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.

Tony Rome (1967)

In 1967's Tony Rome, Frank Sinatra plays a tough as nails detective in this "neo-noir" adaptation of a detective novel by Marvin H. Albert.



"The Chairman of the Board" and the Fabulous Jill St. John on location at Miami Beach

This movie just seeps cool. From the opening showing Sinatra aboard Tony Rome's houseboat with daughter Nancy Sinatra singing the swinging theme song, Tony Rome is the stereotypical swinging 60s crime drama.

Tony talks with his beautiful client (Sue Lyon)

Sinatra plays this like he just walked on the set and started playing himself. Apparently every woman in Miami beach is totally horny and ready to drop her panties for Tony. Of course, Tony's too busy to be bedding some broad at the moment cause he's got a case to solve.

The plot is almost irrelevant. This movie was really just an excuse for the Chairman of the Board to swagger around smoking and drinking and exchange a lot of snappy dialogue with the other actors.  The other cast members include some fabulous babes like Jill St. John, and Sue Lyon.

The convuluted plot involves a quarter of a million dollars worth of missing jewelry and the murder of Tony's former partner. Tony shows us how to act cool even when the bad guys get the jump on him. Tony even gets his ass beat in style!

Tony interrogates a witness

The movie was filmed on location in Miami Beach which only adds to the atmosphere of pure cool. the film was directed by Gordon Douglas and based upon Marvin Alpert's novel Miami Mayhem.   The Bad Catholic gives it three out of five gumshoes.