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“Support Your Local Sheriff” is a perfect example of the influence of television sitcoms on film. It is a terrible television situation comedy stretched out to feature length for no good reason.
It has all the characteristics of a TV half an hour the excessive background music that is poorly crafted to portray comedy, the self-consciously pretentious lines, the cheap production values, and the tired puns (“Let’s go down to Madame Orr’s house.”)
The idea, I guess, was to parody the traditional Western, a bold attempt that has recently inspired great works like “Cat Ballou” and “El Dorado” which I admire. But those two films had a life and freshness of their own.
“Support Your Local Sheriff” is not a parody but a theft. It is based on our collective forgotten account of so many other Westerns. It has no steam of its own.
Consequently, I found something akin to pain (gastrointestinal in the root) when James Garner told Jack Elam: “Well, that’s gold for ya. We haven’t even struck any and already we’re fightin’ over how to divide it up.”
These quotes, especially the one from “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and the other two from “High Noon”, were cheap because they were devoid of meaning. They were taken from other movies and used in this movie haphazardly.
When Howard Hawks made El Dorado, he wanted to mock his own Rio Bravo and what he thought was funny about it. He used the same premise, the same characters, even John Wayne, the same actor, as the captain. But instead of having them crack jokes, he had them play it straight. But with just a hint of dialog here and a reaction shot there, he took Rio Bravo and made it funny.
That is, infinitely more effective than Burt Kennedy’s method in Support Your Local Sheriff. He uses a premise that is not comical in its nature and attempts to create humor through the actor’s overacting, extravagant double takes, and utter buffoonery.
By the way, the movie is about a man named James Garner, who is made sheriff of a certain town on his way to Australia. Garner easily outsmarts the Danby Gang, romances the daughter of the mayor, and wins in fights without much effort. After all, he is far more superior than any of the townspeople.
Joan Hackett is part of the cast and other actresses like Jack Elam have also been added. Hackett, who has previously won awards for her role in Will Penny, has an exquisite face and Jack Elam never fails to impress as the town character. I, for one, was amazed by her performance in that scene where she was sharing the screen with James Garner.
Harry Morgan has been well utilized as the mayor, but due to the budget constraints of the movie, this scene suffers. Morgan, who had Jack Webb’s partner on the Dragnet show, brings his signature appeal while underusing his voice for different tones.
The rest of the movie lacks color, so this scene makes it worse. In fact, some of the outdoor scenes look out of focus and lack detail as if someone has overexposed it during editing.
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