Support Your Local Sheriff! **** (1969, James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Bruce Dern, Henry Jones) – Classic Movie Review 6534

Director Burt Kennedy’s 1969 Western spoof is appealing, affectionate and funny. It provides a spot-on tailor-made role for James Garner as Jason McCullough, the stranger who rides into a gold-rush town and is immediately made sheriff.

Garner amiably sends up his Maverick persona, and among those other true and trusted Western performers sending up the myriad Western clichés are: Jack Elam as the boozy deputy sheriff Jake, Harry Morgan as the weak mayor Olly Perkins, Joan Hackett as his clumsy daughter Prudy and Walter Brennan as the mean old guy, evil landowner and town boss Pa Danby. Brennan is spoofing his role as Pa Clanton in My Darling Clementine (1946).

Also in the cast are Bruce Dern as Danby’s son Joe Danby, Henry Jones as Henry Jackson, Willis Bouchey as Thomas Devery, Gene Evans as Tom Danby, Walter Burke as Fred Johnson, Dick Peabody as Luke Danby, Chubby Johnson as Brady (scenes deleted), Kathleen Freeman as Mrs Danvers, Dick Haynes as the Bartender, Richard Hoyt, Marilyn Jones, John Milford and Gayle Rogers.

It is written by William Bowers, shot in Technicolor by Harry Stradling Jr, produced by William Bowers and Bill Finnegan, scored by Jeff Alexander and designed by Leroy A Coleman.

There was plenty of audience support for the Local Sheriff at the box office, so a sequel followed in 1971: Support Your Local Gunfighter.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6534

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com