GONE WITH THE WEST (1969/1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In 2012 I did a quickie review of this film, but on rewatching it this year, I decided to write a new one. After I finish this one I'll delete the previous version.

By all accounts director Bernard Girard completed this western, starring James Caan and Stephanie Powers, under a different title in 1969, when the influence on Italian spaghetti westerns on American cinema was at its height. It was finally released in 1974, probably to play off Caan's rising star, and then recut with a frame story and re-released under the title LITTLE MOON AND JUD MCGRAW. Over time a lot of fans have dubbed GONE as one of the worst westerns of all time. However, while it isn't good, it did pick up on the social anomie seen in the original Sergio Leone movies, and formulated the same basic situation seen in 1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER-- that of a pitiless avenger destroying a corrupt town-- long before HPD went into production. I imagine there were other possible ancestors for both. not least Dashiell Hammett's 1929 RED HARVEST.

Also, GONE is not an adventure-story as I previously labeled it, but an irony, just like DRIFTER. One or two IMDB reviews complained of tonal changes in GONE, when it seemed to shift between comedy and ultraviolent adventure. But GONE is an irony, in which everything is meant to have a double meaning. I'm not saying GONE is a good or incisive irony, the way that DRIFTER is. But a lot of the tropes I identified as "fallacious figments"-- like the cutesy end-scene where Caan's character Jed shoots the film's cameraman-- are meant to convey a pseudo-artsy sense that anything-can-happen. 

The flick begins mundanely enough, with Jed being released from prison for some unspecified crime. His mental flashbacks tell us that he holds a man named Nimmo (Aldo Ray) responsible for his sufferings, as well as for the murder of Jed's wife and child. Jed makes a beeline for the unnamed town where Nimmo rules with an iron hand. Jed watches from afar while the corrupt townsfolk carry on at a cockfight, and pitilessly watch as a young Indian female, Little Moon (Powers), is raped. Later Little Moon retreats to a craggy area overlooking the town, where Jed has made his camp.

Jed watches as Little Moon washes herself in a mountain lake. He doesn't watch her nude display too long, for he announces himself by tossing a rock in the water. Moon gets dressed and attacks him, only to be dissuaded by a threatening fist. But because he doesn't show any desire to rape her, she starts hanging out with him, even though she only speaks Spanish. 

Jed makes a few opening assaults on Nimmo's henchmen. This doesn't seem to upset Nimmo, though one of his cronies seeks out the ridge-area. This guy does try to rape Moon, claiming he didn't get his chance earlier. We then get another "fallacious figment" as Jed comes down like Tarzan, swinging down on a rope attached to who-knows-what. Nevertheless, Moon gets the victory because she just happens to have a sling and kills the rapist with a stone.

The rest of the film is just, as others have said, just a smorgasbord of incoherent violent scenes, though one does have the distinction of being among the best catfights in cinema. In short, Nimmo's regular hooker-girlfriend (Barbara Werle) takes objection when another whore (Elizabeth Leigh) tries to get with Nimmo. It's a really well choreographed fight, and I like to think the participants were doing their best to boost their careers as stuntwomen with this big fight. On a minor note, Sammy Davis Jr has a few scenes as a slick gunfighter employed by Nimmo, but Davis has no real impact on the story.

Jed and Moon attack the town with rocks flung by catapults that they whipped up out of nothing. Then Nimmo's men find and capture Jed, which is the first time Nimmo even learns who his nemesis. He's tied to a cross in the center of town, but Moon comes to his rescue, riding into town and lassoing the cross, so as to drag it away. No one seems able to pursue her. Finally Moon somehow devises a kite from which she can drop sticks of dynamite (how?) on the town. This clears out all the corrupt maggots and makes possible a final fatal clash between Jed and Nimmo. Then the triumphant hero kisses his damsel before they walk toward the horizon-- aside from shooting the cameraman, that is.

Though it's naturalistic aside from the injection of "figments" you're not supposed to believe in, the arty approach still places GONE in my category of "weird westerns."