When the town's sole blacksmith vows to leave because he was stood up by his mail-order bride from the East, the panicked townsfolk scramble to find him a surrogate wife.When the town's sole blacksmith vows to leave because he was stood up by his mail-order bride from the East, the panicked townsfolk scramble to find him a surrogate wife.When the town's sole blacksmith vows to leave because he was stood up by his mail-order bride from the East, the panicked townsfolk scramble to find him a surrogate wife.
Don 'Red' Barry
- Rusty
- (as Donald Barry)
- Directors
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDan Blocker's last feature film.
- Quotes
Indian Tom: [Charley loses his temper, picks up Tom by his shirt, draws back a fist. We see Tom's face from Charley's POV] "Oh, Charley... that's gonna HURT..."
- Crazy creditsThe opening credits pan through an old-time western catalog, with actors listed alongside their respective role or characterization: Jim Backus ("Support Staunch for Mayor and Sheriff"); Wally Cox (Acme Hauling and Construction Company); Jack Elam - (Solid Gold Spectacles... character is near-sighted); Henry Jones (Hanson's Atristic Tonsorial Saloon and Funeral Parlor); Stubby Kaye (Spirits... saloon-keeper); Mickey Rooney ("Dumb Bells").
Featured review
Good stuff
I saw this movie maybe twice--once in the theater and once on TV--all over 30 years ago. Then I obtained a very good VHS copy and it is in my collection. It is very good and deserves a release in some form. I enjoyed some very comic moments: Jack Elam plays a half-crazed, legally blind bounty hunter with thick spectacles, teaching his finger how to read a wanted poster; Jack Cassidy ends up in jail and loses his temper because the one locking him up is too stupid to understand he's got the wrong man; Nannette Fabray gives the burly Dan Blocker a big roundhouse punch which seals their romance. The plot is a classic: a mail-order bride no-show motivates the town to fix their only blacksmith up with a saloon girl substitute, who just arrives in town. There a lot of subplots that are slapstick. The scenes between Fabray and her hostess where Fabray reveals that she's unexpectedly fallen in love with the gentle giant of a blacksmith; and the scenes between Fabray and Blocker are quite good and are what makes this film better even than what its writer or director probably intended. I would have directed Fabray to keep in mind that her character--while probably matching Fabray's intelligence and robustness but not her sophistication--is not accustomed to having such deep feelings. Perhaps a scene or two more to contrast her relationship to Panama Jack with her newly-discovered capacity to deeply love a man who is not a Western stereotype (but probably closer to the majority of men actually living in the post-Civil War West), the unarmed, simple rough-cut but still part of Victorian America--blacksmith named Charlie. This movie is a hidden gem because it's a product of an old-school cast that whose careers started in an era where actors cared deeply about their work. I cannot see today's TV or movie crowd making such a movie without treating the subject matter and their characters as beneath them--or adding unneeded sex scenes, more violence, profanity, politics and message--so that they could show their constituent audiences, or their equally cynical paymasters, that they're determined to be "realistic." Folks, get a copy of this if you can; it's worth it.
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- tonellinon
- Apr 7, 2004
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Details
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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By what name was The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970) officially released in India in English?
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