Son of a Gunfighter (1966)

good back-story, and good acting

Better Late Then Never

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This is no "The Ten Commandments, even though the good guys block the passage of the bag guys by hurling fire down on them to prevent them from moving.Otherwise, an extremely routine western where Russ Tamblyn seeks to discover the man who he claimed killed his mother. Refusing to reveal his last name, he comes upon the man and then we learn that the latter is his father. The father explains the circumstances of why he abandoned Johnny (Tamblyn) and his mother 20 years before. Wherever they'd go to live, there was always a young one wanting to test his fast speed on the notorious father.Of course, all this has to be put aside when Mexican bandits threaten them and the "hacienda" they have taken refuge in. Naturally, romance blossoms between Tamblyn and the young daughter of the owner of the estate.Surprising that Tamblyn who starred in far superior pictures such as "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Peyton Place," and "West Side Story" ever did this routine fanfare.

Now this was a movie that looked promising, but it didn't deliver. It is very handsome in its look though, the sets, scenery, costumes and photography still look absolutely beautiful, the score is suitably rousing and fitting, I loved the film's idea and out of the supporting Fernando Rey is by far the most consistent. However, the film is too short and I think rushed too. The idea of the story is great, but it is lacking in emotion and at the end of the day it is the case of too much going on. The dialogue can be silly too, the direction is ambitious but it tries too hard and Russ Tamblyn(who I really like) and Kieron Moore are bland in the lead roles. Overall, disappointing but worth a peek I guess. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I switched on today before coming to work and saw the listed film 'Son of a Gunfighter' - never heard of the actors involved but stuck around to watch the adventure roll out. Bit of a giveaway film title though as it becomes apparent during the telling as to who is who and who is going to kill who. There could have been more chemistry in the blooming romance between Johnny and Pilar. But the music was really surprising - shades of the Rawhide them and when the action built up, so did the music. But what became of the bad guy laid out in stakes under the hot sun with a wet hide tied round his neck - i assume he met an inevitable agonising death as the hide dried and choked him quite slowly and painfully. Scenery was great and is the first time I have seen Maria Granada - quite a honey. For a movie now well over 40 years old, I found it quite entertaining genre wise.

The movie has a rather good typical genre revenge-story but the story gets almost completely ruined by the movie its poor directing and annoyingly bad dialog.It's not that the movie has a bad story but it's still a poorly written. And the things they say! Oh man, the spend 3 lines on things they could say with just 5 words. Some of the dialog is ridicules and at times completely redundant for the movie. Really some of the worst dialog writing I have seen in a long time. How did those actors ever agreed to say all those lines? Unfortunately the movie also feels the need to put in a female character and love-story. I mean no offense but women in westerns have just never quite worked out. Even in the best westerns, the women still felt out of place and did not worked out. I understand that it's PC and good for marketing reasons but some genres are just not created to have female characters in it. But on top of that the love-story in this movie feels rather forced and out of place and is just not quite believable, since Pilar seems like a complete bore and shallow character, that no tough gunfighter would ever fall for.It also seems silly that the biggest spoiler and surprise of the movie is also in the movie it's title. What's up with that!?The musical score for the movie was unexpectedly great. I liked it surprising much! One of the very few highlights of the movie.The directing was very poor and it ruined some of the potentially good moments of the movie. It also made some of the action seemed bad and ridicules. It's the sort of clumsy action you would normally expect to see in a '30's movie or a "The A-Team" type of series. Characters come and go in the movie and evil and good guys keep switching constantly. The main character isn't even introduced until 10 minutes into the movie. The main villains are disappointing and underused. Never fully showed in the movie why they are being considered such legendary and bad villainous characters in the West.Also non of the actors are really any great ones but then again, they also aren't really helped by the dialog in the movie.Still some of the action makes the movie worthwhile to watch, at least for the genre fans. Some action sequences are surprisingly big (seemed to me they'd watched "The Magnificent Seven" before making this movie?) and even though some of the action seems to constantly repeat itself, it's still great to watch!4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/