Riding off into the sunset

Press, 30 January 1982, Page 11

Riding off into the sunset

rßeviewl

Douglas McKenzie

Manv years ago there were stories for film called cowboys and Indians which were full of action and shooting and sometimes cavalry; and they became so commonplace as an expression of the frontier days of the United States that the for one. said it did not propose to show any more of these films on TV. This quietened things down for quite a while, and films with unmistakable titles like “Apaches on the Warpatlj" and “The Bar X Massacre" faded from the screen along with the Arizona sunsets. What has happened this week (Thursday) on One. though, is that, under the completely ambiguous and misleading title of "Mr Horn” the cowboys and Indians — and the cavalry — have crept back for another d.

roun. What seemed, on the face of it, to be a personalised documentary, perhaps, about a clever man who had cornered the Japanese market for the supply of car warning devices, or about a world-famous hunter whose shipments of aphrodisiac deer antlers in velvet to Korea were legendary, turned out to be endless horse riding in dry countryside by mainly uninteresting characters. The experienced Richard Widmark promised to bring some life to the proceedings; but unfortunately he didn’t stay to the end this week, and his departure marked a severe slump in viewability.

The listing of the fairly experienced David Carradine boded ill for the production, and this expectation was realised as well.

Mr Carradine has only the one expression: an immobile concern. For this programme he wore it under a stiff, leather hat for most of the

time in conditions of heat and dust. Occasionally he broke into this expression to utter a few words.

As the hours passed it became extremely hard to stay awake ~ .On recovery it was found that there had been a sharp drop in temperature on the desert, because there was Mr Carradine under a blanket and sheet and he was yarning there with a young woman who had appeared in a few of the earlier scenes.

He wasn’t saying much more than usual," of course, but he looked fairly comfortable although still largely taken by an immobile concern.

In due course the young woman apparently suffered a slight heart attack because Mr Carradine changed to

administering sudden mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Whereupon the camera left (this being American TV) and it was back to interminable horse jogging by daylight. The cavalry had a curious habit of setting up places where it could be ambushed by Indians or Mexicans. After travelling through landscape which was either dead flat or comprising hills conventionally silhouetted like a woman’s breast; the cavalcade would descend into a gulch and there be ambushed. The other convention was that the slaughter, when the shooting started, was mainly among those doing the ambushing rather than those being subjected to it — a strange idea when it is remembered that the ambush-

ers had the several advantages of surprise, height and cover. But the lesser breeds were tumbled out of their rocky pockets in no time. This week is only half the story. Next week is the rest about Tom Horn “whose legendary career has been recorded through history and folklore" — for what reason is by no means clear yet. Oh present evidence the 8.8. C. undoubtedly knew when enough was enough.