I caught this film on Encore Westerns, it's title left off 'The Last of the Wild Bunch' part. Technically, that's not correct, since Tracy met his end in 1902 and the Bolivian ambush of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid occurred in 1908. I guess the film makers were looking for a hook and that sounded plausible enough for anyone not bothered to investigate it's accuracy.
Bruce Dern is one of those character actors I've come to appreciate in the company of guys like Warren Oates and Dennis Hopper. They always gave an outstanding performance, are often better as outlaws instead of good guys, and sometimes even found themselves cast as the principal character instead of a supporting one. Dern fills the bill on all three counts here in this tale of a twentieth century desperado who lives on his own terms and consequently, dies that way too.
The bigger surprise in the film of course, is the role of lawman Morrie Nathan portrayed by Canadian Gordon Lightfoot. I'll have to add his name to my list of well known singers I would have lost a bet on who appeared in a Western, right up there with Bobby Darin ("Gunfight in Abilene"), and more recently, David Bowie ("Il Mio West"). Lightfoot's role in the story isn't a big one, and he did have to suffer an ignominious fall into a latrine. You may wonder how that could possibly happen but for that, you'll have to catch the flick.
If you do a quick internet search on the real life outlaw Harry Tracy, you won't discover much, but what you will find pretty much corroborates the story here of how Tracy fell out with his partner David Merrill (Michael C. Gwynne) and met death by his own hand with a sheriff's posse closing in. I didn't think about it while watching, but that's what might have happened with Butch and Sundance as well if you go with the revisionist history of his contemporaries. But that's another story.
Oddly enough, Harry Tracy was also the subject of an ancient TV episode from 'Stories of the Century' aired in 1954. That show included elements from this movie, among them the train hijacking, the fallout with Dave Merrill, and the suicide. A love interest for the outlaw doesn't show up in that story or the meager written history, so the inclusion of Catherine Tuttle (Helen Shaver) in the picture was probably brought in to add a touch of humanity to Tracy's character.
Bruce Dern is one of those character actors I've come to appreciate in the company of guys like Warren Oates and Dennis Hopper. They always gave an outstanding performance, are often better as outlaws instead of good guys, and sometimes even found themselves cast as the principal character instead of a supporting one. Dern fills the bill on all three counts here in this tale of a twentieth century desperado who lives on his own terms and consequently, dies that way too.
The bigger surprise in the film of course, is the role of lawman Morrie Nathan portrayed by Canadian Gordon Lightfoot. I'll have to add his name to my list of well known singers I would have lost a bet on who appeared in a Western, right up there with Bobby Darin ("Gunfight in Abilene"), and more recently, David Bowie ("Il Mio West"). Lightfoot's role in the story isn't a big one, and he did have to suffer an ignominious fall into a latrine. You may wonder how that could possibly happen but for that, you'll have to catch the flick.
If you do a quick internet search on the real life outlaw Harry Tracy, you won't discover much, but what you will find pretty much corroborates the story here of how Tracy fell out with his partner David Merrill (Michael C. Gwynne) and met death by his own hand with a sheriff's posse closing in. I didn't think about it while watching, but that's what might have happened with Butch and Sundance as well if you go with the revisionist history of his contemporaries. But that's another story.
Oddly enough, Harry Tracy was also the subject of an ancient TV episode from 'Stories of the Century' aired in 1954. That show included elements from this movie, among them the train hijacking, the fallout with Dave Merrill, and the suicide. A love interest for the outlaw doesn't show up in that story or the meager written history, so the inclusion of Catherine Tuttle (Helen Shaver) in the picture was probably brought in to add a touch of humanity to Tracy's character.