Wonderful Movie

Simply Perfect

Great Film overall

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I watched this film on TV on TCM recently after reading the short synopsis and seeing the cast list....Glenn Ford, Angie Dickinson, Jack Elam, Royal Dano and Gary Merrill. A good, reliable line-up. It was a 1967 film as well, sandwiched between The Professionals (1966) and The Wild Bunch (1969), not to mention Butch & Sundance and True Grit, both from the same era. It had to be good. It wasn't...it was awful! The tired plot (ageing gunfighter trying to escape his past with a new young pistolero wanting to prove himself) has been done many times before, and better, but I thought the stellar cast might bring something new to the film...wrong! Poor old Glenn Ford looked his usual world-weary self a bit too much in this film and Jack Elam played his regular character that he's played many times down the years, which is OK if the movie's a good one...if it's not, it doesn't work for me. The most ridiculous waste of talent was the part Royal Dano played, not just an Indian, but a drunken one that wouldn't have been out of place in Blazing Saddles. On top of all that, the film actually looked horrible...it had none of the sharp, colourful camera work that the others I mentioned had, in fact it looked like a 'B' movie to me. The best thing about this film was Angie Dickinson who looked great throughout it. For me, Shane in 1953, set the standard for future westerns, and Rio Bravo ('59) and The Magnificent Seven ('60) kept up this standard with 'grown-up' scripts, good casts and attractive locations. For me, The Last Challenge had none of these ingredients. The only other western I've given a negative review is The Unforgiven with Burt Lancaster (and again, a good cast)...bad, but not quite as bad as this one.

Glenn Ford is the formidable gun slinger who serves as a sensible, reasonable, mild-mannered Marshall in the dusty town of Contention, or Purgatorio, or San Placebo, or whatever it is. Oh, the town has its rowdies but it's peaceful enough overall. Ford, knowing he's the best in town, doesn't shoot anyone he doesn't have to.While fishing in a tiny pool (in the middle of the Sonoran desert) Ford is joined by a stranger. The handsome Chad Everett is headed toward Ford's town of Moribunda, having heard that the town has a Marshall said to be the fastest in the West. Everett has never met the Marshall but he aims to kill him and prove that HE, Everett, is the fastest gun in the West.When the pair have finished their fish feast of about three or four tiny perch, Ford reveals his identity. Everett is polite, thanks him for sharing the fish, tells him he's going to challenge him to a duel, and rides off towards town.I didn't stick around until the end. Everett's good side has been so firmly established that I figured either Ford kills him reluctantly, only wounds him, or that Everett decides not to throw down the gauntlet, rides off into the sunset, and joins a Buddhist monastery.Everything in the movie is conventional and flat. It looks like one of the TV "adult Westerns" that were popular at the time. The men wear the usual cowboy hats. They also wear those pointless open vests that were de rigueur. John Wayne at the time was never without one. Ford wears his signature tan cowboy hat. The gunslinger's gun is a scintillating black with a carved bone handle and is carried cross-wise in a matching black holster.The business about the upstart wanting to outshoot the established King of the Colts has been worn down to a nubbin and better done elsewhere -- "The Gunfighter", for instance. And I doubt that it ever happened. The narrative has its feet planted solidly on thin air, although it is so much a part of our mythology that one wonders what part of our subcortical structures finds it resonant. SOMEBODY sitting in those theater seats must have wanted to kill everyone until he himself became King of the Colts. That's a pretty base instinct. It got MacBeth nowhere.

Richard Thorpe's "The Last Challenge" aka. "The Pistolero of Red River" of 1967 is an entertaining standard American Western with a good cast. Even though in no way outstanding, this is a solid film that is well worth watching for genre-fans. Dan Blaine (Glen Ford), the Marshal of a small town in the West, has the reputation of being the fastest and most precise shot around. Since he has been sheriff, the formerly dangerous area has become calm. Blaine, whose beautiful and rich girlfriend (Angie Dickinson) owns a local saloon, is therefore highly respected in his community. One day, however, a young gunslinger named Lot McGuire (Chad Everett) comes to town, with the intention to challenge Blaine in a duel. While he wishes to duel with the sheriff, McGuire is an otherwise friendly and likable guy. Blaine therefore wants to dissuade the young man from his wish...Glen Ford is very good in the lead, and Chad Everett also delivers a solid performance as the young gunslinger. Beautiful Angie Dickinson is, as always, great in the female lead. The supporting cast includes the great genre actor Jack Elam, who also fits in his role very well. The film is overall entertaining and definitely worth the time. When it comes to Westerns from the late 60s, however, the Italian Westerns are usually incomparably better than those from the United States. While everybody is a bastard in Italian Westerns of the time, all characters are kinda good in this film, which makes it less interesting to me. "The Last Challenge" sure is a solid and entertaining little western, but it also confirmed what I already knew - American Westerns from the late sixties can not compete with their Italian counterparts, as the Spaghetti Westerns beat them in all respects. Nevertheless, a decent film. 6/10

With elements of the TV western Gunsmoke and the film High Noon in it, The Last Challenge is a worthy addition to the western genre. All the players involved have done westerns before and look very comfortable in their roles.Glenn Ford is the town marshal and the fastest draw in these here parts and when you're the former, it sure helps if you're the latter. He's got a gal pal in Angie Dickinson who's a combination of Miss Kitty and oddly enough Grace Kelly in High Noon. Because oddly enough a confident young gun hand played by Chad Everett has come to town and he's got Angie worried.Let's just say that Angie makes a move that Kitty would never even contemplate insofar as Matt Dillon was concerned. It costs her big time. The western as an adult theme arrived in this film because we have a scene with Glenn and Angie sleeping in a big double bed. We never got to Ms. Kitty's bedroom in Gunsmoke and a scene of a man and woman in the same bed was something never contemplated in the past. Not even that very married couple Roy Rogers and Dale Evans would have heard of such a thing.What happens with Glenn and Chad. You have to watch the film to find out. But I will say you'll see an ending very much influenced by High Noon.