BANDOLERO! (1968)

1968's Bandolero! is star studded shoot em up in the tradition of the Hollywood "B" grade Western.

The Bishop Gang, led by former Quantrill Raider Dee Bishop (Dean Martin), botches a bank robbery in Valverde, Texas in which a rancher is killed.  The dead rancher, Stoner, was the husband of the beautiful Maria (Raquelle Welch).  Stoner bought Maria from her Mexican family.  As Maria tells the local bank president, played by Denver Pyle, "I was a whore at 13, and my family never went hungry!"

George Kennedy as Sheriff July Johnson

Dee and the gang members, who include Will Geer and his bad luck sons, are tried and sentenced to death. Luckily for Dee and the other gang members, the Valverde Sheriff, July Johnson (George Kennedy), has sent off to Oklahoma for an expert hangman.  Dee's brother Mace, who had fought in the Union army in the Civil War, is returning home to Texas and hears the hangman bragging that he is on his way to Valverde to hang the Bishop Gang.  Mace intercepts the hangman, presumably kills him, and steals his identity.

Dee Bishop (Dean Martin), Maria Stoner (Raquel Welch), and Mace Bishop (James Stewart)

Mace sneaks Dee a pistol which he pulls while standing on the gallows, and the gang head off to Mexico. Sheriff July Johnson, Deputy Roscoe, and the entire male population of the town soon form a posse and head off after the escapees.  Finding himself alone in the town, Mace robs the bank and takes off with $10,000.

Maria falls for her bad boy kidnapper Dee Bishop

Along the way, the fleeing outlaws kidnap Maria Stoner and take her with them.  Sheriff July is in love with Maria and relentlessly pursues the outlaws into Mexico.  Although Maria has never loved any of the men in her life, she falls head over heels in love with Dee.  Unfortunately for everybody, the outlaws are now in bandolero country.  The Bishops find refuge in a town which has been abandoned by the townspeople out of fear of the banditos or bandoleros.   Sheriff July and what's left of the posse track the fleeing outlaws to the town and get the drop on them.  However, the bandoleros launch a full scale attack intent on killing all the gringos and raping the gorgeous Maria. (Probably as punishment for her fake Mexican accent!)

Dee and Maria get cozy

Both Dee and Mace are killed.  Taking a gun, Maria kills the leader of the bandits.  After the smoke clears, no one is alive but Maria and July. Maria reluctantly returns to Texas with July, presumably to be his wife in a love less marriage.

Maria after El Jefe the bandit leader tries to rape her.

According to Wikipedia "The film was shot at the Alamo Village, the movie set originally created for John Wayne's The Alamo.  The Alamo Village is located north of Bracketville, Texas.  The location closed in 2009 after remaining open to movie companies and the publich since 1960."   Apparently, Larry McMurtry put a Sheriff named July Johnson, a Deputy named Roscoe and an outlaw named Dee into Lonesome Dove as an homage to Bandolero!

Despite the star studded cast, and the drop dead gorgeous twenty something Raquel Welch, this is definitely B grade Western stuff.  The plot is conventional, and quite honestly it got really boring to watch.  Some of the lines in the film were pretty good, like when Dee says that July Johnson will pursue them into the interior of Mexico, "We made a man that rode with Nathan Bedford Forrest look foolish in his own town.  He'll follow us."   After telling Dee and Mace that the Bandoleros will find them and kill all of the Gringos, Dee says "Well you don't seem to be worried," to which Maria replies (in Raquel Welch's lame fake Mexican accent) "I am not a Gringo."

Bandolero! is worth watching as a cultural artifact if nothing else.  Even though Dean and Jimmy and the boys are pretty much just going through the motions in this one, Dean Martin and Jimmy Stewart couldn't seem to be bad in a movie even if they tried.

The Bad Catholic gives this one three out of five six guns.