100 Rifles (1969)

A movie that opens with Burt Reynolds in a hotel room with a very nude Soledad Miranda, has Raquel Welch running around half naked for most of the movie, has a thumping original score by Jerry Goldsmith and has interracial sex and lots of guns and violence should not be boring.  But 1969’s 100 Rifles is boring.  I half to confess, halfway through I gave up and started playing games on the Ipad. 

I don’t know exactly what it is, but 100 Rifles wound up being just another formulaic B grade Western.  Set in the early 20^th century during the Mexican Revolution, 100 Rifles involves an outlaw named Joe Herrera (Burt Reynolds).  The son of an Alabama father and Yaqui Indian mother, Joe has robbed a bank in Arizona and used the money to buy one hundred rifles to arm the Yaqui Indians who are being systematically murdered and wiped out by the Mexican General Verdugo (Fernando Lamas). 

Joe is pursued into Mexico by American lawman Lyedecker (former NFL star Jim Brown).    Lyedecker’s plans to bring Joe back to Arizona and collect the reward money and get a permanent lawman job is thwarted by General Verdugo and his German Army advisor (Hans Gudegast).   Lyedecker and Joe wind up hooking up with the beautiful Indian revolutionary Sarita (Raquel Welch). 

Controversial and shocking for 1969 is the scene in which Lydecker is seduced by Serita.  A movie showing a black man and white woman making love was hot stuff in the late sixties, but watching it today, my primary emotion was, “that’s nice,” and it only made me take a momentary break from playing Ace Patrol on the Ipad.

The climax of the film comes when, Lydecker, convinced now to fight for the Yaqui’s, stages an ambush of the train carrying General Verdugo’s soldiers by distracting them by having Sarita get half naked and take a very suggestive shower in front of them.    Lydecker uses the train as the centerpiece of the big gun battle during which Sarita is killed but the Yaqui’s win their freedom.

The best summing up of 100 Rifles is from a review on the blog friar’s fires: “Of the lead cast, Reynolds and Lamas offer much.  Reynolds seems to recognize the ridiculous story he’s in so he goes into full smart-aleck Bandit mode, mugging and grinning as much as this movie lets him.  Lamas throws a big slab of ham on the grill and proceeds to chew whatever scenery he can sink his teeth into.  Brown and Welch aren’t exactly bad, but neither of them had developed yet into actors that can transcend the material, and this is material that desperately needs transcending.”

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.

MOTHER, JUGS AND SPEED (1976)

Mother, Jugs and Speed is one of those gritty 1970’s “dark comedies.”  It’s basically MASH in Los Angeles.   Harvey Fishbine owns the F&B Ambulance company and is competing with the Unity Ambulance company for a city contract.   Harry “Doughnut” Fishbine has been staying in business by means such as bribing sheriff’s deputies to call F&B instead of the competition.

Mother (Bill Cosby), Jugs (Raquel Welch) and Speed (Harvey Keitel) provide kick ass emergency medical services.

“Mother” Tucker (Bill Cosby) has the reputation of being the best ambulance driver in the city.  However, Mother likes to do things his own way.  He keeps a cooler of beer in the front seat of the ambulance which he is constantly drinking, he likes to buzz a group of nuns when they cross the street in front of the convent, and he takes his breaks at a massage parlor.

Mother (Bill Cosby) takes a break from a hard day on the job.

Jennifer (Raquel Welch) is Mr. Fishbine’s secretary who has secretly been studying at night to be a paramedic and ambulance driver.   The other employees of F&B have nicknamed Jennifer “Jugs” because of how well endowed she is in the chest department. (In the 1970s it was still OK to sexually harass the female employees!)  Throughout the movie Jennifer is constantly telling the men to “Stop Calling Me Jugs,” which they never do.   Jennifer wants to be an ambulance driver and paramedic but the sexist boss, Harvey FIshbine, won’t let her work a rig until he’s shorthanded.

Tony Malatesa (Harvey Keitel) is a police detective who is under suspension while he is investigated for allegedly selling cocaine.   A former Vietnam medic, Tony is hired to replace a paramedic who fell through a rotten staircase on a call.  Due to the allegations of selling drugs, Mother nicknames Tony “Speed.”

 

In his review of June 14, 1976, Roger Ebert said that this movie was “an unhappy cross between ‘MASH’ and ‘As the World Turns.”  It can’t decide whether to be slapstick or hard-boiled, (and) winds up not being much of either . . .”  Watching the movie last night for the first time in years, I have to say I enjoyed “Mother, Jugs and Speed” a great deal.  Of course, I kind of like all of that gritty urban 1970s stuff.  The thirty something Raquel Welch is, of course, HOT, HOT, HOT!   And I loved Bill Cosby’s performance as the rebellious anti-hero who is the best at his job so long as he gets to do his own thing and do it his own way.  (This was quite prevalent in 1970s fiction.   Mother is kind of the Dirty Harry of the ambulance business.) 

Larry Hagman’s performance as the sociopath Murdoch is also outstanding.  Murdoch is a sex obsessed psychopath who has sex with comatose patients in the back of the ambulance and makes bets on how many dead patients they will have to transport each night.  The ending of the film involves Murdoch finally snapping.  

Like Roger Ebert says this movie goes from tragic deaths to Jugs and Speed having sex in the back of an ambulance.   When the city requires Unity and F&B to merge in order to stay in business the new company is called the F&U Ambulance Company.  (They weren’t afraid of profanity in the 70s either).

While it’s pretty dated,  Mother, Jugs and Speed is a great movie for those who are nostalgic for bell bottoms, elevator shoes and polyester slacks.