Dreadfully Boring

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Western comedy about an aging cowboy (James Stewart) whose brother dies and leaves him a brothel. So he and his friend (Henry Fonda) go visit the place and get involved with the girls who work there and wind up defending them from local riffraff. Another of those '60s westerns with stars from Hollywood's Golden Age playing characters that are a little dirty. Just a little, though. It's still pretty tame by today's standards. Not a dick joke to be had. Ultimately, it's harmless fluff with enjoyable performances from Stewart and Fonda.

I wish to add this slice of information on actor Jimmy Steward because of several reasons - a/ since some critics allude to the fact that there was not enough manhood in him to be film hero, he rather looked like a University associate or even Nobel laureate with his intelligent face; b/ because Western cinema is synonymous with American cinema which is not perceived well by some activists in Europe that still hang to their national film industry; and, also for some other reasons ... Now filmography entries for James Steward are quite substantial and given elsewhere, we can't make easy choices about his almost 100 feature films and long life-span of 90 years (plus-minus the professional attrition). He was also Brigadier General with US Air Force, a rare privilege for Hollywood star, etc.Let's look at his Oscar winning performance in "The Philadelphia Story" (1940). Steward established himself as actor very quickly in the 1930s and while unexpectedly for some this seems quite logical for me because he is both whimsical and eloquent. His English speech comes like a music and is specially impressive for foreigners with customary hearing. Then I should say that his acting, while no acting classes taken, imply an inborn snobbishness that is characteristic for classics such as William Thackeray heroes. What else to say, besides the fact that his play was highly appreciated by Hollywood directors Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and others, also his versatility should be remembered with women whom he partnered as real gentleman. Partly true, his counterpart in this film Katharine Hepburn which holds all times record for women (4 Oscars) was seldom tempted to lie - as all women love to do. She said that she didn't suffer from Parkinson disease while she did so in a mild form. Her intentional head tremor is evident in "Rooster Cogburn" (1975) and as late as "Grace Quigley" (1984) she remained on stage with no serious mental disturbances.On "Cheyenne Social Club" (1970) I should retort his gunman abilities at age 62. His friendship with Henry Fonda was remarkable, much unappreciated I think. Both enjoyed their film popularity because of their non-traditional, so to say, congenital sophisticated manners that is difficult to imitate. Such people are not easy to lure in cinema now-a-days. I don't want to say that cinema today is poor but it just have other values.Last word on manhood of the actors. I am not a specialist but before cinema was invented 100 years ago there was something else that made people popular in the societal aspect. And I don't speak here of theater because the latter is nothing without technicality. So I speak here of the science of Physiognomy which has roots largely in the past times and history can give best examples. Lastly this science have been equaled with Eugenics that was banned by official authorities in the 20th centuries. However, many truths remain written on the face of living people. After all "Greek Fire" was invented before Gunpowder and thus allowed the conquest of the New World. Thank you!

One feature of "The Cheyanne Social Club"; it marks the 3rd (count'em third) time that James Stewart "killed" career bad guy Robert J. Wilke on screen He had already gunned him down in "The Far Country", and in "Night Passage". In this movie, Wilke, a much better gunman, braces Stewart in a crowded saloon. Stewart's pal, Henry Fonda, is noshing on pecans while watching the action. Fonda squeezes two pecans together to crack them; Wilke thinks he hears a pistol being cocked, so he draws his gun and points in Fonda's direction. Seeing no threat there, Wilke tries to recover, but by this time Stewart has cleared leather, and he blows Wilke away, thus becoming a hero. Shades of Liberty Valence!This movie was directed by Gene Kelly, and this scene was played for slapstick comedy. Robert J. Wilke was killed many times on screen, by a Who's Who list of Hollywood elite. (Heck, even Grace Kelly snuffed him in "High Noon"!) This was quite likely the only time his demise was played for laughs.In an enjoyable movie, this was one of the outstanding moments. Enjoy it when you get a chance. And there's one quote worth remembering: Stewart to Fonda: "Harley, It just occurs to me that you've been talking for fourteen hundred miles!"Flickerfan

After an interminable journey across the plains, two itinerant cowboys (the two Hollywood legend Stewart and Fonda) reach Cheyenne, where Stewart has inherited the noisiest bordello in town, which is well-managed by pretty Shirley Jones... From this moment, the two friends run into assorted problems with the townspeople, specially when one of them kills a guy who has beaten Jones… The murdered man's family becomes an implacable enemy... Shot on location near Santa Fe, New Mexico, the film is neither good nor bad, entitled neither as farce nor Western… Some of the jokes about the bordello are labored and repetitious, and there was some complaint over Stewart compromising his clean cut image when he confronts one of the prostitutes in a see-through negligée… Stewart wanted the scene cut out, but the company overruled him…The film's director was a surprising choice… Stewart's reasons for wanting to use Gene Kelly, whose reputation was scarcely associated with Westerns, remain obscure… Perhaps he felt Kelly would sly1y inject more tongue-in-cheek elements, given the bordello angle, than an action-oriented director like Andrew, McLaglen would have…Fonda seems to have had a solid affection for "The Cheyenne Social Club," especially as it gave him and Stewart a chance to really co-star in a movie with some human dimensions...