Waco (1966)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Not even bad in a good way

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

I liked this film because by accident I tuned into it about five minutes after it had started so I had missed all the introductions and had no idea at all who would be starring in it. Wow! It turned out to be a who's who of Hollywood B Stars and I had great fun in spotting them as they popped up on the screen. Towards the end of the film my biggest surprise was the old villain of many movies Brian Donlevy turning up all in black as an old gunfighter. Although we never get to see his fast draw as he high-tails it out of town at the first sign of trouble. Fuzzy Knight, Robert Lowery, Gene Evans, Wendell Corey, Jane Russell and a non singing Howard Keel. Definitely worth a watch.

Waco is directed by R.G. Springsteen and adapted to screenplay by Steve Fisher from the novel Emporia written by Max Lamb and Harry Sandford. It stars Howard Keel, Jane Russell, Brian Donlevy, Wendell Corey, Terry Moore and John Agar. Music is by Jimmie Haskell and cinematography by Robert Pittack. Gunfighter Waco (Keel) is given a pardon from his jail term to go clean up the town of Emporia. Released in 1966 but feeling like it belongs in an earlier decade, Waco is a poor Western. As most Western fans will tell you, the "B" Western has its place in the heart and can quite often bring enjoyable rewards when the mood fits, unfortunately Waco is bad film making all round. Everything about it is tired, it's like it's desperately clinging on to the glory Western days of the 50s but doesn't know how to grasp with any conviction. Filmed in Technicolor and Techniscope, not that you will notice, from the very beginning where Lorne Greene sings a cheese sandwich theme tune, film plays out as some sort of amateur dramatics production. Keel thinks he's in a hard-boiled film noir and voices it as such, often resorting to auto-cue line reading, and Donlevy shows up after an hour looking awful and literally doing a cameo to pay for his next bottle of Rye. Russell doesn't fare much better, phoning it in and the most memorable thing about her input is her bullet brassier! The action is poorly constructed, with the big shoot-out proving to be more along the lines of a Keystone Cops skit, Haskell's music is simply rubbish, while what interesting character threads are in the story are sadly given short shrift by the writers (for example Corey's Reverend is briefly noted to have been part of Quantrill's Raiders). There's a level of glib humour about Keel's performance that keeps it just about watchable, while his indestructible capabilities makes him come over as a Captain Scarlet of the West. But really he's never convincing as a tough mutha and that just about sums up what an out of time Oater this is. 3/10

A.C. Lyles turned out another good geezer western with Waco starring Howard Keel a recently released outlaw from prison who's been hired to clean up a really bad town run by saloon owner John Smith and his hired gun DeForest Kelley. Keel is kind of hoping to take things up where they left off with Jane Russell, but turns out she's gone and married preacher Wendell Corey. That sort of disillusions him as he wavers back and forth between doing the job he was hired or resuming his old outlaw ways.If it's action you want than Waco will not disappoint. Keel in the title role and we never do learn his real name because he probably was not born with that name, has a number of nasty fights and shootings. Besides Smith and Kelley, he's also got the Jenner family to contend with he killed one of them years ago. Willard Parker and Reg Parton are the remaining Jenner brothers and there's Anne Seymour, Ma Barker of the old west. In many ways, she's the one you'll remember from this film.Waco's also a pretty adult western with such themes as infidelity lightly touched upon and rape of Tracy Olsen an integral part of the story. The final shootout in the town involves just about every member of the cast.If you like western action you can't go wrong with Waco.

I love this film because it shows that people can and do change for the better, and that's what Waco thought he hadn't changed after a long time in prison, but he had and for the good of the town and the people in it.