The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again (1970)

Really Surprised!

As Good As It Gets

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

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A year previously, the TV movie "The Over-the-Hill Gang" debuted. It must have been successful, as only a year later, a sequel was brought to the small screen. However, in this installment, the star of the original film, Pat O'Brien, is not in the film and instead a new over the hiller, Fred Astaire, is featured along with returning faded stars Chill Wills, Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan and Andy Devine (who in this one has switched sides and is now friends with these other oldsters).In this installment, the four friends have left O'Brien and his town behind and learn that another old friend, the Baltimore Kid (Astaire) has been killed. However, while they are in a saloon drinking and remembering the man, they see him in the bar--an old drunk. They decide to sober him up and help him regain his self-respect. Then, when he's offered a job of sheriff, the gang work behind the scenes to help him out of jam after jam--and they try to keep the Baltimore Kid from knowing they are doing this. Eventually, however, he does learn and must rise to the occasion to prove himself once and for all.All in all, apart from another chance to see these olders and a new oldster (Astaire), the film is relatively dull and uninteresting. My feeling is that it would appeal mostly to their fans--others should probably avoid it due to a rather limp script.

When retiring Texas ranger Walter Brennan (as Nash Crawford) learns old pal Fred Astaire (as "The Baltimore Kid") is in trouble, he rounds up three co-stars from "The Over-the-Hill Gang" (1969) for a western sequel. Still spry, Mr. Brennan finds Chill Wills (as George Agnew) cheating at poker, Edgar Buchannan (as Jason Fitch) in a retirement home, and Andy Devine (as Amos Polk) working on a newspaper. The geriatric set is stunned to discover Mr. Astaire is on a bender, but he cleans up well. This ABC-TV Tuesday "Movie of the Week" repeats the sure-fire viewer pull Brennan and his old friends still had and, in a rare appearance, Astaire shows he's definitely not ready for the old folks home.***** The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again (11/17/70) George McCowan ~ Fred Astaire, Walter Brennan, Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan

Fred Astaire's first forays into the Western genre, the TV medium and moustache-sporting came via this modest "old men's movie" about a trio of retired Texas Rangers who come together to help their old superior who has been wrongly jailed for robbery and murder. Walter Brennan, Chill Wills and Edgar Buchanan reprise their roles from the original THE OVER-THE-HILL GANG TV-movie made the previous year, while Astaire takes on the role of the troubled Baltimore Kid who might not be in jail or lynched (as newspaperman Andy Devine misinforms them upon their arrival) but has fallen on hard times and become the town drunk instead! The thing is that Astaire is unable to accept his growing old and his shooting abilities not being what they used to so, to build up his confidence once more, the trio convince him to accept the badge of town marshal with them as his deputies! However, Astaire deludes himself further into thinking that the roughnecks who come into town eventually leave it because of his notoriety (rather than through the helpful 'armed and invisible' presence of his friends) and even befriends a much younger saloon gal who turns out to be the girl of the robber behind the crime Astaire was supposed to have committed in the first place! The quintet of Hollywood veterans provide the only pleasure to be had from this meager production because whenever they are offscreen things get pretty dull indeed.

The first Over-The-Hill-Gang movie proved so popular on television that a sequel was practically demanded from producers Walter Brennan, Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. Probably only the age of the protagonists kept this from becoming a regular series. Maybe if Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan, and Chill Wills had been ten years younger it might very well have become a weekly series.After settling things in Nevada for Pat O'Brien in the first movie the other three retired Texas Rangers go back to their settled lives and then they receive another summons. It's from Andy Devine who was a crooked judge in the first movie, but who now is a newspaper editor in Waco. An old friend of their's, the Baltimore Kid has been accused of a stagecoach robbery and murder. When Brennan, Wills, and Buchanan, arrive in Waco they hear the Baltimore Kid has been lynched for those crimes.But that can't be when they spot the Baltimore Kid in a saloon looking three sheets to the wind. The Kid is played by Fred Astaire who finally got a western to his credits. He dances nary a step, but he staggers a lot. The old Rangers sober him up the way Robert Mitchum was in El Dorado and Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou and clear the blot upon his reputation. So much so that the town offers to make him marshal. After that they have to stay around and back him up so he doesn't get himself killed. And that gang that did the robbery is still around.Brennan, Wills, Devine, and Buchanan settle back comfortably in their parts. So does Lillian Bronson who Buchanan was about to get married to when the second summons comes. Parley Baer plays the unctuous mayor of the town and Lana Wood plays a femme fatale saloon girl with quite a scheme of her own.If you liked the first Over-The-Hill Gang movie, no reason you won't like The Over-The-Hill Gang Rides Again.