The Good Guys and the Bad Guys

 

Robert Mitchum and George Kennedy

Burt Kennedy's The Good Guys and the Bad Guys is a comic Western misfire from 1969. Director Kennedy never gives the script, which had at least four contributors to it, a consistent tone. The film lurches from satire to a more traditional tale of outlaws versus lawmen without finding a sure footing in either approach. The film begins as a more traditional oater with Mitchum riding through New Mexico as Glenn Yarbrough (my second least favorite singer of the 1960s behind Bobby Goldsboro) warbles a ballad saluting the heroism of the aging Sheriff. The song is the type of number associated with Frankie Laine (in pictures like 3:10 to Yuma) that Mel Brooks and Laine himself would parody a few years later in Blazing Saddles. Yarbrough's contributions continue throughout the film, highlighting themes that have already been hammered home by the scenario.

Mitchum's Sheriff hears of an outlaw gang headed by an old nemesis named Big John McKay (George Kennedy) who plan to rob the local town's bank. The town's name, Progress, underlines that this is a changing times Western set after 1900. An impressive array of antique cars overly crowd the streets of the town on the Warners lot. When the Sheriff tells the corrupt Mayor, a Nixonian Martin Balsam, of the impending robbery, the Mayor does not seem overly concerned and, before Mitchum's character can raise a posse, eases the Sheriff into retirement. The Sheriff won't go quietly and tries to head off the outlaws. He finds that McKay has also been bumped out of a leadership role, usurped by the younger and more repellent Waco played by David Carradine, underused here but giving the most striking and best performance in the film. McKay and the Sheriff unite forces to thwart the robbers. The film climaxes with a chase sequence featuring a runaway train full of loot that aims to capture the antic fun of The Great Race, but is instead reminiscent of the leaden farce of The Hallelujah Trail.

A good indication of the paucity of The Good Guys and the Bad Guys is the one dimensional nature of its female roles. Lois Nettleton's virtuous boarding house keeper who is sweet on Mitchum is the type of stand by your man role that wallows in cliche. Even worse is Tina Louise's role as the southern accented town tart who is knocking boots with the mayor. Louise and Balsam's farcical trysting is an embarrassment to all concerned, especially the audience. Some film veterans leave the film with their dignity intact: John Carradine, Marie Windsor, John Davis Chandler, and Kathleen Freeman playing, as usual, a small minded scold. An uncredited Buddy Hackett appears in one scene early on and then disappears for the rest of the film. Danny Borzage, brother of Frank and an on set fixture of John Ford's films, cameos by playing his accordion in a saloon.