After The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah surprised everyone by making a musical western! Well, it's not quite a musical, but there's plenty of songs in it, one a duet between Jason Robards and Stella Stevens. Written by John Crawford and Edmund Penney, it's the story of the title character finding water in the desert and opening a profitable watering hole for stagecoaches (though towards the end, motorised vehicles also turn up). Meanwhile he befriends a randy vicar, David Warner, and a spirited prostitute Stella Stevens, whilst also looking out for the men who abandoned him in the desert in the first place.
It's a lot of fun, well edited by Lou Lombardo and Frank Santillo, though film also displays a somewhat loose, choppy feeling. Lushly photographed by Lucien Ballard.
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| "No one's ever seen you before" his beautiful line to her |
Didn't really know Stevens, patchy film career, best known perhaps for The Poseiden Adventure, popular on TV too. (Then coincidentally a couple of days later I look at Bright Lights Film Journal and there's this.) With Strother Martin, Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Peter Whitney, Susan O'Connell, Kathleen Freeman, Matthew Peckinpah, Easy Pickens.
Sam's own favourite of his. Robards is fantastic.
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