Support Your Local Sheriff
Boomtown Calendar Colorado sprouts out of a freshly dug grave gold discovery. Not-so-graceful, strong willed Prudy Perkins’s (Joan Hackett) discovery propels her fumbling farmer father Olly (Harry Morgan) into the town’s first office of mayor. Every gold rush boom town needs a villainous family (Danby) to terrorize it, forcing miners to submit to a toll on the only road out of town. The town has no sheriff and no one to oppose illicit toll road extortion and related depredations.
Enter gunfighter Jason McCullough (James Garner) enroute to Australia and in need of cash to get there. He observes Joe Danby kill a man over a card game. Mayor Perkins offers McCullough the sheriff’s job to take on the Danby’s. McCullough can use the money and besides, fetching young Prudy catches his eye.
McCullough arrests Joe and confines him to Calendar’s unfinished jail, unfinished by absence of bars for jail doors and windows. Confined becomes a state of confusion – did I mention Support Your Local Sheriff is a comedy? In a move designed to get followers of these posts excited, McCullough deputizes (Jack Elam) town clown and stable hand Jake to assist him.
Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) – now we’re getting comedic, is upset by Joe’s arrest. He takes on McCullough and is embarrassed. He next sends hired guns after McCullough. McCullough defeats the gunnies one by one, using his prowess to turn young Purdy’s reluctant head.
Frustrated, the Danby’s attempt to break Joe out of jail. By now the jail has bars the Danby’s plan to rip out by roping them to their saddles. In a script that failed to borrow this jail break from who knows how many western film jail breaks, the bars hold. The saddles do not. Jake mops up the mess with a shotgun.
Pa’s had enough. He puts out a call for help to the whole Danby clan. With a small army descending on Calendar, no one in town will support the local sheriff. Imagine that in a western. Well, I never. In the climactic showdown, McCullough bluffs the Danby’s into submission with the town’s antique memorial cannon. With matters in hand on the march to jail, the cannon accidently fires, destroying a brothel, scattering the soiled doves and the city fathers gathered there. As the smoke clears, Purdy accepts McCullough’s proposal. The End.
Next Week: The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County
Return to Facebook to comment.
Ride easy,
Paul
Enter gunfighter Jason McCullough (James Garner) enroute to Australia and in need of cash to get there. He observes Joe Danby kill a man over a card game. Mayor Perkins offers McCullough the sheriff’s job to take on the Danby’s. McCullough can use the money and besides, fetching young Prudy catches his eye.
McCullough arrests Joe and confines him to Calendar’s unfinished jail, unfinished by absence of bars for jail doors and windows. Confined becomes a state of confusion – did I mention Support Your Local Sheriff is a comedy? In a move designed to get followers of these posts excited, McCullough deputizes (Jack Elam) town clown and stable hand Jake to assist him.
Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) – now we’re getting comedic, is upset by Joe’s arrest. He takes on McCullough and is embarrassed. He next sends hired guns after McCullough. McCullough defeats the gunnies one by one, using his prowess to turn young Purdy’s reluctant head.
Frustrated, the Danby’s attempt to break Joe out of jail. By now the jail has bars the Danby’s plan to rip out by roping them to their saddles. In a script that failed to borrow this jail break from who knows how many western film jail breaks, the bars hold. The saddles do not. Jake mops up the mess with a shotgun.
Pa’s had enough. He puts out a call for help to the whole Danby clan. With a small army descending on Calendar, no one in town will support the local sheriff. Imagine that in a western. Well, I never. In the climactic showdown, McCullough bluffs the Danby’s into submission with the town’s antique memorial cannon. With matters in hand on the march to jail, the cannon accidently fires, destroying a brothel, scattering the soiled doves and the city fathers gathered there. As the smoke clears, Purdy accepts McCullough’s proposal. The End.
Next Week: The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County
Return to Facebook to comment.
Ride easy,
Paul
No comments have been added yet.
