Jeff Arnold’s West

The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans

The Frisco Kid (Warner Bros, 1979)

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Embarrassingly bad
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There are some films so bad that you sort of cringe before the screen. Your toes curl up in your shoes and your lips twist into a grimace. You want to look away.
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This ‘comedy’ Western is one.
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It stars Gene Wilder as a bumbling rabbi from Poland, crossing America to get to the West, falling in with a bank robber called Tommy and getting into various adventures.

 

Mr Wilder comes from the school of comedy that believes that if you wear a big beard and shout a lot, it will be funny.
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Hilarious. Not.
 
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Harrison Ford, as the bank robber, must now cringe with embarrassment. He probably gets cold sweats at the very idea of watching this movie. Though he had actually started in Westerns (small-screen ones anyway) after this he wisely avoided the genre entirely – until Cowboys & Aliens in 2011.
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Embarrassingly bad
 
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It was directed by Robert Aldrich. OK, Aldrich did some pretty poor Westerns, like the trashy 4 for Texas, but he also made a picture as fine as Ulzana’s Raid, so he was capable of making a good film. What on earth was he playing at here? He certainly knew little or nothing about comedy.

 

The screenplay was by TV writers Michael Elias and Frank Shaw. They flopped dismally.
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Offhand, I can’t think of a worse ‘comedy’ Western
 
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You would be a lot better off with the 1935 black & white oater Frisco Kid with James Cagney. It’s dire but it’s ten times better than this one.

 

This one is just dreadful. Do not watch it, I implore you. It will leave you scarred.

 

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