The Sons of Katie Elder

10/4/2015

The Magnificent Four! John, Tom, Matt and Bud, these are the Elder boys, who upon meeting up at the funeral of their recently deceased mother, find that their father may have been murdered over a card game. The boys must cast off sibling rivalries and find out just what has been happening in their childhood town of Clearwater, Texas. Unfairly given harsh treatment upon its release by the critics and beset with behind the scenes problems, The Sons Of Katie Elder actually holds up rather well in this day and age. All the required traits are in the film to make it an oater of some worth, a splendid cast with as much macho beef as you can shake a stick at, a top Elmer Bernstein score, the wonderful use of the Casa Blanca location and a revenge driven plot of some note. So why is it hard

3/26/2024

When "John" (John Wayne) returns home for the funeral of his mother and to reunite with his three brothers, he sets the cat amongst the pigeons. It turns out that their ranch now belongs to gunsmith "Hastings" (James Gregory) and with their father having been shot in the back, they start to investigate. Now "John" is a notable man with a gun, so tensions heighten when "Curley" (George Kennedy) arrives in town as a bit of muscle for the ambitious "Hastings". It's all a little predictable this but it builds to quite an explosive denouement and there's an enjoyable degree of chemistry between Wayne and kid brothers "Tom" (Dean Martin) and the baby of the pack "Bud" (Michael Anderson Jr) who has a notion to put a marble angel on top of his mother's grave - that or an horse. What ensues deliver