The Magnificent Seven

Mclintock!

Mclintock! was a 1963 western John Wayne western largely played for laughs.

The sets, costumes and colors all look amazing. It's a well made western production.
it also has Plenty of goofy slapstick and humor too, most noticeably fistfights, which you would expect.

The plot is that John Wayne's character is a wealthy cattle rancher and, as the film begins,
his bitter ex-wife, played by Maureen O'Hara, shows up wanting divorce and custody of their daughter.

As usual,

John Wayne is his standard character: a tough, rugged, no nonsense fellow.
Maureen O'Hara does a fine job as the estranged wife wanting a divorce, and she and John Wayne have an amusing chemistry together.
From what I've read, the story was loosely based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. I guess.
Their daughter shows up for a visit, played by a very young Stephanie Powers (known much better from Hart to Hart - a show Prime should really stream)
There's a cattleman character named Dev, who is played by Patrick Wayne, John Wayne's real life son, and he does a fine job. He and the Stephanie Powers character have a romantic sub-lot and, when she acts sassy, he puts her across his knee and spanks her with a coal shovel. Hmmm, ok.

There is this extended fistfight sequence that takes place at a mud-hole near a hangman noose.
It was initially amusing, but also a little tedious. I mean, how many times can someone get punched and sent sliding down into a muddy ravine (complete with slide trombone noise).
Played for laughs, with everyone getting gross and muddy, it felt akin to a giant pie fight scene basically. I won't say much more about the plot, but everything sort of works out fine in the end, although that ending... well, watch it and see.
The moral of the film seems to be that you can solve any problem in a marriage with a good spanking?

I think part of what added to the humor of this film for me wasn't necessarily the gags -
it was just funny it realizing how a film like this could never be made today.
I'm sure it would offend the easily offended, and honestly, I don't think audiences go for this
kind of goofy slapstick western humor anymore. But who knows - maybe some adventurous and daring filmmaker might try it. I doubt it though.

"McLintock!" is on Amazon Prime currently, but from what I can tell it's also in the public domain.
http://publicdomainmovies.net/movie/mclintock

Reformed Fruit Movie Reviews

Follow this blog for updates on films I've reviewed.