100 Rifles (1969)

Nice effects though.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I think I know why so many reviews and write-ups about this picture focus on the off-screen clash of the titanic egos and the taboo-defying love scene between black lawman and Indian squaw--it's not a very good Western.The premise was good. It's 1912 and Burt Reynolds' half-breed Yaqui Joe robbed a Phoenix bank of $6,000 to buy 100 rifles to arm the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico, who are woefully outmatched in their conflict with the Mexican army led by General Verdugo. Meanwhile, into town rides Big Jim Brown as Sheriff Lydecker determined to capture and bring back the outlaw. But to General Verdugo, one meddling gringo is the same as any other, and Yaqui Joe and Lydecker soon find themselves chained together and destined to face the firing squad.Raquel Welch lends glamour to the proceedings as Sarita, but is incidental to the plot, relegated to eye-candy: luring a soldier to his death by unbuttoning her shirt, taking a shower, and playing the eminently seducible soldada.The movie belongs to Burt, whose charisma and smile steal every scene from the ponderous and lumbering Brown. Yaqui Joe is no hero, however, welshing on paying his whore, slapping her around, then dragging her topless onto the hotel balcony in a vain effort to distract the soldiers long enough to allow the Yaqui prisoners to escape. Brown's Lydecker, a lawman eager to bring in Yaqui Joe for the $200 reward and job security, is a 15-year U.S. Cavalry veteran of the Indian Wars and openly declares his dislike for Indians. He rebuffs Yaqui Joe and Sarita when they implore him to join in their fight, but his attitude changes once he befriends a young Yaqui boy who is later abducted by the military--now it's personal.To its credit, the film never descends into schmaltz with everyone forsaking their prejudices and joining in a group hug. Yaqui Joe and Lydecker work together, but don't necessarily like or trust each other. They are no Culp and Cosby and 100 RIFLES never becomes a buddy movie. In fact, I don't think anyone in this picture really liked anyone else. It's a cynical story, with each of the featured characters coming to Sonora for his own gain.Railroad man Grimes, for example, represents American interests in Mexico. Played with disarming charm by Dan O'Herlihy, Grimes initially appears as a dandy in his white suit and weak stomach for killing, but in the end he's confident and poised to pull the strings of reluctant leader Yaqui Joe. It's telling that Joe parrots to Lydecker the stirring speech he just heard from Grimes, indicating he's already fallen under the American's persuasive spell.And in a rather ham-fisted foreshadowing of World War II, there is Lt. Franz von Klemme. As a fan of director Tom Gries' 1966-68 series RAT PATROL, I was delighted to see Eric Braeden--still billed as Hans Gudegast--playing--what else?--a German military adviser to General Verdugo. Braeden has a gravitas that contrasted sharply with Verdugo's bombast and decadence, evident in the scene where Verdugo lolls in a tub being scrubbed by a couple senoritas while von Klemme scowls in disgust. Of course, von Klemme's sound counsel falls on deaf ears. Verdugo is more interested in salving his bruised ego by settling personal scores with Yaqui Joe and Lydecker than in the military objective of retrieving the 100 rifles. (And of course proto-Nazi von Klemme advised Verdugo to exterminate all the Yaqui in a too-obvious and ominous allusion to what the future held.) I sympathized with von Klemme and this fool's errand he was dispatched to in Sonora and was glad to see him survive and make a strategic retreat in the end, just as he did in dozens of RAT PATROL episodes.The names of the villains each evoke strong associations: Verdugo - vertigo, unsteady and liable to fall. Von Klemme - clammy, unpleasantly slimy, sticky, and moist--yuck! Grimes - grimy, oily and dirty (in contrast with his white suit). I'm confident these names were not chosen by accident.In another of the film's strong points, the Yaqui Indians are not romanticized as virtuous underdogs. When they conquer Verdugo's compound, they immediately get drunk and trash all the trappings of civilization they can find, eventually burning it all to the ground in the grand sacking tradition of the European barbarians, Mongols, and Huns. It was the Yaqui's tearing up the railroad tracks that sparked the conflict with the Mexican military in the first place, signifying this war is at its heart a war on civilization, modernity, and progress.100 RIFLES is an ambitious Western that stumbles as entertainment, though it dutifully delivers action, excitement, and gunplay. The titles and Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack were excellent, as were the locations (the ruined cathedral especially). The acting is very good, with Burt Reynolds standing out, ably backed by Brown and the three principal baddies--Fernando Lamas, Dan O'Herlihy, and Eric Braeden. The shortcomings include the tropes that traditionally plague Westerns--people falling forward after being shot (and practically diving over the sandbags near the end), Welch arriving just in time to hear a dying man's last words before he shudders and dies in her arms, and Welch and her "cavalry" coming over the wall a split-second before the firing squad executed our heroes. These weren't mortal wounds, but they added up over the 110-minute run time that could have been trimmed by twenty minutes. Worth watching once.

Magnificently photographed with a brilliance hitherto unmatched in the usually patchy DeLuxe color medium, "One Hundred Rifles" comes to us with superb action sequences, but unfortunately we are let down by the ill-advised casting of Jim Brown in the central role. Although the rest of the cast give him strong support, this is a part that was plainly meant for someone like Gary Cooper or Burt Lancaster. Pleasing through it is to find Jim heading the cast, it's difficult to identify with him in the hero's role here. Why not? It's hard to tell. Perhaps because we're not used to making such an identification? Or is it that we don't feel with him simply because he lacks a photographic charisma? Now that's a hard ask. I could easily give you a list of fifty great stage actors who never made the grade in movies. They just simply didn't come across on film. That's why we have film tests. On the other hand, I could give you a list of at least thirty great film stars I knew personally that just simply didn't come across in real life. But put them in front of a camera, and something magical happened. The camera loved them so much, it not openly smoothed out all their bad vibes, but gave them a charisma that they actually lacked in real life.

In 1966, future cult starlet Soledad Miranda traded her artistic life for family life and took a two-year break from performing. She decided to return to cinema when offered a role in 100 Rifles. Soledad appears at the beginning of the movie in a scene with Burt Reynolds. They are in a hotel and are lovers; Soledad demands money from him, but he refuses and it gets a little rough. Their fracas on the hotel balcony (where Soledad is topless) is witnessed by all the townspeople. A Spanish journalist who saw the film in London wrote that Soledad's "charms" had nothing to envy of Raquel Welch's, and begged the Spanish censors to let her countrymen see and admire all that God had given her!

I admit that I liked the film, rather more than I expected to. Jim Brown, while not a professional actor held his own for the most part, although his scenes with Raquel Welch seemed a little forced. This makes me think that acting is not really that hard to do acceptably, since so many non-actors have done OK at it. Welch does her part and looked wonderful. Burt Reynolds was at the top of his game here, before he became a world-wide phenomenon, still had to make his way ACTING. Fernando Lamas was suitably evil as the native general/governor trying to commit genocide on the poor, misunderstood, peaceful Indians. And I have to mention the beauty of the late Soledad Miranda. She brightened the screen in the short time she was on it.