Cahill: United States Marshall

Another swaggering John Wayne film sees director Andrew V. McLaglan at the helm, piloting Wayne through a rather simple story of crime and punishment and raising children in the Wild West.

After nabbing a bunch o’ baddies, Cahill (Wayne, of course) is taking them back to justice in comedic fashion. Along the way we learn a little of his hard-edged beliefs about justice and his character is well established by the time he gets back to town. Whilst away, his two sons have fallen in with bad company. Aged just 11 and 17, Daniel (the 17 year old) is locked in jail on a fake drunk and disorderly charge with three other crooks. After Billy Joe (the 11 year old) sets a distracting fire, he gets the key for the baddies and they break out quietly. They duck up to the bank and blow the safe, give the money to Billy Joe to bury and they all get back to jail before anyone knows any wiser. The perfect alibi.

However, this is a John Wayne film, and there’s much more a-doin’s to transpire. Deputising Daniel when he gets back, Cahill takes him into the hills where they find another group of baddies with money they nicked from someone else. However, with no other evidence, these are some baddies who are gonna hang for something they didn’t do and the two boys are wracked with moral indecision. To make matters worse, the true bank robbers want their money and they intend to cut them into little bits ‘til they gits it.

"I’d bet my brand new, Chicago-made leg amputator on it!"

This is certainly nothing out of the ordinary for John Wayne, or even McLaglan for that matter. Being a rather simple story of falling in with the wrong crowd would seem to make this a coming of age father/son biopic, but instead it’s filled with rueful ‘I haven’t been there for you both’s rather than having any heartfelt real relationship development. Okay, well that’s cool, we’ll just look at the fun shootouts. Well, if there were any. But for the opening sequence and the final climax, there aren’t any of real merit. There seems to be a lot of filler story here that doesn’t really give us much about anything. In fact, around half an hour in, I was wondering how they stretched this into 98 minutes (they do manage to in the end).

Still, it is a very watchable film but for the lameness of George Kennedy’s leader of the baddies being ordered around by these two erstwhile children (who suddenly grow up real fast). The two kids are great in their roles as Cahill’s sons, although perhaps they tend to lean heavily on the ‘frightened face’ lever at times. However, let’s put that down to youthful exaggeration and leave it be.

Yet another crystal clear delivery of a John Wayne epic. There are a few occasions of shimmering and film reflection in night scenes, but nothing too disruptive. There are also some moments of jittering and shaking of the camera, but again, nothing too bad. Artefacts are interesting here; there appear to be hardly any smaller ones at all, yet there are still some hefty ones leftover. These take the form of scratches mostly, but are quite large at times and fairly noticeable.

Shadows are sparklingly detail free, although blacks look true enough to compensate. There are only a few instances of grain during the night shots, but these are barely worth noting. The colour palette is very even throughout and nicely balanced and there are little to no occasions of aliasing.

It’s a western, so naturally we gotta git some country music. This takes the form of a Charlie Rich song in this instance, and he performs A Man Gets to Thinkin’ in true Charlie Rich style. However, the rest of the scored soundtrack is by Elmer Bernstein and they both sound just great in all their Dolby Digital mono splendour.

Dialogue is all fine, particularly from the young fellas this film seems to circle around (regardless of the film’s title). A huge male cast all speak their best and, sadly, John Wayne sings in one part. And then, of course, being a western, the limited gunfights and such are all stocked heavily with stock gunshot effects from the Audio Dungeon. Thankfully there aren’t a great deal of these reused noises, even though some more gunfighting would have been cool.

We have a small, yet effectual, parcel of extras for your viewing delectation. Firstly, the audio commentary is by director Andrew V. McLaglan alone and is interesting enough to warrant a listen, although he lapses into long silences occasionally while he watches the movie. He has some interesting stories and trivia to impart and is pretty good as far as single-fella commentaries go, with him calling John Wayne ‘Duke’ all the time.

Next we have a featurette coming in at 7:46 in 4:3. This has a lot of soft edges and is a making-of thing shot at the time. It looks a little hammy and has interspersed actual footage with location shots of the director motioning or whatever before going back to the film stock like it’s one piece of footage or something. Unfortunately, the calibre of the two stocks gives the game away, as does the fact we just saw the film and recognise the film footage. Oh well. It’s in pretty poor condition, mostly, particularly the on-site behind the scenes stuff they shot at night. The obvious voiceover is annoying and he sounds like that guy on Law and Order.

Finally, the trailer rounds us out nicely in its two minutes 39 of mostly restored (by the look of it) 2.35:1 and 16:9 enhanced length. It's so nice when they restore and enhance trailers.

It’s only a small bag really, but still one with more extras than we usually get on a western, with the audio commentary being the highlight.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: John Wayne films are John Wayne films. People who love ‘em love ‘em and people who don’t aren’t even reading this.

As far as his westerns go, this is one of the better looking ones I’ve reviewed, but the story leaves it a little flat. John Wayne’s performance is great, as is that of the kids, but even when trying to look beyond the badge into Cahill’s heart, the film can’t manage it. Sure that heart is in the right place, but it’s just hid behind too much John Wayne obligation I think. Still, it looks great for a 1973 film (30 this year) and is sure to impress the fans of his immense body of work.