronson) kills his brother Kalig (Marvin) or not. Of course, Marvin's character was originally named Martin Kalig, not Kalig Talbot ( see what a little IMD research can do?). There is only one reason to watch this film, and that is Bronson, who must have given an excellent performance in the original episode, because he actually looks good here ( or is it, because everyone else ( especially Marvin) looks so bad?). Perhaps the best way to see Bronson (if you are a Bronson Completist which is the only reason to see it), is look for the original episode or if you must watch this film, reverse what the editors did..... Zap through every scene not featuring Bronson or his wife. 1 star
They're Meanest Toward the Viewer
NoDakTatum1 November 2023
This unknown western is actually two episodes of the old television series "The Virginian" edited together, badly, to try to form a cohesive whole. Harge, Sr. (Michael Conrad) is a hard man who wants a son from his invalid wife. He chooses the baby over the mother's life after the difficult birth, much to the horror of little Kalig (Lance Kerwin), Harge's stepson. Kalig kills his stepfather before he can be abused again, and takes baby Harge, Jr. To an aunt's house. Kalig grows up to be an outlaw (Lee Marvin), and Harge, Jr. (Charles Bronson) grows up to be, well, an outlaw. Kalig hates Harge, and gets with a sheriff and tips him off. Harge's bank robbery goes wrong, and Harge blames the Virginian (James Drury). Kalig blames a judge (Lee J. Cobb) for his own imprisonment in a whole other revenge plot. Harge kidnaps the judge's daughter, Kalig kidnaps the judge, and the Virginian must get involved in both abductions, again four years from one plot to the other. In the end, the two brothers meet (not really) for a final gunfight.
Marvin and Bronson did not appear in the same episodes, much less the same season, and the editors try to mesh the stories together, and mass confusion sets in. The editing together of the two episodes was a good idea, if they had originally been a two-parter, or had many more related characters. Instead, lousy special effects, stock footage, and insert shots take over for any flow. The two kidnappings are one too many for the "film" and the amateurish handling gives away its origins. The video box does not mention this little deception, and with the name cast's credits on this, you might be tempted to fall for it. Don't, the only mean men in the west are the money hungry opportunists who slapped this together. Also known as "Bad Men of the West."
Marvin and Bronson did not appear in the same episodes, much less the same season, and the editors try to mesh the stories together, and mass confusion sets in. The editing together of the two episodes was a good idea, if they had originally been a two-parter, or had many more related characters. Instead, lousy special effects, stock footage, and insert shots take over for any flow. The two kidnappings are one too many for the "film" and the amateurish handling gives away its origins. The video box does not mention this little deception, and with the name cast's credits on this, you might be tempted to fall for it. Don't, the only mean men in the west are the money hungry opportunists who slapped this together. Also known as "Bad Men of the West."
WHAT A WASTE!!!!!
pindiyath2 February 2002
This has gotta be the worst movie of Charles Bronson & Lee marvin. I was truly disappointed. An absolute waste of time as well as money. I read the reviews by other viewers but still I bought it. I wanted to kill myself by the time I reach the first half of the movie. There are many better movies of Charles & Lee Marvin which are not on DVD & yet this movie is been released on DVD! It's really a surprise.
Pls. guys, do not waste your money & time on this one. It's better to break your head against a wall than watching this.
Pls. guys, do not waste your money & time on this one. It's better to break your head against a wall than watching this.
Archive footage ????!!! YUK.
oscar-3528 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
*Spoiler/plot- 1962, Two murderous brothers are pitted each other in this story of hatred and revenge. They are on the run from the Law and each other. They collide when psychotic bad man Marvin attempts to settle a life-long feud with his equally deadly brother, Bronson. After a series of hair-raising public crimes like cattle rustling, train robberies, kidnaps, gunfights, ambushes and personal betrayals; the two outlaws face-off for the final time.
*Special Stars- Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Lee J Cobb, James, Dury.
*Theme- Bad men never really win.
*Based on- Cain and Abel biblical myth.
*Trivia/location/goofs- A disappointingly cheap Universal 'composite' patch work film made up from archive footage film clips from a NBC TV episode of 'The Virginian' and a good Fox feature film, 'The Return of Frank James'. Huge plot holes abound in this film's story. The best action scenes were taken from other projects and saved the filmmakers production money. Filmed from the back 'doubles' were used to match the patchwork clip shots in the scene action to make this file footage trick to work effectively. It doesn't. In the Bronson featured bank robbery scenes, you can clearly see that Bronson was strangely matted into a bank interior background. His head image outline was 'vibrating' due to the bad EFX processing to accomplish this.
*Emotion- A somewhat forgettable western with a stellar cast made up of disjointed archive footage clips taken from other better Universal media projects. It's really too hard to follow the paper-thin simplistic plot in this movie by this money saving trick. Also, an overuse of stars reaction in single scenes to move the film along makes this film's pacing very tedious and destroys the continuity of the plot. Combined with the film's small explanatory prequel on the brother's early hard family life in the film's beginning, the viewer gets confused and bored from caring much about the characters.The director Sam Fuller should be ashamed of this one. Marvin looks and weakly acts like he never left the much better John Ford film, 'Who Shot Liberty Valance?" of the same time period. Bronson disappoints the viewer with his flat performances. All this, combined with the stolen action film sequences was a confused bore. You are better off missing this 'mean' turkey of a western.
*Special Stars- Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Lee J Cobb, James, Dury.
*Theme- Bad men never really win.
*Based on- Cain and Abel biblical myth.
*Trivia/location/goofs- A disappointingly cheap Universal 'composite' patch work film made up from archive footage film clips from a NBC TV episode of 'The Virginian' and a good Fox feature film, 'The Return of Frank James'. Huge plot holes abound in this film's story. The best action scenes were taken from other projects and saved the filmmakers production money. Filmed from the back 'doubles' were used to match the patchwork clip shots in the scene action to make this file footage trick to work effectively. It doesn't. In the Bronson featured bank robbery scenes, you can clearly see that Bronson was strangely matted into a bank interior background. His head image outline was 'vibrating' due to the bad EFX processing to accomplish this.
*Emotion- A somewhat forgettable western with a stellar cast made up of disjointed archive footage clips taken from other better Universal media projects. It's really too hard to follow the paper-thin simplistic plot in this movie by this money saving trick. Also, an overuse of stars reaction in single scenes to move the film along makes this film's pacing very tedious and destroys the continuity of the plot. Combined with the film's small explanatory prequel on the brother's early hard family life in the film's beginning, the viewer gets confused and bored from caring much about the characters.The director Sam Fuller should be ashamed of this one. Marvin looks and weakly acts like he never left the much better John Ford film, 'Who Shot Liberty Valance?" of the same time period. Bronson disappoints the viewer with his flat performances. All this, combined with the stolen action film sequences was a confused bore. You are better off missing this 'mean' turkey of a western.
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