In fact, calling this stitched together piece of tripe a movie at all is a distortion. I hesitate even to call it a television show, although supposedly it was created by combining two episodes of "The Virginian." It has an all-star cast, including Charles Bronson, Lee J. Cobb, George Kennedy, Brian Keith, and Doug McClure, but the script is terrible, the acting almost as bad, and the plot nearly non-existent. The motivation of the various characters is never very clear, their loyalties and direction seeming to shift regularly, while many of the segues are abrupt and atrociously amateurish. You have to wonder how otherwise talented actors could appear in such an obvious chunk of dung and be able to look themselves in the mirror the next morning. Brian Keith plays a wandering Texan who practically adopts a youngster from the East, buying him a set of western duds and teaching him how to shoot, but soon enough, advises the kid to get lost. Charles Bronson is a cattle rancher who insists on doing everything his way and taking help from nobody. Lee J. Cobb plays "the judge." He comes off like some sort of saint, even though he is apparently the richest rancher in the valley and the chief honcho. He and his peers in the ridiculously goody goody Cattlemen's Association do all they can to get along with Bronson, but he wants nothing to do with anyone, not even his own son or, for that matter, his comely (if annoying) young wife. When we aren't groaning at how bad the flick is, we wonder what is eating at the guy to make him such a jerk, but the most we ever find out is that he can't do anything right and always runs from trouble. A rich, ambitious young woman moves into the valley and is determined to ride roughshod over everyone, especially the judge and his friends. She plans to bring in too many cattle and overgraze the available grass on the open range they all must share. When the judge tells her that she is being "shortsighted and foolish," she responds that he is exactly right and gets to be that way because she is a woman. Figure that one out -- it's the high point of this turkey. Brian Keith becomes her top man after clobbering his chief rival for the job and inexplicably goes from Mr. Nice Guy to unprincipled Lothario. If all this makes sense, it's only because I've attempted to inject some sense into it. There is only one way to characterize a movie that is this bad -- amazingly awful.
Review of The Bull of the West
