Mail Order Bride (1964)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Interesting, but all too predictable story of a young man, out of control, who is taken under the wing by his dead father's best friend. The solution to his problems in this western is to get a wife.Buddy Ebsen shines here as the guy who searches for Keir Dullea. Lois Nettleton becomes the bride. She brings to the marriage a young son. Widowed, her character is totally not allowed to be developed here.Naturally, there are cattle rustlers who take advantage of the situation and a scene where the young boy's life is put in danger when a fire breaks out, started by the crooks, in the area where he is sleeping.The ending, naturally when things calm down, is poignant and comical as Ebsen shows that it's never too late to find love.

Buddy Ebsen plays an older man who honors a dead friends request to go back and find his son and tame him by marrying him off to one of those mail order brides whom he finds in a saloon. This concept has been done before and since and the music when Ebsen is off on his cupids errand makes it sound like your in for a musical and Ebsen looks so out of place. In the midst of his Jed Clampett days in 1963-64 when this movie was filmed and came out , all he is missing is the accent and Jed's hat. The movie is boring with bland characters and really tiresome dialog, the young man whom Ebsen tries to get hitched doesn't want a bride and only doing it so Ebsen will leave and give him the deed to his dads land. The actor playing the young man and the woman playing his bride are so boring to watch , no chemistry and you wonder how they will end up together which you know they will.In the end there is a gunfight and Ebsen's character leaves the couple whom have decided to stay married with her little boy(played by Jimmy Mathers ,the older brother of Leave it to Beavers Jerry Mathers,another commenter mistakenly posted that he was played by Jerry).You think Ebsen may end up alone as the camera pulls back to him riding away but in the final scene he goes back to the saloon where he found the young bride and you hear wedding bells music,he straightens his tie and goes into the saloon fade out. This last scene refers to an earlier scene when he walks into the saloon looking for what he thinks is a young woman placing an ad for a husband and it turns out she is the owner of the saloon and middle aged. She takes a fancy to Ebsen and thinks he's there for her, so in the end he does care for her ,and ends up going back to pursue her.The rest is left up to the audience to surmise the happy ending. I found the movie boring and Ebsen so out of place - I'll bet he wanted to do his part in one day and be done with this bland movie.One thing I do admit that at 56 yrs old ,Ebsen was hardly elderly looking or an old man as the plot indicates - in fact he was handsome and sexy for his age at that time. Overall i give the movie 3/10 ..Not terrible but not good either.

Reviewer Wolfgang is correct: this is an "old fashioned" Western. But old fashioned or not, it's a minor gem in my little book. Old coot Will Lane's (Ebsen) got a debt of honor to young wastrel Lee Carey's (Dullea) dead dad and, by golly, a debt of honor means just that to old man Lane, worn-out or not. To fulfill that debt he's got to make enough of a man out of young Lee to deserve the ranch deed Dad entrusted to Will for safekeeping. Trouble is Lee spends his days carousing in town with the no-good Jace (Oates), while the ranch goes to seed and Jace steals his cattle. Into this unhappy mess rides old Will with his debt of honor, thinking maybe a mail order bride (Nettleton) and her young son will turn the shiftless Lee into enough of a responsible husband and father to deserve owning the picturesque ranch. Thus, the movie is ultimately about learning those values that endure and separating them from those that don't-- perhaps an old-fashioned idea, but one to consider, especially in our post-modern era.Now, the movie would not work so well without three contributing elements. Ebsen's simply superb as the low-key old man. It's an odd performance, so stoical as to be almost deadpan —I count one smile in the whole 90 minutes. Ordinarily, that would be boring to watch, but Ebsen acts subtly with his eyes and in such a steady dignified manner that he doesn't have to say much. Director Kennedy wisely keeps the camera on Will's face when somebody says something important, so we know what he's thinking because we know what kind of man he is. That way we participate in what he's feeling; we don't just observe it. All in all, the honor-bound Will Lane is in the best tradition of the dedicated Western hero, while Ebsen's collaboration with Kennedy creates a memorable movie character.What an excellent choice Lois Nettleton is as the hopeful, young Annie. Standing there on the train platform, alone with her young son, hoping for a new life with a man she's never seen, amounts to an almost aching portrait of feminine vulnerability. Rather plain-faced, Nettleton never looked like Hollywood, but she brings just the right combination of grit and sensitivity to the role of a bride that you can order through the mail like a package with skirts.The third element is director-writer Burt Kennedy. Often that combination doesn't work, but here it does. He's created the characters and knows just what cinematic effects he wants. It's a very coherent, well-crafted script with a number of good lines. The tongue-in-cheek comedy also comes across effectively—the marriage ceremony is paced so quickly and humorously that we hardly notice how preposterous it is. Note too, how efficiently and humorously Kennedy introduces Will and Lee in the very first scene with character sketches that will come to define them. He also gets a vivid performance out of Warren Oates as the no-account Jace, a role Oates is obviously enjoying and darn near steals the show with.However, in my book not everything is aces. Shooting Jace seems to me a mistake given the general tone of the movie. There should have been a less drastic way of removing him as a bad influence on Lee. Then too, Dullea as Lee looks the part of callow youth and acts it too, but at times the effort comes too close to burlesque. Also, old Hollywood just had to be old Hollywood in outfitting Annie in very unfrontierish form-fitting dresses. I doubt there were many tailors in early day Montana (actually, lovely Kennedy Meadows in the scenic Central Sierras). At the same time, I doubt that the movie's tame title did the box office any good with its very un-Western connotation.Anyway, I expect the few people who read this may wonder why I've bothered to write so much about such an obscure film. But quality, I believe, deserves recognition no matter how big or small the audience. Also, the Internet offers new opportunities to those of us at the grassroots level. A number of minor gems came out of Hollywood over the decades that, for whatever reason, passed by unnoticed, but remain in the archives for rediscovery. Despite its very modest virtues and unpromising title, Mail Order Bride, I think, is one of them.

Minor comedic western has rural newlyweds (a hot-tempered rebel and a widow with a young son) forced together into matrimony, but attempting to make the union work if only to spite the town's naysayers. Buddy Ebsen's role as a potential troublemaker isn't well-defined--and worse, he keeps popping in and out of scenes without any character motive. Keir Dullea and Lois Nettleton fare much better as the married twosome, and Jimmy Mathers (brother of Jerry) is a cute youngster. Nettleton in particular looks very much at home in these rugged settings; she's a warm, reassuring presence on the screen, like a younger version of Deborah Kerr. The scenery is attractive and the pacing is lively, however a bit more action or excitement in the narrative might've helped. Still, fast-paced, innocuous fun. **1/2 from ****